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

Sunshine or Shade? (Or is it how us women are made?)

It’s everywhere at the moment. We’re questioning the irresponsibility of super-optimistic thinking like never before. I guess this is all because it’s cost us money recently. We’re blaming reckless consumption and the ‘because we’re worth it’ trend of super-selfindulgence for the near collapse of the banking system, the demise of our overheating planet, and stuff like that. And, to a greater or lesser extent, the examination’s been long overdue.

So last week when I attended a debate at the RSA chaired by Julian Thompson about whether a strongly optimistic outlook is the key to a resilient, productive society, it was interesting to gauge public perception. Five years ago this would have been a no-brainer; obviously optimists are great people, and the only success icons. Back then was the age of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret which sold like hot cakes. Millions enjoyed it ,believing just to read the text would open the floodgates of plenty. It was marketed right at peak of the super-positive thinking boom, a la tulip mania.

On the side of the ‘pro’ for this lunchtime event was Laurence Shorter, comic and author of the The Optimist. On the panel of self-confessed, 'apologetic' pessimists were two highly accomplished and perceptive writers Ariel Leve and Lucy Mangan.

At one point Lucy—almost as an aside—suggested that maybe being a pessimist was a woman’s thing.

And I believe she’s right. This is why motivational advice for women is different to the positive power patter that is dished out to men. Our responses to stimuli are rated on another scale. Our physical survival depends on it. According to Barbara Wilding FRSA, ex Chief Constable of South Wales Police, ‘women have an instinct about what makes people safer’. An awareness of danger, whether or not you or your offspring should walk a dark country lane alone after midnight, is a by-product of sensible distrust. But more importantly, as empathisers, which women tend to be – we are more in tune with pessimism. How can you sense someone’s pain if you can’t visualise it? Or comfort using impassive, automated-responses ‘she’ll be right, mate!’. Compassion and cheery platitudes are obviously incompatible.

Could it be that we don’t actually like our women, our mothers, our confidantes to be too optimistic all the time?

In a society where an optimist conjures up ‘sunny and encouraging’ and pessimist ‘depressing and negative’, there is a huge guilt attached to being in the latter camp. I also sense fn intellectual snobbery; optimistic people are perceived brainless sales persons, and disingenuous; pessimistic people more learned, more philosophical, not so 'in your face'.

The complexities of womanhood demand we switch roles constantly; optimist, pessimist, optimist, pessimist …whoops, sorry, optimist, optimist, pessimist, optimist. And at a moment’s notice. But that’s the way women are wonderfully made. It’s a natural, and therefore, successful pattern. There’s a time to shine; a time to shelter. The art, I believe, is in developing an ability to present the right application of gloss or shade at the appropriate time.

To hear a transcript of the event

Old Style Courtesy and Hospitality: The CUS

Last Thursday I was invited by Andrew Chapman to speak at the internationally famous Cambridge Union by participating in their Freshers feminism debate "This House Believes We'd be Better Off if Women Ruled the World."

(pic. left to right,Rupert Myers, Emma Wimhurst, Louise Court, Edwina Currie, myself and James Max)

Oh dear. I’m afraid we only managed to convince the house to the tune of 53 votes ‘for’ to the three hundred and somethings ‘against’ (a hundred and something abstentions) that women alone should rule the world. However, I think that most of the ‘team’ on the side of the feminists (and on the other, I might add) were secretly of the same persuasion of the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey of 46 countries which found most thought both men and women make equally good leaders if selected on individual merit!

The evening began with drinks and a superb three course dinner for the speakers and senior officers of the Society where I chatted at some length to bursar Colonel Bill Bailey MBE about his recent refurbishment programme and the price of cigars, and to Jan-Jonathan Bock Peterhouse about his ambition to make great art films to express his world views. I look forward to seeing them at Cannes! Twenty minutes before the appointed hour every seat in the Debating chamber was filled and therefore the event began promptly at 8pm.

Louise Court, the very unassuming and pleasant editor of Cosmopolitan spoke first and boldly put forward her well-prepared case for female supremacy. Possibly the fact that he had heard that very day of his promotion from pupil to a permanent seat in Chambers, Cambridge grad Rupert Myers, an experienced, international debater was in particularly feisty, challenging and witty mood. That did not help us! Next to the foray came super business woman Emma Wimhurst who spoke clearly and with great humour about our multi-tasking abilities. She was followed by ex Apprentice runner up James Max who has had ample experience in ‘wind-ups’ of campaigners on his LBC talk show and continued in this style to decimate our proposals.

Speaking third, after the floor had been opened to the students for twenty minutes or so, was fairly challenging. My own view, that women are naturally talented motivational leaders (which they practice on a minute on minute basis from birth with empathy, encouragement and on occasions sheer nosiness for detail) had mostly been covered.

However, it was good when researching for this evening to refresh myself on some encouraging statistics (for this blog) about how we women are progressing. Like, how since only 1928 (women under 30 didn’t get the vote in this country until then) we have done pretty well. Internationally our leadership skills are being recognised – only in 1960 Sirivamo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the world’s first female selected premier minister; and only this year Monaco became the last country in the world to have it’s first female member of government. Today we have three highly respected Queens; Elizabeth 2nd, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands and Queen Margareta of Denmark., 8 female prime ministers and 8 female presidents.

Edwina Currie, a skilful debater and confident speaker who brought great theatre to the event, stated that many of the 120 women ministers in Parliament in this country today were ‘politically correct’ appointees and many were completely ineffectual. Were we dispirited? No, because, the other side did concede that some of our female leaders had been exceptional – like Maggy Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth 1st, Angela Merke – (so who’s side were they supposed to be on?)

Joking aside, I somehow managed to bring into my humble contribution the stirring passage that has haunted me since I came across it some years ago and which I felt relevant to any political debate of the time. 1969 Apollo Astronaut Rusty Shweickart’s account of viewing Planet Earth from space, of being struck by its total fragility, ‘the precious little spot in the universe’ that could be blocked out by his thumb. How we need to keep perspective on the real challenges of leadership, whether they be taken up by men or women, of being able by any means to avoid conflict at all costs, in order to tackle the issue of our stewardship of the globe and all that involves.

‘The size of it, the significance of it – it becomes both things, it becomes so small and so fragile, and such a precious little spot in the universe, that you can block it out with your thumb, and you realize that on that small spot, that little blue and white thing is everything that means anything to you. All of history and music and poetry and art and war and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games all of it is on that little spot out there that you can cover with your thumb.’ Rusty Shweikhart, Apollo 9 Astronaut, talking about his view of Planet Earth from space. img. courtesty of NASA

Barbara Wilding CBE, the Chief Constable of South Wales Police, the UK’s most senior long serving police officer offered help with her observations of females in the police force over forty odd years. ‘Women are particularly good at emergencies – at responding to the immediate situation while ‘keeping the home fires burning’.

My view is that we currently have an emergency on our hands and that urgent situation has to be addressed. For that reason I concluded that maybe the world would be better if women were in charge, if we were able to take a fresh approach to the aims of leadership; to use our skills of communication and bonding to be able to find common ground during world negotiations on climate change.

A credit to the organisers, October 8th at the Cambridge Union on Bridge Street was a thrilling evening in more ways than one - a lady from the floor leapt up in defence of the personal attack on Cosmo Queen Louise Court to remind Edwina Currie of her four year affair with John Major; And that was just one of the cheeky exchanges which lifted the roof with applause and laughter.

After the debate I stayed on for the debriefing with the gorgeously debonair CUS President Julien Demercq and to chat with Caroline Cummins about life after Cambridge in London and the Freshers Ball which was happening the following evening.

There were several memorable moments, but one of the outstanding recollections of the evening was the warm and welcoming greeting I received from everyone at the Cambridge Union, the electric atmosphere charged by a long sense of tradition, but more than anything, their exceptional hospitality.

Many thanks indeed Cambridge for having me.

Prince William and Prince Harry

Last week I was misquoted in the press for this story. I, in fact, when called up by a journalist I said that I did not consider the matter a bullying issue for several reasons. To make it one, I thought, would just trivialise other more serious cases of harassment. I was not enraged, quite the opposite.

Affectionate banter, sometimes promotes good feelings, a sense of camaraderie, relief from the tension of modern life, group think, and bullying.

How often have you said, or had said to you - in a soothing situation ‘We all know you’re crazy, but we love you anyway!’ Just to bring a smile to someone’s face, to reinforce a position of support. Just to be kind. Sometimes the nicest thing to communicate is also the most 'inappropriate' on paper.

Sometimes political correctness is to kindness what botox is to beauty. A false fix. A con - for the most part.

For those who have legitimately questioned the stance I took on the above story, my campaigning aims personally remain as follows:

I am against intentional hurt, which covers a multitude of offences. As an anti-bullying campaigner and founder of widely supported charity Act Against Bullying what that means to me is systematic deliberate cruelty for whatever reason, whether it be group interaction, ignorance, manipulation, calculated exclusion or just plain evil.

As a global warming campaigner my views are the same. To know that we are causing environmental suicide and not to act against it seems a crime against humanity as well as the planet. This is why my contribution is to produce the Global Warming Hotspot for the Global Warming Alliance and spearhead the Hot Women Campaign. I don’t think that the general public, women in particular, would deliberately sabotage the future of the planet. Much of the excesses in the Western world have been imposed through group think and commercial pressure, which amount to a far more dangerous form of manipulation than a few light hearted comments.

Life is complex, human beings equally so; and there are very few examples on earth of completely selfless individuals. Equally, there are countless examples of decent human beings who strive to motivate for the good of others. Thankfully.

Motivation For Women (with Stars and Stripes)

Download to iTunes. Louise Burfitt-Dons gives ten tips for women to remotivate and encourage them. 4 minutes 28 seconds. http://www.louiseburfittdons.com/mp3s/US_Motivation_for_Women.mp3

Tribute To Jade Goody

I knew Jade Goody, not that well, but enough to call her up on a couple of occasions after she’d been on television and congratulate her on her performances. I meant it. Media work is not as easy as it is made to look! She donated money to the charity I founded, Act Against Bullying and I went to her 25th birthday party.

We met through a mutual friend Mark Fuller who brought her along to an AAB fundraising event at the Guards Polo Club in 2005. He’d been filming with her, there were other celebrities coming that day, would it be okay to bring Jade? It was bit contentious I suppose. Not that I’d watched it, but she had a ‘Big Brother’ reputation and was very much in the news at the time. AAB’s a children’s charity. My girls said ‘Jade Goody? She’s huge. Everyone knows her.' By that of course they meant teenagers, and it seemed she was suddenly taking off as someone who had risen out of obscurity and repaired a previously tarnished image, turned her life around.

Attending an exclusive club like the Guards was such a fillip for her that the producer of her show wanted to film it. Kate Jackson of Granada called me beforehand for a chat. Apparently Jade had been both excited and nervous about attending, had read her invitation carefully, wanted to wear the right, smart, suitable dress—chosen it specially, put it in the Cleaners. This turned out to be a skimpy, mini, full frontal, plunging neckline type of dress, quite inappropriate really for the venue, very Jade. (See above) ‘Never a dull moment’ was how my mother would have put it. She turned up on time at the Club, brought both her babies with her, as they were at the time. We got along well; she was an easy laugh, as they say, and she ending up helping quite a bit with the event, contributing without fuss for several hours. Jack Kidd, the polo player, arrived in the middle of the auction and Jade bad for a set of lessons with him. I don’t think they ever happened, but it was all quite a spectacle. We had a very pleasant day, I remember.

I was embroiled once again in Jade’s life when the Celebrity Big Brother program aired in January 2007. I watched the program with trepidation. Initially, I was impressed with Jade's growth in stature: when she 'entered the House' she seemed to have developed into her sought-after celebrity role. Jade was intent on bettering herself, and I respected her for that and the fact that she had seized her opportunities and developed a career from what was on offer. But Celebrity Big Brother was a poor management decision on someone’s part. Knowing what I do know about how it’s put together I am amazed anyone could emerge from a show like that with any dignity left in tact unless they were an android.

As I made public at the time, inexcusable as it was, the bullying behavior of Jade's group of girls over Shilpa Shetty was an example of the group dynamics played out then ( and still today) in a hundred schools and canteens across the country, if not the globe. Her unrestrained temper was unpleasant to witness, yet nothing unknown to anyone who has run a city centre pub, worked for the police or been involved in anti-bullying as I have been for some years.

Women didn’t like it, not because they couldn’t identify with it, but because they could. To speak about women's treatment of other women was taboo. No one wanted to know about it— which is one reason I set up the charity in the first place—but Jade, in her inimitable fashion—brought it slap bang to the attention of the nation, and me slap bang into trouble for having ever had any social links whatsoever. Within hours of her outbursts in the 'House' droves of angry people ether-picketed Act Against Bullying, forums were fuming with foul language of its own and the charity phone was running hot. Why had we even been associated with her?

Jade’s behavior was very difficult to defend. I did try, as I explained to her. I knew from meeting her that she was like any other young woman. She enjoyed attention, she wanted to be liked; on her own she was fine. Groups do funny things to people, girls in particular. Jade was no exception to that rule.

At the Guards she had listened politely when I gave a speech on ‘pointing the bone’ as an example of group bullying, isolation bullying and how the aborigines use this as tribal justice. When the bone is pointed at someone, they are cast out from the tribe. No one will have anything to do with them for fear that they too will be isolated. For many it is a sentence of death because the punishment of being shunned can drive them to suicide. Of course in todays society it can happen for a myriad of different reasons. Because of CBB this was now happening to Jade.

As I said on television, sure she was a girl gang leader, and a bully, but so were so many of the women who were gleefully judging her, in the press, chat rooms, and forums: They seemed to suddenly detest her, despise her love of the camera, resent the money she had made. Straight away, on every street and in every work canteen in Britain, every woman was playing the ‘victim’. Of course they would never pose for a camera, they would never accept huge publicity deals, or cavort topless on a beach. The insidiousness and disingenuousness of group tactics had turned and now claimed her as their next victim. Strangely enough, only those who truly understood victimization, real victims, tried to stick up for her.

For Jade, the bone had been pointed in her direction and the huge tribal publicity machine which she had utilized to build her profile swung into action to cut her to shreds. The headlines that followed were savage and ugly enough for anyone to withstand. I wondered when I heard about her illness whether they hadn’t played more than a small part in the cruel fate that befell her. Just like aboriginal justice, the stress of victimization had rendered her vulnerable and prone to illness. I hope not. However, to die of cancer, which is often brought on by stress, at her young age seems to be a cruel coincidence.

Always grateful for the positive contribution she made to my life, reminded of her warm personality, sense of fun and with much sadness at her death, I hope she rests peacefully. It would also please me to think of her looking down from Heaven and reading some good headlines. That would make her happy, and why shouldn’t it?