Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation.
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 214.
Joanne Lockwood: With the title Resilience Beyond Barriers.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Misbah
Joanne Lockwood: Gulzar. Misbah is a resilience-driven inclusion advocate
Joanne Lockwood: with nearly 20 years' experience in the criminal justice system,
Joanne Lockwood: navigating new beginnings while championing psychological safe
Joanne Lockwood: and inclusive workplaces shaped by her own lived
Joanne Lockwood: experience. When I asked Misbah to describe her superpower, she said that
Joanne Lockwood: it is her resilience and patience inspired by her
Joanne Lockwood: children and strengthened through overcoming personal and
Joanne Lockwood: professional barriers. Hello, Misbah. Welcome to the show. Hi,
Misbah Gulzar: Joanne. It's lovely to be here. Thank you so much. Really looking forward to
Misbah Gulzar: the next kind of hour with you. But yeah, amazing. Pleasure.
Joanne Lockwood: I always like to ask my guests whereabouts in the world they are.
Misbah Gulzar: Yeah, so I am in Stoke-on-Trent, which for people that don't know is in the
Misbah Gulzar: Midlands and is famous for its pottery.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, because if you drive through, you've got all the kilns, the
Joanne Lockwood: pottery-shaped kilns. Yeah. Quite iconic. It is
Misbah Gulzar: definitely iconic. It's an industry that obviously with, you know, the
Misbah Gulzar: industrialisation is not something that is as evident, but
Misbah Gulzar: there's still lots of working kilns within within the, the area. So yeah, it's
Misbah Gulzar: amazing. Wow. You're probably, I think I said to you in the green room, you're
Joanne Lockwood: probably the closest guest and we're still what, 200 miles apart,
Joanne Lockwood: but you're probably the closest guest I've had for a long while. So yeah, it's
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely lovely to speak to someone from the UK for a change. So you look
Joanne Lockwood: at the notes you sent in, you talked about resilience,
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, and you actually said that you've got 5 children and
Joanne Lockwood: they've inspired you and taught you a lot over your recent life.
Joanne Lockwood: But take us back to being a young woman? How did that
Joanne Lockwood: shape your, your belief system? So, um, I
Misbah Gulzar: grew up in a quite a fairly strict South Asian
Misbah Gulzar: Muslim household. I was one of 5 children. Um, I was the only one,
Misbah Gulzar: uh, that was able to go to university, so that was a huge
Misbah Gulzar: privilege. Um, I went away to university, got
Misbah Gulzar: the necessary qualifications that I went to get. Um,
Misbah Gulzar: Came back, and then, as with lots of South Asian
Misbah Gulzar: communities, you know, the question of marriage arose, 'cause I was
Misbah Gulzar: at that age. I'd obviously seen the world. I'd seen
Misbah Gulzar: it bigger than the northern mill town that I grew up
Misbah Gulzar: in, and I wanted to see the rest of the world, and I wanted to
Misbah Gulzar: be part of society as a whole. So, at that point, you know, I had
Misbah Gulzar: to make a decision in terms of, you know, there's two roads that I can
Misbah Gulzar: travel down. I either continue on the path that I'm on and stay with
Misbah Gulzar: my family, have the arranged marriage, be very unhappy and
Misbah Gulzar: unsatisfied with life, or I decide to do my own
Misbah Gulzar: journey. And obviously, whilst by doing my own journey,
Misbah Gulzar: that would definitely mean consequences that I would have to really
Misbah Gulzar: deal with along the way. So I did choose the latter.
Misbah Gulzar: I did decide that actually I couldn't get— I
Misbah Gulzar: didn't want an arranged marriage. I wasn't the type of person that could probably
Misbah Gulzar: sustain that relationship, and that was partly
Misbah Gulzar: due to having to, you know, have these like
Misbah Gulzar: multiple identities, you know, trying to be somebody at home and then when
Misbah Gulzar: you're out of home trying to be somebody else. So essentially that decision was made
Misbah Gulzar: and I left home and kind of tried to make it for myself
Misbah Gulzar: really. And, and that's when I had to really—
Misbah Gulzar: I really understood what the world was and how difficult it was to
Misbah Gulzar: navigate, how difficult it was to be on your own, how hard
Misbah Gulzar: it was to just kind of get through the
Misbah Gulzar: daily kind of routine of everything. Um, so that
Misbah Gulzar: then led me to, um, you know, finding work
Misbah Gulzar: subsequently after my degree that I completed. Um, and
Misbah Gulzar: then, you know, I, it just kind of developed from there.
Misbah Gulzar: So yeah, it's been, it's been quite a difficult journey and
Misbah Gulzar: it's taught me a lot. And I think part of my resilience
Misbah Gulzar: has come from that, you know. So yeah. Actually.
Joanne Lockwood: I know very little about arranged marriages,
Joanne Lockwood: the cultural significance from your communities and what
Joanne Lockwood: that means in a 2026 context, if you like, maybe
Joanne Lockwood: in a 1950s or 1960s context,
Joanne Lockwood: but that must have been a huge,
Joanne Lockwood: huge choice for you to step out of the family.
Joanne Lockwood: It's almost like leaving a cult or something. You're being
Joanne Lockwood: excommunicated, you're being shunned as being a nonconformer. And
Joanne Lockwood: you're, I'm gonna put words in your mouth, if it sort of brought shame
Joanne Lockwood: on your family, those type of things. So that's what you had to face.
Joanne Lockwood: Can you go into that? Yeah, no, absolutely. So I wanna say from the outset
Misbah Gulzar: that I'm an advocate for arranged marriages. I'm not against it. I think once,
Misbah Gulzar: I think if they're done correctly, as in
Misbah Gulzar: consent from both parties and there's no coercion or
Misbah Gulzar: anything of that nature, I think they're amazing in terms of— and
Misbah Gulzar: I think statistics do show that the arranged marriages
Misbah Gulzar: tend to have a bit of a higher success rate than love
Misbah Gulzar: marriages. So, you know, that's what I want to say from the outset. In terms
Misbah Gulzar: of the situation that I'd been in, it was, you know, a
Misbah Gulzar: comfortable middle-class environment, a comfortable middle-class family, and I,
Misbah Gulzar: like you said, I had to make that decision to leave that
Misbah Gulzar: comfortableness, leave that ease of, you know, not having to worry about
Misbah Gulzar: anything, being protected, and kind of almost living in a shell, to
Misbah Gulzar: actually going into the big, big wide world where I'm going to be
Misbah Gulzar: exposed to everything that I've never really been exposed to
Misbah Gulzar: before. And Joanne, you mentioned the cultural aspect of it as well
Misbah Gulzar: in terms of the shame. So you've got to think back 30 years ago,
Misbah Gulzar: this was unheard of. There were very few females that would absolutely
Misbah Gulzar: take that step, and it was a different generation as well back then. So when
Misbah Gulzar: you look at today's generation, there's choice, There's
Misbah Gulzar: absolute decision-making. The coercion is a lot less,
Misbah Gulzar: and we live in a different society, so it's not the same. But back
Misbah Gulzar: 30, 30-odd years ago, none of that existed. So the
Misbah Gulzar: decision that I was making had a detrimental impact upon
Misbah Gulzar: my family in terms of how they were viewed by the community. So
Misbah Gulzar: my dad, God rest his soul, was a very highly
Misbah Gulzar: respected member of the community. He was very religious. He was well
Misbah Gulzar: thought of. My whole family was actually thought well of. So
Misbah Gulzar: doing what I did essentially created,
Misbah Gulzar: and I left behind so much, um,
Misbah Gulzar: kind of pain and suffering, if that makes sense, that
Misbah Gulzar: they had to deal with on my behalf, which is
Misbah Gulzar: difficult to kind of process, but
Misbah Gulzar: I can imagine how hard that would've been. So they were left with
Misbah Gulzar: having to answer the community, or, well, your, your daughter, where is she gone? Why
Misbah Gulzar: is she not here? Why is she not married? Where's she? What's happened to her?
Misbah Gulzar: So all these questions I imagine my family would've had to experience
Misbah Gulzar: and go through. That I'm not particularly okay
Misbah Gulzar: with. However, I think if I hadn't
Misbah Gulzar: have made that decision, then I wouldn't be sitting here today with you,
Misbah Gulzar: and I wouldn't have the amazing life and progress
Misbah Gulzar: that I've made and all the achievements that I've made. That, that wouldn't be anything
Misbah Gulzar: at all. It would be a completely different person sitting, sitting here
Misbah Gulzar: right now. Forgive me if I just ask, you've got me
Joanne Lockwood: curious. Had you got to the stage where prospective
Joanne Lockwood: suitors were being lined up and you—.
Misbah Gulzar: Yeah. Again, I'm trying not to put words in your mouth. Yeah. Had someone have
Joanne Lockwood: been, had one of the prospective suitors been an ideal match, you may well
Joanne Lockwood: have fallen in, but you found that they weren't suitable?
Misbah Gulzar: So the matches were predominantly from Pakistan. So I,
Misbah Gulzar: at this point, was completely westernised and I knew that I would not be
Misbah Gulzar: able to have that communication level. Level that I wanted with that person. And of
Misbah Gulzar: course, with that person comes his culture, comes his kind of like
Misbah Gulzar: perception of women, all of that he brings with him. So I
Misbah Gulzar: was essentially, you know, having to decide, am
Misbah Gulzar: I, am I able to give all that up to an individual, to
Misbah Gulzar: another person, to be in control of? So in terms of my siblings, they were
Misbah Gulzar: different. So they were, in terms of their mindset, their cultural mindset, their
Misbah Gulzar: religious mindset, was completely different to mine. Because, you know, I had had the
Misbah Gulzar: opportunity to leave home, I had had the opportunity chance to see the
Misbah Gulzar: world for what it was. They hadn't. They had been protected, and
Misbah Gulzar: they didn't know any other way. So I had that
Misbah Gulzar: opportunity. So I just wanted to make sure that, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: and as hard as it was and as difficult it was
Misbah Gulzar: for me to kind of refuse my parents' wishes,
Misbah Gulzar: I absolutely knew at the bottom, you know, deep down, that I could
Misbah Gulzar: never sustain anything like this, and it wasn't going to end well.
Misbah Gulzar: So I was prepared to take the risk of
Misbah Gulzar: leaving that comfortableness and making it out on my
Misbah Gulzar: own and just taking whatever came in my way and dealing with it.
Misbah Gulzar: I was that kind of strong in my belief.
Misbah Gulzar: Some may say stupid, some may say, you know, you don't know what you're letting
Misbah Gulzar: yourself in for. How can you leave what you've got essentially is
Misbah Gulzar: a perfect kind of setup to something that's gonna be full of uncertainty?
Misbah Gulzar: You're going to be shunned by your family, you're going to be disowned, you're not
Misbah Gulzar: going to have a community, you're literally going to be on your own. So, you
Misbah Gulzar: know, all of this was kind of— and at that point I was like 19,
Misbah Gulzar: 20, Joanne, so I wasn't even fully kind
Misbah Gulzar: of— I know females mature quicker than males in
Misbah Gulzar: terms of their maturity levels, but you've got to
Misbah Gulzar: understand that I'd lived a very sheltered, very protected
Misbah Gulzar: life. So there was lots of, lots of things that were
Misbah Gulzar: were gonna be, were gonna be difficult that I had to face. Again,
Joanne Lockwood: I, I'm making some assumptions based on my own beliefs and biases.
Joanne Lockwood: The Pakistani man
Joanne Lockwood: would bring, as you say, their religious beliefs, their
Joanne Lockwood: cultural beliefs, and almost
Joanne Lockwood: treat you as property. You would, you would have less choice and
Joanne Lockwood: freedoms. In my head, that was what my perception was
Misbah Gulzar: because what I saw was my sisters and my sisters weren't
Misbah Gulzar: badly treated or mistreated in any way, shape, or form. But I saw that the
Misbah Gulzar: lives that they led, their lives were simplistic, they were
Misbah Gulzar: straightforward, they, you know, and there's. Nothing wrong with
Joanne Lockwood: baby machine. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Misbah Gulzar: But I knew that that wasn't what I wanted. I knew that that wasn't
Misbah Gulzar: what I could kind of tolerate or accept. So
Misbah Gulzar: for me, you know, somebody from Pakistan, you know, he's got like, he's got his
Misbah Gulzar: own belief systems, he's got this idea or perception of women. So would
Misbah Gulzar: that mean that if I were to have a career, he would turn around and
Misbah Gulzar: say, actually, no, you can't work, you need to be at home, or you can't
Misbah Gulzar: dress like that, or you can't wear makeup. And these are things, and they're
Misbah Gulzar: quite kind of large examples, but, you know, that was what was going on in
Misbah Gulzar: my head, thinking I'm going to lose completely all of my identity, even though
Misbah Gulzar: my, the identity that I've got is, is confused anyway because I'm trying to
Misbah Gulzar: be two people at the same time and it's, it's confusing. And then add another
Misbah Gulzar: layer on top of that with somebody else coming in, and then I've got
Misbah Gulzar: adapt to his way of thinking and his belief system. So I think that,
Misbah Gulzar: that for me was, was too much to kind of appreciate
Misbah Gulzar: and understand. This was, I mean, guessing from the language you're
Joanne Lockwood: using, this is 20 or 30 years ago? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Misbah Gulzar: It was a long time. And like I say, traditionally, my parents
Misbah Gulzar: weren't of the mindset of
Misbah Gulzar: freedom in that type of way, whereas You know, you look
Misbah Gulzar: at the parents today and there isn't that
Misbah Gulzar: push. You can go and have a love marriage, you can go and, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: choose your own partner. And I think one key thing that
Misbah Gulzar: I kind of want to mention, and this isn't me coming
Misbah Gulzar: from any place of importance or anything like that, but I think the decision
Misbah Gulzar: that I made absolutely impacted
Misbah Gulzar: positively on my nieces and nephews. So they didn't have to
Misbah Gulzar: experience what I experienced. So they were able to choose
Misbah Gulzar: freely. And now from, you know, understanding
Misbah Gulzar: who they've married, the majority of them haven't been
Misbah Gulzar: Pakistani people. They've been Indian or they've been from a
Misbah Gulzar: different country. So all that pressure that was put on me, they had
Misbah Gulzar: to be Paki— they had to be from Pakistan and nowhere else, and they had
Misbah Gulzar: to be a certain caste, that, that didn't happen to them.
Misbah Gulzar: And I think I know for sure that I probably was one of the reasons
Misbah Gulzar: why I think that my sisters and my brother thought,
Misbah Gulzar: we have to deal with this differently with our children, and we can't put them
Misbah Gulzar: through potentially, you know, what, what I was put through.
Joanne Lockwood: So as you say, you're not against arranged marriage, it's just the
Joanne Lockwood: mechanism and the
Joanne Lockwood: level of, I suppose, operation, you know, if you
Joanne Lockwood: were, if your views and wishes were put into there,
Joanne Lockwood: And you had some, can I say, buying criteria, uh,
Joanne Lockwood: or profile criteria, then you might say, but absolutely,
Joanne Lockwood: if you can meet this kind of aspiration for me, I'd
Joanne Lockwood: love you to find my perfect gentleman that is
Joanne Lockwood: aligned to who you are today, if you like. Absolutely. But
Misbah Gulzar: those choices were presented to me. It was this or nothing. It was A, there
Misbah Gulzar: wasn't a plan B or C. It was, this is the person. And the person
Misbah Gulzar: they wanted me to get married to was a cousin from Pakistan. And I, you
Misbah Gulzar: know, as as lovely and as nice as he might have been, he wasn't
Misbah Gulzar: the fit for me at all. So again, can I, if you don't mind
Joanne Lockwood: me asking, what is the kind of criteria? Is it, well,
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose top of the list is available. Is age a criteria? Is
Joanne Lockwood: there, you say their caste, where they are in society,
Joanne Lockwood: their wealth, the family connection. Is it all around trying to
Joanne Lockwood: bring families together and enhance the overall family structure to
Joanne Lockwood: get the perfect person to amplify and to connect you together? Is that kind
Joanne Lockwood: of the motivation? Yeah, no, absolutely. When, when the situation of
Misbah Gulzar: arranged marriages comes up, it's primarily to look within the
Misbah Gulzar: extended family initially, because it is all about keeping the family
Misbah Gulzar: together. I guess, you know, you know your family better than you would know
Misbah Gulzar: a complete stranger, because you've literally grown up with them, and you understand how they
Misbah Gulzar: are as people. So that's a positive thing. Obviously, if that's not possible,
Misbah Gulzar: then you do look outside of your family. But the caste, for a lot of
Misbah Gulzar: people, is very, very important. And I know that within the Hindu religion,
Misbah Gulzar: caste is hugely, hugely for important for different reasons, but
Misbah Gulzar: within, within the Muslim culture, and again, it's not religion. So
Misbah Gulzar: this, this is, this is the other kind of problem that— not problem,
Misbah Gulzar: but battle that I had. So growing up, there was a lot of
Misbah Gulzar: mixing up of culture and religion, so that line was almost
Misbah Gulzar: erased, so they all combined into one. And that was very, very difficult for me
Misbah Gulzar: to kind of understand, and, and for, for a while, I kind of
Misbah Gulzar: rejected I don't know if rejected is the right word
Misbah Gulzar: or too much of a strong word, but I put my religion on pause because
Misbah Gulzar: I, I didn't understand it. I I didn't, didn't accept it
Misbah Gulzar: completely because of the misunderstanding of it. But I think that's one of
Misbah Gulzar: the things that, you know, still happens today.
Misbah Gulzar: But having now coming back
Misbah Gulzar: to my religion and understanding the entirety of it, I
Misbah Gulzar: see it in a completely different, different view. Point. And lots of things
Misbah Gulzar: that were associated with, well, this is a religious thing and that's why we're doing
Misbah Gulzar: it. It wasn't a religious thing, it was a cultural thing. You read the Quran
Misbah Gulzar: and you think, well, actually that's, that's not even in there. And, but yeah, I
Misbah Gulzar: was told that I have to do this, or this, it's gotta be done this
Misbah Gulzar: way, it's gotta be done that way. So for me, that clarity of, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: difference between what is culture and what is religion is so
Misbah Gulzar: important. And I think that was half my battle. And I think, and
Misbah Gulzar: not blaming my parents for any of this, because you've gotta
Misbah Gulzar: understand that they were immigrants, and they were, you know, they came here in the
Misbah Gulzar: '70s. They had to, you know, absolutely have had to, to day-to-day
Misbah Gulzar: tolerate so much abuse. And I would, I can't put myself in them shoes. I'm
Misbah Gulzar: thankful that they, you know, provided and they put me in a position that I'm
Misbah Gulzar: in. But I think they had so much to contend with,
Misbah Gulzar: and this was just another thing. So I think they did the best that they
Misbah Gulzar: could with the resources and understanding that they had.
Misbah Gulzar: So there's no, you know, I'm not sitting here blaming my parents or saying they
Misbah Gulzar: were bad people, or my family, not at all. I don't put any kind
Misbah Gulzar: of, um, anything like that at their door, because that would be completely
Misbah Gulzar: unfair. No, because they were caught up in the same construct
Joanne Lockwood: of tradition and culture, expectation,
Joanne Lockwood: and they're just trying to pass their traditions and culture and expectations on to you.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. As— because that's the expectation they have on them, because
Joanne Lockwood: as you said, a of a lot the, lot of the shame was on them,
Joanne Lockwood: not on you. Yeah. They, they, they weren't, they must have been bad
Joanne Lockwood: parents for you to go off the rails and not be a, a good daughter.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So they have probably had to absorb all of that. Absolutely. And, and, and
Misbah Gulzar: that's the one thing that really kind of I, I've had to
Misbah Gulzar: battle with over the years and, you know, but then at some point
Misbah Gulzar: you have to appreciate and you have to, and again, you
Misbah Gulzar: don't need their valid. And the other thing that I've tried to do over the
Misbah Gulzar: years is get their validation. And I wanna explain that a little bit more.
Misbah Gulzar: I want them, I mean, both my parents sadly have passed away now, but
Misbah Gulzar: I wanted them to know and to see the achievements
Misbah Gulzar: and, and what what I, I had done with my life. I wanted them to
Misbah Gulzar: be proud of me. I wanted them to kind of say, well, yeah, she did
Misbah Gulzar: what she did, but look at how much she's accomplished on
Misbah Gulzar: her own. So that, you know, and, and for years and years I
Misbah Gulzar: used to crave for that validation. I wanted it, but then the
Misbah Gulzar: realisation hit me that, you know what? That is important, and if
Misbah Gulzar: it came, that would have been amazing. But actually, you have to validate yourself
Misbah Gulzar: first. You shouldn't look to others for validation. And that was a
Misbah Gulzar: key point for me to say, do you know what,
Misbah Gulzar: as much as I would have liked my parents to see, you
Misbah Gulzar: know, that I've bought my own house, I'm a single parent, I've been through
Misbah Gulzar: lots of situations with the, you know, with the marriage that I was in, um,
Misbah Gulzar: but actually I, I'm still focused. I'm still a
Misbah Gulzar: good human. I'm very respectable. I haven't
Misbah Gulzar: been doing drugs or drinking or gone off the rails.
Misbah Gulzar: I, you know, I've been a perfectly respectable person. I've stayed true
Misbah Gulzar: to who I am and I've represented you in the best way possible.
Misbah Gulzar: So yeah, and, and now, like I say, I don't search for that validation. I
Misbah Gulzar: don't want it. I don't need it. And and, and, and I, I think with
Misbah Gulzar: having my kids as well, They're the only validation that I
Misbah Gulzar: need. They're the only people that I need to not impress necessarily, but to
Misbah Gulzar: be a good role model to. So I'm again assuming here that you've
Joanne Lockwood: now created your own new family culture and traditions
Joanne Lockwood: where you are the beginning of it and you've invented your own,
Joanne Lockwood: this is what we do to your children and
Joanne Lockwood: that they're they're presumably, free to explore their faith, their religion.,
Joanne Lockwood: or not, or whatever might make sense to them, and then explore their life in
Joanne Lockwood: a way that you, maybe you didn't have the opportunity to. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Misbah Gulzar: So my, I've, I've got 5 children, 2 of whom are, um,
Misbah Gulzar: are Muslim and 3 are not currently Muslim. They're
Misbah Gulzar: exploring. And again, it's something that I'm not pressurising them, but I
Misbah Gulzar: am there for the knowledge and the understanding and the support. And I think for
Misbah Gulzar: me, I would love them, if I'm being completely honest, I would love them for,
Misbah Gulzar: for all of them to be Muslim in, in the correct way, but of course
Misbah Gulzar: I'm not enforcing that. I just want them to be
Misbah Gulzar: good adults, P adults, indiv— you know, I just want
Misbah Gulzar: them to be the best people that they can be, the
Misbah Gulzar: best, you know, um, people within society. And,
Misbah Gulzar: and I think I'm proud of them regardless. They've, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: there's no disappointment here. They are,
Misbah Gulzar: you know, they've got their— they've got good heads on their shoulders, and, and
Misbah Gulzar: they've, they've experienced faced lots of difficulties
Misbah Gulzar: and they've experienced something that perhaps their friends haven't
Misbah Gulzar: in terms of their, you know, their mum and their
Misbah Gulzar: mum's situation. So, you know, my parents, my
Misbah Gulzar: children are mixed race as well. So that's another layer that adds on to that.
Misbah Gulzar: So they, they have to, um, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: navigate that aspect of it as well. But yeah, all in all, they're,
Misbah Gulzar: they're amazing and I couldn't be more thankful. That's wonderful.
Joanne Lockwood: I know what it's like to seek validation from your
Joanne Lockwood: parents. I did a bit of a, I don't know, I had a bit of
Joanne Lockwood: a left turn when I was 16, 17, 18.
Joanne Lockwood: I guess I went through that stage where I rebelled and I did something and
Joanne Lockwood: I brought a little bit of shame to my parents because of what I did.
Joanne Lockwood: And I never really reconciled with my father until maybe the last couple
Joanne Lockwood: of years of his life. Life. And I realised I didn't need validation. I just
Joanne Lockwood: needed him to understand that I've done okay. I may
Joanne Lockwood: have caused him a lot of pain, may have caused him a lot of struggles.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I've done things that he probably is confused
Joanne Lockwood: about, but I just want to say to him, it's very similar to you. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: doing all right. I've got a couple of kids. I'm married. I'm still married after
Joanne Lockwood: 40, nearly 40 years. And I'm very successful and I add value
Joanne Lockwood: in the world and society. You don't have to get it, just
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate that I'm, I've not failed. And that's kind of all you want your,
Joanne Lockwood: for from your parents really. And I think that's probably what I want from my
Joanne Lockwood: children is for them to look at me and go, don't always agree with each
Joanne Lockwood: other, but as long as we all respect each other, that's all you can ask
Joanne Lockwood: for. No, absolutely. I had the opportunity
Misbah Gulzar: to kind of get my father's forgiveness or reconciliation,
Misbah Gulzar: whatever you want to, whatever you want to call it. And he,
Misbah Gulzar: you know, sadly was at the later stages of his life. He suffered with
Misbah Gulzar: leukaemia towards the end. So he asked for me to come and
Misbah Gulzar: see him, which was a hugely emotional experience, as you can
Misbah Gulzar: imagine. I've not seen him for years and years. And, you know, he was— I
Misbah Gulzar: sat next to, you know, sat in next to his hospital bed and,
Misbah Gulzar: you know, we spoke and a little bit and he forgave me and, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: that's, that's all I kind of really wanted from him. So yeah, it was a.
Misbah Gulzar: It was another turning point, but it was hugely difficult, but
Misbah Gulzar: it was really welcome in the same way. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I know exactly what you mean. I was there when my father passed and he
Joanne Lockwood: took his last breath. And I'm really pleased that we got to that
Joanne Lockwood: point because there's no point
Joanne Lockwood: in having regrets after someone's passed. You know, I didn't want
Joanne Lockwood: him to carry that to his grave and I didn't want to get to a
Joanne Lockwood: situation where I never, we never reconciled. And luckily we did. And I'm, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: always proud of the fact that at the end we were together.
Misbah Gulzar: Yeah. And it all worked out. Yeah. It's amazing. And I look
Joanne Lockwood: back and I know I could have done things differently. I was, I had to
Joanne Lockwood: share some of the challenges and he could have behaved differently, but in that
Joanne Lockwood: last breath, none of that matters. You know, I was holding his hand and
Joanne Lockwood: that's all that mattered. He knew he wasn't alone. And I think
Joanne Lockwood: that was the important thing for me. So I'm pleased you, you were able to
Joanne Lockwood: reconcile. Yeah. At least in part. So you, you've
Joanne Lockwood: had a career. I noticed that you spent a lot of time working in the
Joanne Lockwood: criminal justice system. That must have been a challenge as well.
Misbah Gulzar: Yeah. So that, that was really interesting for me because I guess before anyone steps
Misbah Gulzar: into a prison, we've got our own stereotypes of what a prison looks like, how
Misbah Gulzar: it operates, how dangerous it is. Obviously I had all those stereotypes.
Misbah Gulzar: And as I said earlier on, my intention was never to have a career within
Misbah Gulzar: the prison service. It was just a stopgap. It was just, I'd been made redundant
Misbah Gulzar: from Vodafone and I was looking for something in the interim. This came up. I
Misbah Gulzar: thought, well, I'll do this for a little while. So yeah, I did that. And
Misbah Gulzar: like I said, that I had the opportunity to work with
Misbah Gulzar: lots of different individuals, understand their background, their stories,
Misbah Gulzar: and I guess, you know, have a different perspective on crime and have a
Misbah Gulzar: different perspective on you are a product of your environment. That doesn't
Misbah Gulzar: necessarily mean that any criminal behaviour is justified.
Misbah Gulzar: However, we have to understand the whole picture. So I,
Misbah Gulzar: you know, worked primarily in Cat B prisons and in
Misbah Gulzar: immigration removal centres. And within Cat B prisons, I saw lots of people
Misbah Gulzar: that looked like they could have been my brother or my dad or my uncle.
Misbah Gulzar: And that was, that, that was difficult to
Misbah Gulzar: kind of really, you know, understand. And my role at
Misbah Gulzar: the time was having, you know, taking meetings with
Misbah Gulzar: prisoners, supporting prisoners in terms of equality and diversity. So I
Misbah Gulzar: had a lot of contact with them, which was fine. Fine. I had no issues
Misbah Gulzar: with that. But just sitting with them and trying to listen to kind of
Misbah Gulzar: their storeys and how they got there and how they had, you know, what happened,
Misbah Gulzar: and then looking at all the immense kind of
Misbah Gulzar: skills and, and, you know, the, the,
Misbah Gulzar: the skill set that they had and the talent, and such a waste that they
Misbah Gulzar: were kind of in this environment. That was sad. That was very difficult
Misbah Gulzar: to get my head around. But I had the privilege of
Misbah Gulzar: working with, with lots of different individuals and hopefully made some
Misbah Gulzar: type of impact in their lives and hopefully made them
Misbah Gulzar: think a little bit differently. You know, I spoke to them as individuals, as humans,
Misbah Gulzar: not as prisoners. I you didn't, know, see them as that. I just saw them
Misbah Gulzar: as humans. But that was really, really
Misbah Gulzar: empowering to be able to, you know, get someone to say, "Oh, Miss,
Misbah Gulzar: I'm on this course now, and I'm on the course because you mentioned it, and
Misbah Gulzar: when I get out, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that,
Misbah Gulzar: and this, that, and the other." So, it was really— and I guess because there
Misbah Gulzar: aren't a lot of people from ethnic minorities within the prison service, face,
Misbah Gulzar: there aren't many role models. I kind of was really
Misbah Gulzar: pleased that I was able to do a little bit of that. And the higher
Misbah Gulzar: that you go into senior management, the less, the less kind
Misbah Gulzar: of diversity you see. And then obviously,
Misbah Gulzar: nearer towards the point that I was leaving, I was kind of quite senior
Misbah Gulzar: in my role, and I got to make some kind of really senior decisions
Misbah Gulzar: and make some impact, which I'm really kind of proud Yeah. Because
Joanne Lockwood: we're all one bad decision away from potentially being
Joanne Lockwood: arrested. And as you say, many, many people in the criminal
Joanne Lockwood: justice system have made that one bad decision because their environment,
Joanne Lockwood: their upbringing, the people they hang out with, or just something went badly wrong. And
Joanne Lockwood: they, nobody sets out to be a career criminal until suddenly
Joanne Lockwood: that's their life. And helping people be able to reverse back
Joanne Lockwood: and not be judged on the entirety of this part of their life and
Joanne Lockwood: saying, well, actually, let's go back to before that. How can how can we, we
Joanne Lockwood: find that person again and set them on a new course? That's the investment
Joanne Lockwood: we need to make in people, isn't it? Rehabilitation. Rehabilitation
Misbah Gulzar: is key and it's the most important thing. And I think for me,
Misbah Gulzar: regardless of whatever role you have within the prison system, whether you are the
Misbah Gulzar: governor, whether you are a middle manager, whether you are an officer
Misbah Gulzar: of whatever grade, you have a huge part to play in
Misbah Gulzar: the rehabilitation. You've got prisoners. People looking at
Misbah Gulzar: how you act. You are role models, essentially. So you're there, you
Misbah Gulzar: know, not to just to lock doors and, you know, do the, the other
Misbah Gulzar: not so nice stuff. You're there to support them in the way that they've
Misbah Gulzar: probably never seen that support before. So lots of individuals have probably
Misbah Gulzar: not been, had the privilege of having a comfortable environment
Misbah Gulzar: with, you know, a mum and a dad. And, you know, they've probably
Misbah Gulzar: seen things that many of us haven't had to, you know, experience.
Misbah Gulzar: So So, they're in effect, they're
Misbah Gulzar: starting again in terms of their socialisation and understanding of
Misbah Gulzar: humanity. So, as working within the Prison Service, you've got
Misbah Gulzar: to be conscious of that, and you've got you to, know, step away from your
Misbah Gulzar: own stereotypes, and you have to be completely unbiased
Misbah Gulzar: in terms of how, you know, you speak to people and how you treat people.
Misbah Gulzar: And that is hard. That is very, very hard. But it's something that I guess
Misbah Gulzar: you develop as you progress and you know, as,
Misbah Gulzar: as you work within the Prison Service. State the best place to
Joanne Lockwood: rehabilitate people? Because I think you're obviously hanging around
Joanne Lockwood: in a culture, and no matter how much
Joanne Lockwood: you want to rehabilitate yourself, escape from it,
Joanne Lockwood: you're constantly being introduced to bad choices or
Joanne Lockwood: bad relationships. I just wonder sometimes is whether the prison,
Joanne Lockwood: the prison environment is the right place to rehabilitate, which is why people keep getting
Joanne Lockwood: sucked back into it, or or it's almost like you're in a swimming pool and
Joanne Lockwood: there's chains and you keep getting pulled back beneath the water all the time. Yeah.
Misbah Gulzar: I mean, the rates of recidivism, as in people leaving and then
Misbah Gulzar: reoffending, are quite high and they've been high for many years
Misbah Gulzar: now. So I guess prison is probably not the place for
Misbah Gulzar: rehabilitation for everybody. And I think at the moment it's
Misbah Gulzar: kind of one size fits all, which it shouldn't be. There are a lot of
Misbah Gulzar: people within the prison estate that are mentally unwell.
Misbah Gulzar: The prison setting is not going to assist them
Misbah Gulzar: in their wellbeing because of the way that it's set up. And on the other
Misbah Gulzar: hand, there are people that absolutely need to be within
Misbah Gulzar: that environment and absolutely have to abide by all the
Misbah Gulzar: prison rules because that is exactly what they need. But, you know, we live in
Misbah Gulzar: a society that, you know, the world is politically is just hugely
Misbah Gulzar: just changing and we don't know what's going to happen in the not so far
Misbah Gulzar: future. But I think in terms of prisons, prisons,
Misbah Gulzar: they do need some kind of, you know, just reviewing.
Misbah Gulzar: But when prisons work, they really work. So, you've got your access
Misbah Gulzar: to education, you've got access to new skills and training that you
Misbah Gulzar: potentially might not have on the outside. So, for somebody who wants to
Misbah Gulzar: make that change and is willing to put the work in, the
Misbah Gulzar: resources are there. So, you know, there's
Misbah Gulzar: lots of resources. Does prison try to be too many different
Joanne Lockwood: things? Because in one stream, it's there
Joanne Lockwood: for punishment, for retribution, for
Joanne Lockwood: the people who've been victimized, the people who've been traumatized, or
Joanne Lockwood: they want to feel that justice has been served. So that, that there needs to
Joanne Lockwood: be that element of restricted access and punishment, quite
Joanne Lockwood: rightly in some respects. But also the other side of that is
Joanne Lockwood: preparing someone for life after. I guess if you're you're behind
Joanne Lockwood: bars for a long time, 5, 10, 20 years,
Joanne Lockwood: then you've got a lot of time to reflect, but you've also got a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of time to rehabilitate, become a better person, to see the error of your ways.
Joanne Lockwood: But is the prison system geared up for that? That sort of duality, if
Joanne Lockwood: you like, of purpose? I think when we kind of
Misbah Gulzar: release prisoners back into the community, I don't think we've got that bit right. So
Misbah Gulzar: the resettlement piece. So you've been inside for 10 years, maybe, maybe a little
Misbah Gulzar: bit longer than that. You've served your sentence, you're now due to released,
Misbah Gulzar: how do we support that individual? So from when they went
Misbah Gulzar: in to when they come out, society's changed completely. It
Misbah Gulzar: changes within, within months, things do change. So how
Misbah Gulzar: do we support those individuals to become fully fledged members
Misbah Gulzar: of their community? Support them not just
Misbah Gulzar: financially, but support them psychologically as well, because the
Misbah Gulzar: space that they left behind 10, 15 years ago is on— is not
Misbah Gulzar: the same space. Um, you know, and then, you know, there's a whole
Misbah Gulzar: question around housing and, and how do we get them in employment,
Misbah Gulzar: you know. And all those areas, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: there's— there needs to be some more work done on that. And some of the
Misbah Gulzar: areas there is progress that is being made, but you've got to really try and
Misbah Gulzar: put yourself in, in those shoes and try and understand and navigate—
Misbah Gulzar: how do you navigate a society that has changed beyond
Misbah Gulzar: belief and, you know, your IT, just to, you know, to start off with,
Misbah Gulzar: with technology, the different language that's used, the different, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: everything is just completely changed. So you don't want that individual
Misbah Gulzar: then, because they've not got that support, to revert back to how they used to
Misbah Gulzar: be, which is an easy thing to do and can be done quite quickly, and
Misbah Gulzar: it would solve everything, and they would just be able to get into their little
Misbah Gulzar: kind of, you know, groups again and operate as they did before
Misbah Gulzar: they were incarcerated. So the resettlement piece is
Misbah Gulzar: is.
Joanne Lockwood: Huge. So if you were removed from society for
Joanne Lockwood: 15 years, let's say that's 2010, you think about what
Joanne Lockwood: was going on in 2010, the rise of mobile phones,
Joanne Lockwood: AI, the televisions,
Joanne Lockwood: the television programs, the fact we don't do cash anymore, we had COVID
Joanne Lockwood: and there's a whole societal culture has
Joanne Lockwood: changed phenomenally in 15 Yes. Yeah, I really do think
Misbah Gulzar: that prior to resettlement, there's certain things that we need to be
Misbah Gulzar: ensuring that, you know, when offenders do leave,
Misbah Gulzar: they've got everything that they need. And it's not to say that it's like a
Misbah Gulzar: toolkit. Yeah, maybe a toolkit that they're armed with and they've got
Misbah Gulzar: some support, but then the support's got to be ongoing. It can't just be, okay,
Misbah Gulzar: that's it, now you're released, you're free to do whatever you want to do. I
Misbah Gulzar: think there's got to be that wraparound support for at least a
Misbah Gulzar: year, I guess, just checking in with that individual and supporting them.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. For me, I keep thinking about this, you know, I look back
Joanne Lockwood: at life in 1999,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, you think for me, I'm just turned
Joanne Lockwood: 60, 61. And I look back and think, well, 1999, it
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't seem that long ago, but actually it was a different generation, even when our
Joanne Lockwood: children were born in the early '90s, you look back to that stage and the
Joanne Lockwood: world's changed so completely. And you look at a TV series like Call the Midwife
Joanne Lockwood: and places like that, you think, actually, actually, it's now set in the
Joanne Lockwood: year I was born, or I was a 5-year-old in that time.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow, it's so backward, so different from
Joanne Lockwood: today, the attitudes. And yeah, so to be released into that world, you'd
Joanne Lockwood: lack that cultural competency, wouldn't you? Absolutely. You just don't understand
Joanne Lockwood: the lingo, the language. It's like being in a foreign country. Definitely.
Misbah Gulzar: I think that's a really good way to describe it. It would just be
Misbah Gulzar: like you don't speak the language anymore. You don't understand the culture anymore. It's all
Misbah Gulzar: changed. And yeah, I can't imagine how how difficult that must be.
Joanne Lockwood: And that, the knock-on of that is you would lack a sense of belonging
Joanne Lockwood: and fit in society. So you'd feel like an outsider. You'd
Joanne Lockwood: maybe feel frustrated and angry or unsupported. And
Joanne Lockwood: you, you're more likely to affiliate with people who have a similar kind of
Joanne Lockwood: feeling of which are the, maybe the wrong crowd. Yeah. And, and
Misbah Gulzar: you've gotta remember that you've, you've been living in an environment that is
Misbah Gulzar: institutionalized, but you've been protected. You've been part of a
Misbah Gulzar: community. Somebody's always asking after you. Someone's You know, we need to
Misbah Gulzar: make sure that you are safe and all of that. And then you go from
Misbah Gulzar: that situation to where you are just a small,
Misbah Gulzar: small fish in the pond or whatever that terminology is. But to
Misbah Gulzar: experience that is, um, it's a lot. And, and
Misbah Gulzar: I think that's why a lot of people decide that they,
Misbah Gulzar: this is too much, it's too hard, it's too difficult. Let me just go back
Misbah Gulzar: to the life that I know and I understand and that talks my language.
Misbah Gulzar: And that's when it's very unfortunate. And the prison system
Misbah Gulzar: has failed, essentially. People who leave the armed forces, they have come
Joanne Lockwood: from that environment as well, where you, you know exactly what's expected of
Joanne Lockwood: you every minute of the day. Yeah. Who's in charge,
Joanne Lockwood: who you're in charge of. And as you say, someone cheques in on you if
Joanne Lockwood: something goes wrong, there's a support mechanism. And suddenly you are in the
Joanne Lockwood: wide world and you, there's no rules, there's no enforcement other
Joanne Lockwood: than be a good person. And earn a living and find somewhere to
Joanne Lockwood: live and fall in love or to find some friends. But there's no rule
Joanne Lockwood: book, is there? There's no instruction manual on that. No, not at all. So
Joanne Lockwood: I noticed that you put in your notes there that you've recently been
Joanne Lockwood: reintroduced to the gym. So you're finding fitness, are
Joanne Lockwood: you? Well, to get through this period of the, you
Misbah Gulzar: know, the redundancy and not, you know, having to do a 9 to 5
Misbah Gulzar: currently, it was getting a little bit difficult and I just needed to, there was
Misbah Gulzar: no excuses anymore. I can go to the gym after I do the school run.
Misbah Gulzar: I'm time rich now at the moment. I can drop the kids off and then
Misbah Gulzar: just go to the gym for an hour. Do you know what? It's something that's
Misbah Gulzar: really helping my wellbeing. It's something that's helping me,
Misbah Gulzar: and I would absolutely recommend it. I know people are like, oh, it's the
Misbah Gulzar: gym, and I haven't got enough time, or I can't be bothered, or it's just
Misbah Gulzar: too much. But actually, I've definitely experienced the benefits of
Misbah Gulzar: it, and I am a good advocate for
Misbah Gulzar: it. And I definitely think it's— and as you get older as as well, well.
Misbah Gulzar: I think it's really important. Yeah, so I, yeah, I
Misbah Gulzar: love going to the gym now. I do a few yoga classes here and there.
Misbah Gulzar: I just do— I don't do anything too heavy because I'm not like, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: I'm not trying to build muscle or stuff like that, but I'm just trying to
Misbah Gulzar: keep my body in, you know, in tone and stuff. So just the treadmill,
Misbah Gulzar: rowing machine, and the step— the StairMaster. That's
Misbah Gulzar: it. I'm good. Oh, StairMaster. Yeah, that's my
Joanne Lockwood: nemesis. You know, I don't mind the rowing machine, I don't mind the I don't
Joanne Lockwood: mind the, uh, um, the sit-on bike, you know, one the either the city up
Joanne Lockwood: one or city down one or the treadmill. Yeah. Stairmaster, no, that, that,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, that burns. That, yeah, it is hard. Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: It's probably my least favorite. I used to have a personal trainer for a while
Joanne Lockwood: and, uh, they'd say, you got the sled, haven't you? The one
Joanne Lockwood: to push that along with the weights. I hate that as well. I said to,
Joanne Lockwood: I said to my PT, I said, I'd rather do the Stairmaster than the sled.
Joanne Lockwood: And they went, what, really? I said, I know, you know how much I hate
Joanne Lockwood: the Stairmaster. But the sled, I just, I just couldn't. I don't know. It just,
Misbah Gulzar: it's a lot. We all have our killer, killer
Joanne Lockwood: stance, don't we? The one thing that, you know, oh, so I'm one of these
Joanne Lockwood: people that likes to plank. Yeah, you could. Yeah, that's good though. That's really good
Misbah Gulzar: for your core. I can do a minute. I can do a minute easily. And
Joanne Lockwood: I was, I was doing a minute, minute rest,
Joanne Lockwood: minute, minute rest. I could do 3. And I was, I
Joanne Lockwood: never quite got to the point where I was going to do more than that,
Joanne Lockwood: but I always had this dream I was going to do 5 minutes one someday.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe I'll go back to it. I'm sure you'll be able to manage it.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. But I can never do the bit where you lift your hands up and
Joanne Lockwood: put them back down again, or you tap your shoulders and things like that. That
Misbah Gulzar: was— Yeah, that takes a lot of upper strength. Yeah. That's still
Misbah Gulzar: good enough though. That's still good. Yeah. But I know what you mean.
Joanne Lockwood: I haven't been for about 6 months. My wife and I, we've
Joanne Lockwood: had some health difficulties. We've had bereavement issues. We've got a new puppy. So we've
Joanne Lockwood: got lots of things going on in our life. And it just fell off the
Joanne Lockwood: list. And now I'm taking the puppy for a walk
Joanne Lockwood: every morning. My wife takes her every evening and I do a couple of miles
Joanne Lockwood: at the weekend per day, Saturday and Sunday. So we're getting out there and doing
Joanne Lockwood: stuff. So I'm getting some exercise. I need to,
Joanne Lockwood: I do need to go back to the gym. So maybe, maybe you've just inspired
Joanne Lockwood: me to go. I hope so. And anyone who's listening, what's your excuse if
Joanne Lockwood: you're listening? Even 30 minutes, you don't have to like, and just go
Misbah Gulzar: a couple of times a week. That's it. And I like the gym that I
Misbah Gulzar: go to because it's got like a women's section. Not that I'm ashamed of my
Misbah Gulzar: body or anything, but within that space, you just feel like you feel comfortable and
Misbah Gulzar: you can just do what you need to do. I'm not one of these that
Misbah Gulzar: wants to be like in the middle of the gym and just like everyone looking
Misbah Gulzar: at me. And yeah, I kind of just want to do my thing. Yeah,
Misbah Gulzar: just want to walk in, do my thing, walk back out again, and that's it,
Misbah Gulzar: job done. I want to be, um, what's the word, inconspicuous.
Misbah Gulzar: Yeah, just in and out. Because they could be quite intimidating spaces,
Joanne Lockwood: can't they? Definitely. They've got their own, you know, we talked about culture earlier, fitting
Joanne Lockwood: in, you've got to— you walk in there, you think, all these fit people, they've
Joanne Lockwood: all got their act together, they've all got this, and no one needs to know
Joanne Lockwood: what they're doing. I'm walking in, so now you use the machines, or what order,
Joanne Lockwood: what's the protocol? Yeah, you think, oh, it's all too difficult, I'm out.
Joanne Lockwood: As a newbie, it is— it can. Be a bit daunting
Misbah Gulzar: initially. Yeah, especially when everyone else is, uh, in
Joanne Lockwood: tight Lycra. And, uh, I know, I know, I get that. Yeah, yeah, that,
Misbah Gulzar: that's something that That's a bit unusual for me, but yeah,
Misbah Gulzar: whoever, whatever you feel comfortable in, I guess. Yeah, but
Misbah Gulzar: not me. Not until I'm pregnant. Bagging them up.
Misbah Gulzar: Well, after 5 kids, you just gotta, you gotta be, gotta be kind of serious
Misbah Gulzar: and, and not be disillusioned in how you look or what your, what
Misbah Gulzar: your stomach looks like. So it's, it's cool. I'm good, I'm happy. But yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: just, just looking back to some of your life, you know, you've You've had
Joanne Lockwood: some teenage years of having to
Joanne Lockwood: reinvent yourself, having lived in an environment where the rules
Joanne Lockwood: were defined for you, going off to university and realising that, hey,
Joanne Lockwood: I can do whatever I like now, coming back into an environment where they wanted
Joanne Lockwood: to put you back in a straitjacket and you go, hang on a minute, no,
Joanne Lockwood: no, I've experienced freedom. And you then worked in the
Joanne Lockwood: prison, as you say, a couple of careers, but you worked in the criminal justice
Joanne Lockwood: system. Where it's an environment where people are put into
Joanne Lockwood: regimented, you know, losing freedom of choice and
Joanne Lockwood: freedom of expression. What do you take forward from this? You
Joanne Lockwood: know, what's your big thought about the whole thing? I think
Misbah Gulzar: for me, I've probably kind of gone full
Misbah Gulzar: circle in terms of having worked in the prison system.
Misbah Gulzar: And like you say, it's fully regulated. There's lots of
Misbah Gulzar: rules and everything. And I I think for me
Misbah Gulzar: personally, I have had to— working within the Prison
Misbah Gulzar: Service has been amazing, don't get me wrong, but in terms of trying
Misbah Gulzar: to get up the career ladder or facing kind
Misbah Gulzar: of not necessarily discrimination, but facing barriers, that's
Misbah Gulzar: been quite difficult for me to kind of— it took me like nearly
Misbah Gulzar: 20 years to get to the point that I was at, and that wasn't my
Misbah Gulzar: final point. I did want to achieve more than that. I think, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: whilst at home I had some real difficulties,
Misbah Gulzar: within the work environment I had difficulties.
Misbah Gulzar: So, I can recall, you know, once I did get the role
Misbah Gulzar: that I, the head of DE&I, I had to work with all the directors. And
Misbah Gulzar: my first meeting, I walked in and there was just a sea of white
Misbah Gulzar: male middle-class men, and I was the only person that wasn't
Misbah Gulzar: of that description. And I had to sit at a table, and I felt so
Misbah Gulzar: inadequate. I felt like, what, I'm not even supposed to be here?
Misbah Gulzar: I didn't say anything within that meeting, although I had opportunities and I
Misbah Gulzar: should have. I just didn't feel that I should have a seat at that table.
Misbah Gulzar: Obviously, I had to do some real kind of like look, looking
Misbah Gulzar: into myself and understanding that you are
Misbah Gulzar: now at the table because you deserve to be at the table. Therefore, you
Misbah Gulzar: have your voice and you do need to use it now. So gradually,
Misbah Gulzar: as the meetings progressed, I understood what my role was. It was
Misbah Gulzar: very hard because I had nothing in common. You know, when we have like the
Misbah Gulzar: conversation questions of, oh, what did you do at the weekend? And just little
Misbah Gulzar: conversations. There was nothing that I could relate back to with them. And I almost
Misbah Gulzar: found myself having to— this is a really embarrassing thing to
Misbah Gulzar: say— but only almost having to make things up so that I fitted in, which
Misbah Gulzar: I'm truly embarrassed and ashamed of now. That— why
Misbah Gulzar: did I need to do that? But at that point, obviously, I did need to
Misbah Gulzar: do that just to fit in. But I think as I continued
Misbah Gulzar: within my role and, and, oh, don't know what
Misbah Gulzar: that noise is. As I became more
Misbah Gulzar: part of the team, I understood what my role was and I
Misbah Gulzar: really kind of contributed in the way that I knew that I, I should and,
Misbah Gulzar: and I could. You've got a, a number of intersecting
Joanne Lockwood: identities and I'm, you're a woman, you
Joanne Lockwood: are of non-white descent, so your ethnicity,
Joanne Lockwood: you've got your, your religion, your faith. Faith, you've got your single
Joanne Lockwood: parenthood, your children, you've got your fitness because you know, now
Joanne Lockwood: into the gym. Do those all layer on top of each other, or do you
Joanne Lockwood: think one of those is, is a more of a challenge
Joanne Lockwood: today than it should be? You know, being a single parent, it's not easy on
Joanne Lockwood: its own, is it? So everything that you've described does
Misbah Gulzar: make part of who I am, and really, I I'm one of those people that
Misbah Gulzar: I you don't, know, some people like, they see somebody and the first thing they
Misbah Gulzar: look at is the ethnicity Yes, that is part of me, but that is not
Misbah Gulzar: all of me. And I think, you know, having to, like, being a woman,
Misbah Gulzar: being somebody from the Muslim faith, being a single parent, having mixed-race
Misbah Gulzar: children is a huge kind of thing and sometimes
Misbah Gulzar: difficult to navigate. But I think that just kind of over
Misbah Gulzar: the years, it's been hard, but I think over the years I've been able
Misbah Gulzar: to understand each part of that intersectionality of
Misbah Gulzar: me and try and combine it and put it together in the best way that
Misbah Gulzar: I can. I don't want to be just a woman. I don't want to be
Misbah Gulzar: just a Muslim. I don't want to be just, you know, a female.
Misbah Gulzar: All of those aspects kind of are really, really important, but when
Misbah Gulzar: you combine them together, that's what makes it amazing, if
Misbah Gulzar: that makes sense. So it's not one individual thing. It's when you put them all
Misbah Gulzar: together that creates the person that I am today, the strength
Misbah Gulzar: that I have, and the outlook that I've got on life. I could quite easily
Misbah Gulzar: and I could have done in the past, given up at different
Misbah Gulzar: stages and thought, no, I can't deal with this anymore. I need to go back
Misbah Gulzar: home where there's that comfort, where I'm gonna get the, the support, the
Misbah Gulzar: financial support. I can just go back home and just knock on the door and
Misbah Gulzar: they'll, they'll have me back. They'll have me back. But I didn't
Misbah Gulzar: choose to go down that road because that would be giving up and that would
Misbah Gulzar: be giving up everything that I'd worked for. So that would not be a, a,
Misbah Gulzar: a wise thing to do. So I've I think, you know, the
Misbah Gulzar: years, the things that I've experienced from like homelessness,
Misbah Gulzar: from other things that a lot of people have actually
Misbah Gulzar: experienced, and, you know, my children being taken to court and me
Misbah Gulzar: having to kind of fight for them, having no representation,
Misbah Gulzar: me going in and asking the judge and all of that, being, you know,
Misbah Gulzar: kind of faced with all of that has been really, really difficult. But actually,
Misbah Gulzar: looking back, I don't think I would change anything, Joanne. I don't think I would.
Misbah Gulzar: I would still make that same decision if you were, if I, if you, if
Misbah Gulzar: we rewind back to 20, 30 years ago, would I still decide to leave my,
Misbah Gulzar: my, you know, home and, and stuff? Yes, I absolutely would. For what I've
Misbah Gulzar: got today, for what I've got today, the fact that I am a— I
Misbah Gulzar: can do what I want when I want. I've got no one questioning anything. I'm
Misbah Gulzar: independent. I don't rely on anybody. I am respectful. I
Misbah Gulzar: am all of those things. And I have got freedom of thought, which
Misbah Gulzar: was the main reason that I wanted to leave that environment,
Misbah Gulzar: because I didn't have freedom of thought. I didn't have freedom of identity. Identity,
Misbah Gulzar: and those two things were really, really difficult for me to accept.
Misbah Gulzar: And I, if I had, I stayed in that environment, I
Misbah Gulzar: would definitely not have been the confident, vivacious,
Misbah Gulzar: gregarious, whatever kind of descriptive, you know what, you know, I would not have
Misbah Gulzar: been any of those. So yeah, I think it's really, it's, it's been a,
Misbah Gulzar: it's been a challenge. There's been lots of ups and downs. It's not been easy,
Misbah Gulzar: but I I definitely wouldn't change anything. I'd still do
Misbah Gulzar: what I'd done to get to this point where I am here and now. And
Misbah Gulzar: obviously the point that I'm in here and now, again, is something that
Misbah Gulzar: is a situation I've never been in. So I'm currently, you know, I'm faced with
Misbah Gulzar: redundancy. I'm looking for employment. I'm trying to set up my own business. I'm doing
Misbah Gulzar: all of these things, but this is a different chapter of my life now where
Misbah Gulzar: I've just got to push through. I've just got to do the best I can.
Joanne Lockwood: Something you're saying there, and I think it resonates with me. If you like who
Joanne Lockwood: you are today and you love your children, you love everything about what you've got,
Joanne Lockwood: then you can't wish away something of your past because that
Joanne Lockwood: past hadn't have occurred, you wouldn't be who you are today. You wouldn't have your
Joanne Lockwood: children. And I look back at some of the mistakes I made. If I
Joanne Lockwood: erased that mistake, I wouldn't have got married. If I hadn't got married, I wouldn't
Joanne Lockwood: have my children. If I hadn't got my children, I wouldn't be— every decision you
Joanne Lockwood: make, you're the product of that growth and that learning. So you can't look back
Joanne Lockwood: in regrets. You can't, you know, to quote Oasis, you can't look back in anger.
Joanne Lockwood: You can't look back at anything like this. What you've got to say is, I
Joanne Lockwood: like me today. I like what I have. I like what I've achieved. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: all been learning. I can affect tomorrow and let me make better decisions
Joanne Lockwood: tomorrow. And you're still working on being the best version of
Misbah Gulzar: you, which you've got, that's an ongoing thing. That doesn't just
Misbah Gulzar: happen and then that's it, you step away and I'm perfect. No, that is a
Misbah Gulzar: continuous thing. But having the option to be able to do that
Misbah Gulzar: is, is huge. So, you know, No one makes any decisions for me. No one
Misbah Gulzar: kind of tells you what I need to do, which is sometimes not necessarily a
Misbah Gulzar: good thing because you want to share things with other people. But in the same
Misbah Gulzar: way, you've got that total freedom to, you know, be the best that
Misbah Gulzar: you can and, and not be, you know, blaming anyone else for anything because
Misbah Gulzar: ultimately you've made those decisions and, and you've made that choice. So
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, and that, that is powerful. You live and stand
Joanne Lockwood: by your own means, and you can look back and look, look at
Joanne Lockwood: yourself in the mirror and just be very proud of that. And to be
Misbah Gulzar: honest, Joanna, I am, I am proud of that. I am proud of the fact
Misbah Gulzar: that I've experienced what I've experienced and I've come through the other end, and I'm
Misbah Gulzar: proud of what I've achieved. I'm proud of the fact that I've bought my
Misbah Gulzar: own house. I did all of that on my own, whereas, you know, my
Misbah Gulzar: siblings had support, and that's absolutely fine. But I'm happy with the
Misbah Gulzar: way that I've tackled life, and I'm happy with the achievements. I've still got so
Misbah Gulzar: much more to do. I'm not anywhere near where I want to be, but I'm
Misbah Gulzar: on that path, and, and I'll continue to do the right thing, and I'll continue
Misbah Gulzar: to, to be the best version of me. I've been love chatting to you for
Joanne Lockwood: the last hour or so. How can people get a hold of you? Okay, so
Misbah Gulzar: I do— I am on LinkedIn, um, and I do post
Misbah Gulzar: quite regularly. So if you want to kind of catch up on it
Misbah Gulzar: on any of my posts there, and I can leave you my LinkedIn details after.
Misbah Gulzar: Yeah, so that's primarily where you can kind of get a hold of me.
Joanne Lockwood: So, Misbah, M-I-S-B-A-H, or Miss, M-I-Z-Z, to your
Joanne Lockwood: friends? And no, I, when I used to be a Mizz, but then I thought,
Misbah Gulzar: why am I shortening my name? You know, the, the whole fitting in
Misbah Gulzar: thing. So now it's my full name or nothing at all. So yeah, so it's
Misbah Gulzar: Misbah . Yeah. But
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, Misbah is your name. Yes. No more, no more short, no more
Joanne Lockwood: abbreviated. Not at all. It's not hard to say. It's not, I know it's not
Misbah Gulzar: your, you know, common name and everything, but you know, it's quite
Misbah Gulzar: easy to pronounce. So yeah, we'll, we'll stay with that. But it's your name,
Joanne Lockwood: that's the important thing, nobody else's. And I think that's fantastic. So thank you
Joanne Lockwood: so much. I appreciate you joining us today and I've really enjoyed our conversation.
Misbah Gulzar: Likewise. Thank you so much, Joanne. Thank you. Bye.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
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Joanne Lockwood: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.