St. Petersburg Ball

I made a new friend the other day. He’s a fourteen year old boy – the sort you know just by meeting could go a long way. He’s not just got a delightful personality and is polite, but he tinkers with computer programmes, like writing his own. In other words, he’s got a brain. His bike had been so badly trashed at school by a gang of bullies it’s still there, unmoveable. More appalling to me, he’s got an operation approaching – the fifth in a series to fix a disability he was born with (one leg longer than the other) which put him in a wheelchair for a year. All that plus he’s had ‘home’ problems on top of that What could say? 'I’m very sorry.'

Why, you might well ask, would you pick on someone with a disability? It doesn’t seem right, does it? But unfortunately the facts are stark, it happens a lot. I’ve heard scores of stories like his since I set up Act Against Bullying. Kids with disabilities get picked on. So that evening, at the St. Petersburg Ball at the Landmark Hotel in Marylebone I was pleased to be amongst a set of people equally unhappy about how some children get treated.

The Children’s Burns Trust, which runs the ball, is a very focussed organisation. They are concerned mostly with providing post trauma help that the NHS can’t run to. That’s because suffering a scald or a burn can mean not just physical agony —undergoing the dozens of skin grafts to release the scar tissue — but also the psychological torment. How hard is it for youngsters to cope with disfigurements at a time in their life when they are at their most sensitive? The financial stress that befalls the family (burns hospitals far away, cost of treatment, child care cover, etc) is bad enough. Add on to this the social isolation that comes along with the unpleasant treatment that often gets dished out to victims and you are talking about lifetime scarring on several dimensions.

'A hot drink can scald a small child up to fifteen minutes after being poured.' Children's Burns Trust

It was great evening, because the event is as glamorous as it possibly can be with stirring orchestral pieces, wonderfully colourful costumes and enthusiastic dancers. Over a great dinner I spoke with Prince Dimitri Lovabov Rostovsky about the traction between The Children’s Burns Trust and Act Against Bullying and Princess Marina about their plans for the future. There’s currently an urgent need for a database of facts and figures relating to child burn and scald victims. There’s also their new scheme to put parents in touch. It is still in the planning stage but I think it’s a great idea. Very encouraging for women who are suffering the guilt, however inappropriate, that can occur after a their child is involved in an accident. Fifty percent of children admitted to hospital have been burnt by hot drinks.

On a lighter note, it was good to speak with the attractive Princess Olga Romanoff about her reconstruction of Provender Manor in Kent. CEO of the Ritz Club Casinos Tim Cullimore told me of his plans to pass on his dinner suits his young son along with the drum set he keeps in his house n Switzerland, and Oliver Baines about singing and the recording success of Blake.

To find out more about the Children’s Burn Trust to meet up with other parents of burn victims www.makingcontact.org