women
LifestyleThe TelegraphLike Lady Gaga, I know the heartbreak of dog theft
The shocking news this week that Lady Gaga’s dog walker was shot as two of her French bulldogs were stolen will be seen by some as an ‘American problem’ or even a celebrity story. But the incident highlights a pandemic-fuelled wave of violent dog thefts and assaults on both sides of the Atlantic. By the end of 2020, dog theft in the UK had skyrocketed by 250 per cent amid increased demand for canine company during lockdowns. Sadly, it’s something my family has bitter personal experience of. Our two springer spaniels were stolen, alongside six others, while staying at a family friend’s kennel in Bedfordshire last September, and one is still missing. My then 75-year-old father was going to Scotland on a fishing trip, and had taken them back to the breeder of the youngest dog, Tig, who was only four years old. We’ve had Tig and Jess, our black and white, since they were puppies and they mean the world to us – they’re part of the fabric of our family life. Dad has trained them day in, day out for four and five years respectively as gun dogs and, in his words, they are the last pair he is likely to have.
NewsThe Telegraph'The vaccine hesitant trust us. We can change their minds'
“He got all his information from WhatsApp videos and hearsay,” explains Asifa Patel, recounting a recent phone call with a British Indian man in his 50s from West Yorkshire. “He had a lot of stories of people getting negative effects from the Covid vaccine, and didn’t want to get it himself. One of his biggest concerns was that he doesn’t trust hospitals. He thinks people get worse when they go there, and he told me stories he’d heard about people having bad experiences. “I listened to his concerns, and reassured him about how rare malpractice is in hospitals. I gave him accurate information about Covid, and he understood everything I said. By the end, he was considering changing his mind about the vaccine.” This is just one of the conversations that Patel, 21, has had in her volunteer role as a vaccine ambassador. The student nurse at the University of Bradford, who is British Indian, is taking part in one of many programmes across the country where local universities, councils and charities are working together to train up vaccine ambassadors to go into local black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities and encourage people to sign up for the vaccine. It comes over concerns about a worryingly low uptake of the vaccine within BAME communities. Public health experts and MPs have called for BAME communities to be better protected, as they’re at a higher risk, with vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi saying: “My big worry is if 85 per cent of the adult population get vaccinated, if the 15 per cent skews heavily to the BAME community, the virus will very quickly infect that community.” A UK Household Longitudinal Study found that while 82 per cent of people overall were likely to have the jab, 72 per cent of black people and 42 per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi people said they were unlikely to be vaccinated. Sage advisors have since stressed that more needs to be done to improve trust in the NHS and the vaccine for BAME communities. “I personally know people in my community who are sceptical about the vaccine and are listening to the misinformation around it that has spread,” says Patel, who has been trained as a vaccine ambassador through a programme run by charity Neesie, which supports single mothers and their children. She is one of 20 young people of varied backgrounds who has spent the past two months learning about the vaccine from experts and professionals, and is now going into local communities to try to change people’s minds and allay fears about the virus. “I wanted to challenge these conspiracies and misinformation and encourage my community to have the vaccine in order to improve our chances,” she says. “As a student nurse, I’ve seen first hand the health inequalities of BAME communities and wanted to research and highlight them with the aim of raising awareness, particularly knowing that BAME communities are disproportionately impacted by the virus.”
LifestyleThe TelegraphLockdown in the lives of Giles and Mary: five hours of TV a day and too many arguments to count
Has it really been a year since the word and the concept of “lockdown” entered the national vocabulary? A full 12 months have passed during which all the little everyday things we took for granted were suddenly banned. It seems extraordinary, but somehow Britain adapted, and I think we should be rather proud of ourselves. We have discovered how to make do and put up with privations that would have previously been unthinkable; who could have guessed that lunching with friends, visiting family members or chatting in the supermarket would become illegal? I had always assumed that I would be fine “in prison”, as I have so much reading to catch up on – but one thing I’ve learnt about myself is that I am actually dependent on the real-life company of others. Phones and Zoom just aren’t the same as face-to-face conversations. I’ve been left feeling like a plant that needs watering, with the watering a metaphor for human interaction. I miss church, too. What has also struck me rather forcibly is the truth of the John Donne poem No Man Is an Island, because no matter how well things are going for me and how few of my actual friends have died so far, I have felt, on a subatomic level, the grief and worry of my fellow Britons. All the country has really had to keep us sane – or sane-ish – over the past year is television; already a central part of mine and my husband Giles’s lives due to our being on Gogglebox for the past six years.
HealthThe Telegraph‘The day I realised I had a binge eating disorder’
It was always worse at night. During the day, I could somehow maintain the illusion that I ate like a normal person – or the version of a normal person I saw on Instagram. A banana here and there. Some smashed avocado on a piece of sourdough bread. A salad full of nuts, seeds and other superfoods. But when the lights went out, and everyone in the house was asleep, it was as if some shameful switch had been flicked. I would start eating, and I would only stop when everything snackable had gone. It was savoury food, mostly. Crisps, crackers, cheese… even raw cooking chorizo, if that was what was required. I don’t have a sweet tooth, but if there was chocolate around, I wouldn’t want it to feel left out, so that would usually be devoured too. Thousands of calories would pass my lips in a matter of minutes. It didn’t matter if I felt full, because the point of these binges was to eventually pass to a place of not feeling anything at all. I’d hide the wrappings in a bin bag within the bin bag, and remind myself to laugh off these nutritional excesses if my husband noticed the missing food the next morning. Then, only then, would I have reached the trance-like state of nirvana that was required for me to drift off to sleep. A numbed-out state of semi-consciousness that silenced the endless conversations in my head. It’s such a cliché, isn’t it? The person creeping into the dark kitchen, lit up only by the faint bulb of the fridge. Such a cliché that, in the early months of that first lockdown, I told myself it was normal. It would have been weirder, given the stresses of homeschooling and working, if I hadn’t needed to lose myself in something. I was bingeing, sure, but at least I wasn’t purging, which is what I had done in my teens and 20s, all the food I consumed quickly regurgitated in the bathroom, with the taps on to drown out the sound of my retching. Without that part, I could convince myself that what I was doing was OK. That I was well. I was not back in the bulimia; I was simply comfort eating. Of course, the shame I felt the next morning, not to mention the stomach pains, reminded me a little of the last days of my drinking. A little… but, I reassured myself, not a lot – there was no disappearing for 12 hours, no falling down stairs, no talking absolute cobblers and upsetting my husband.
LifestyleThe TelegraphCarol Klein: ‘Gardening has been a solace for so many during the pandemic’
In this pandemic I am one of the lucky ones – first and foremost I live with Neil, my husband; we get on with each other brilliantly and, over the past year, we have seen even more of each other than usual. We have been together for 50 years. Although we have had little hug-to-hug contact with our lovely family, there were a couple of opportunities to meet up when, briefly, restrictions allowed. Our eldest daughter lives with her husband in California, our youngest in London with her husband and two children. Our grandson was born days before the first lockdown so his first birthday is coming up. How we all wish we could give him first birthday hugs and kisses or read books and play peepo with his sister. How can you miss people so much when you have seen so little of them? We were so lucky to have been around when he was born and, though we were only there for a few days, what magical days they were. Neil came up too and we travelled back to Devon together. It was on our return journey that I began to feel ill; I’d had a few symptoms earlier but they were ignored in the general excitement. I went to bed and stayed there for a few days. Neil looked after me wonderfully as he always does but as I got better he began to feel poorly. His symptoms were worse than mine but we both weathered the storm. Because testing was only just being rolled out, neither of us was ever tested to confirm that we had had Covid but it was pretty clear that was what happened. It gradually dawned on us, as it must have for millions of people around the world, what a serious situation this was. Needless to say though, as we entered that first lockdown, we had no idea what a long haul we were all in for. Recovery for us was so much easier than for many – we have our garden and though Neil does not actively participate in day-to-day gardening it is part of his life. It has grown with us and our family and has so many connections and memories. The fact that, as the pandemic struck, primroses were starting to bloom and new shoots were bursting through the soil made it easier to cope with what was happening. It is surely the most optimistic time of the year, and it’s happening all over again! Gardening was not just a distraction, something to take our minds off the dreadfulness of what was happening; it encapsulated the inevitability of the triumph of nature. The passage of the seasons is inexorable, it happens no matter what. Coronavirus is not – human intervention can change its course. Being 75, I have needed to shield. Living surrounded by fields, we’re a bit out of the way for home grocery deliveries. Neil has done all the shopping and all the cooking but that is what he has done for many years. 2020 was the first year in 30 years that I missed Chelsea as either an exhibitor, a presenter or both. The amount of work, creativity and planning that this and other flower shows including the joyous Malvern Spring Festival entail, was wasted. It was heartbreaking especially for small nurseries, many of whom depend on the shows. Nobody runs a nursery to get rich quick – people do it for love. The way in which nurseries and garden centres have adapted their businesses to stay afloat is exemplary and it has meant that the gardening public, many of them new gardeners, have been able to source seeds and plants. Gardening has been a solace to millions during the pandemic. It has opened our eyes to how important contact with the natural world is. We are all part of it yet so many people are alienated from it by the way in which they are forced to live. In a world where we may feel helpless to change outcomes or be there for loved ones, gardening has given us the freedom to do something positive without restrictions – and to share. At one stage I could help Annie in California with pricking-out her veg seedlings and she could pass it on to friends all over the world. Social media has been an ongoing boon to spread and share the word. I’ve tried to improve my Instagram skills with huge help from my daughter Annie.
LifestyleThe TelegraphI was gaslighted by my ex. Should I confront him?
Dear A&E, I’ve been in a happy relationship for three years, but recently I’ve started thinking about my ex. I’ve realised I was a victim of gaslighting without knowing it. He once left me on the hard shoulder while we were driving home from a restaurant because he said I’d been ‘too friendly’ towards a waiter, and he kicked me out of bed one night after I told him I loved him but ‘didn’t sound convincing’. Afterwards he always said I drove him to it, so I’d apologise. I can see now that I was being manipulated, but I don’t know whether to speak to him about it? It would help me get closure, but equally I don't want to jeapordise my current relationship. Help! — Lost Dear Lost, The thing is, you are not lost. You are found. A disturbing realisation is dawning on you and, although traumatic, it is a door opening; a portal with the potential to explain past and present behaviours and feelings. And you are not alone. As gaslighting and coercive control are starting to be written about and spoken about, so light is cast on the shame, confusion and grief that drenches these situations. Feelings like yours are erupting all over the world, as people realise that dysfunctional and abusive behaviours in their relationships are not – or were not – OK. Even you writing to us will help someone somewhere. We salute you, Lost: you won. You are out; you have moved forward with your life. Nonetheless, of course you are distressed. This man kept you destabilised throughout your relationship and your sudden insight into what occurred will have destabilised you once again. We asked Emma Davey, narcissistic-abuse expert and founder of My Trauma Therapy, for her point of view on your experience. ‘This does sound to me like you were subjected to gaslighting,’ she says. ‘Gaslighting is one of the most dangerous forms of emotional abuse. The perpetrator manipulates their victim into believing everything is their fault. Over time, victims start to lose themselves and become a shadow of who they were and confused about what is and isn’t true.’ So there you go. He may not have hit you, Lost, but this was certainly a dangerous relationship. Throwing someone out on to the hard shoulder of the motorway is hugely dangerous, and preventing people from sleeping (a common practice in wearing victims down and also, we should remember, a well-known method of torture) is perilous in terms of mental health and ability to cope. His reaction to your supposed ‘offence’ with the waiter is an isolation technique and one that has victims desperately paranoid about their behaviour because the abuser will constantly move the goalposts in order to find new, punishable, crimes and misdemeanours. Often the start of these relationships are fairy-tale fantastic and so the victim will twist themselves out of shape to achieve mere glimpses of that initial nirvana. You are right to take this seriously. But do not contact him, Lost. Do not reach out to the past. Emma Davey agrees and goes to far as to say, ‘It would be the worst thing you could do.’ He is history and incidental to your process now. He will deliver neither clarity nor closure. Instead, it is time for professional, specialist help. Gaslighting has tentacles that reach into the future and you are probably suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress, so you need a specialist counsellor to unpack your feelings and to reach closure, understanding and acceptance. Do not underestimate the fact that, although this happened some years ago, you still need to find ways to heal. But look how far you have come… We are not going to call you Lost, we are going to call you Found. You have found some truth, you have found new love, and you will find answers and peace. You are amazing. We are very proud of you. Read more: Help! My husband and I can't stop bickering during lockdown 'My husband has a crush and it's gone too far. What should I do?' Do you have a dilemma that you’re grappling with? Email Annabel and Emilie on themidults@telegraph.co.uk All questions are kept anonymous. The Midults are unable to reply to emails personally. Telegraph readers share their advice for last week's problem: Help! My husband and I can't stop bickering during lockdown @Kay Dadson: "I was discussing this with my daughter, who is also happily married, a few years ago and something she said really stuck with me and has especially helped during lockdown. "She said that whenever she gets irritated by my son-in-law's annoying little habits, like his constant humming to himself, not putting the milk back in the fridge or leaving records out of their sleeves, she tries to imagine what it would feel like if all these things didn't happen any more because he was no longer around. "I've applied that to my own relationship when things are starting to get on my nerves and it really works!" @Jane Hanwell Ferguson: "My husband and I have been married for 38 years and have developed a routine that suits us both. "As we don't see each other and have individual interests we don't have much time to irritate each other, although I'm sure my untidiness probably gets on his nerves." What advice would you give to our reader? Tell us in the comments section below and in the Telegraph Women Facebook group.
HealthThe TelegraphThe 'DIY smear test' – everything you need to know but didn't want to ask
Smear tests are an unpleasant, but necessary, fact of life for women. Although cervical screening is estimated to save 5,000 lives a year in the UK, many women continue to put it off for any number of reasons - from having had a previously uncomfortable or painful experience, to embarrassment or cultural stigmas. But a new scheme is looking to change that. This week, it was revealed that more than 31,000 women in London are being offered “do-it-at-home” smear tests to check for early warnings of cervical cancer, as part of a pilot run by NHS England, Public Health England and King’s College London. Experts believe these swabs could be a “gamechanger” in encouraging more women to get screened. For many charities, it has been a long time coming. Denmark and Australia already offer DIY tests, and the UK is lagging behind. According to the charity Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, there is a backlog of 1.5 million smear tests that are missed by women annually. The latest NHS figures show uptake is at a record low among women over 50, with 73.6 per cent taking up invitations, while just 70 per cent of younger women are coming forward. The pandemic has also had an impact: around 600,000 tests would have been carried out in the UK in April and May last year had screening services been operating normally, according to Jo's Trust - it's not known exactly how many have fallen through the cracks in the last year. Routine cervical screenings are now operating normally, but many women are still worried about attending. So could a DIY test be the answer? Here is everything you need to know... What is a DIY Smear Test? During a cervical smear, your GP inserts a speculum into the vagina and the brush is used to collect cells from the surface of the cervix. Although it is called a ‘smear’ test, the DIY test is actually undertaken with a swab, rather than a brush. Kate Sanger, of Jo’s Trust, says that this means the DIY tests are less invasive: you simply insert a swab into the vagina, and twist it around. The whole procedure takes a couple of minutes. Similar to an at-home Covid test (albeit in a different orifice), the swab is then placed in a prepaid envelope and sent off. If the results reveal a human papillomavirus infection (HPV), then their GP will invite you for a standard smear test to examine the cells in the cervix in more detail. The DIY test is currently being trialled in London: women aged 25-64, overdue for a check and living in Barnet, Camden, Islington, Newham or Tower Hamlets will be offered a kit by their GP, or in the post. How does it work? Cervical screening tests check for human papilloma virus (HPV) infection. Sarah Graham, journalist and founder of women's health site Hysterical Women, says that regular cervical screenings now use a method known as "HPV primary", before they check for abnormal cells. "When the sample is sent to the lab, the first thing that they check for is HPV, which is the virus that causes most cervical cancers. If the sample tests positive for HPV, then they will look to see if there are abnormal cells present,” explains Graham. The DIY test is the same, only it checks for HPV cells, which live in the vagina, without the need to brush the cervix. HPV causes 99 per cent of cervical cancers, so if it is not present then your risk is minimal. According to Cancer Research, 99.8 per cent of cervical cancer cases in the UK are preventable. Experts hope that long-term, DIY tests will reduce the number of diagnoses by catching the disease early. How does it feel? Pain is one of the main factors that puts women off getting a smear test - something recognised by Sanger and her colleagues. While some women don't feel anything, others can find the experience distressing. This could be because they have a tilted cervix, have previously experienced sexual trauma or have a condition known as cervical ectropion - where glandular cells typically found on the inside of the cervix are found on the outside. “For some people, it’s a really challenging test - so telling people to get on with it, and that it is quick and easy, can come across as shaming,” says Sanger. She hopes that people who feel pain during a smear may find the DIY test more comfortable. The swab is similar to a “long cosmetic cotton bud”, explains Sanger, and doesn’t require a speculum - which some women find painful. “It’s a very simple test; it’s just a swab of the vagina and it doesn’t need to touch the cervix,” she adds. Jess, 36, recently did a DIY smear test after finding the service was not currently available with her GP. Although she says she felt “sheepish” about the experience at first, and was concerned the swab wouldn’t hit the right place, she felt “more at ease” in the comfort of her own bathroom. “One leg on the bath and off you go. It didn’t hurt at all and you know, from that internal resistance, when you’ve found your cervix. In fact it was less uncomfortable than the cold, lubed-up clamp you’re normally subjected to,” she adds. Sanger says she has heard people concerned that they won’t be able to do the test properly - but assures women they don’t need to worry. “The research and evidence is really positive and shows the majority of people can do the test perfectly themselves,” she says. Will it be a gamechanger? The short answer is yes, it could be. This is partly because it will hopefully encourage a higher number of women get tested. Attendance at cervical cancer screenings reached an all time low in 2018, and research shows that fewer women have been attending screenings during the pandemic. A survey undertaken by Jo's Trust of 851 women in the first week of June 2020 suggested that 25 per cent worry they will catch coronavirus, while 13 per cent thought it was best to put off going. This adds to the reservations many women already have about screenings: a third of respondents in a survey undertaken in 2018 said they were too embarrassed to go for a smear test. As Sanger sees it, a test at home removes many of these anxieties. “Hopefully, it should overcome a lot of the different challenges and barriers that are faced when attending screening. Long term, we hope this will bring the rates down, because people will be more willing to do it in their own homes,” she says. The DIY tests are not intended to replace cervical screenings entirely, but they will help to screen people who would otherwise avoid attending an appointment. “These might be people with a past history of sexual assault, conditions such as vaginismus or trans men, and non binary people," says Graham. "There has also been a lot of regional variation over the pandemic: some people have been able to access services as normal, and others haven’t. Hopefully this will help to work through that backlog." What are the symptoms of cervical cancer? Graham stresses that it’s still important women are aware of the symptoms of cervical cancer, “because no screening process is perfect.” According to Cancer Research UK, the most common symptoms are: Unusual vaginal bleeding Pain or discomfort during sex Vaginal discharge Pain in the area between the hip bones (pelvis) She adds that cervical cancer screenings can also be a good time to have a general check in with your nurse, to chat about contraception, your cervix and your periods - so it is important to attend if you are over 25, and feel comfortable doing so.
CelebrityThe TelegraphIf Carrie is sticking her oar into government business, we should be grateful
This week, Boris and Carrie’s relationship was in the spotlight. The question being asked was whether Carrie Symonds has undue influence over the Prime Minister, but really, the issue perplexing some people seems to be: “Why would he listen to Her?” Happily, we can clear this one up right away: it’s because they are a couple – specifically, a Left brain, Right brain couple – and men listen to their partners. With a few exceptions, they listen pretty hard, because they respect their wives or girlfriends and, now that the world is no longer run exclusively by men, the female POV is rather useful. If Carrie is sticking her oar into government business, then we should be grateful for it; if she wasn’t banging on about green issues, animal welfare, needing women at the table, domestic violence, etc, Boris Johnson wouldn’t be giving any of it a second thought. Her holding him to account is part of the plan. These two are not exactly a union of opposites – after all, they met on the job – but they are that familiar marital type: the powerful man and the woman who has power over the powerful man, who have very different priorities. If anyone is genuinely surprised that Boris has found himself in one of these couples, they really haven’t been paying attention. Half the people we know are in Left brain, Right brain marriages (she was Remain he wasn’t; she wants the boys to learn ballet, he wants them to play rugby; she wanted a rescue dog, he didn’t) and the rest of us fall into the following categories: Our Rules marriage Dominic West and Catherine FitzGerald spring to mind. Lately they may have been more his rules, even so, you sense these two answer to no one’s expectations. Our Rules couples sign up for an adventure and both parties would rather anything than the stultifying predictability of a “My Wife and I” marriage. My Wife and I Marriage The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have an MWandIM: they’re a team, but you know William is on bins, carving and driving, while Kate’s in charge of everything on the domestic front and ego stroking. Plenty of that going on. Service to Her Marriage There are two in this marriage, but only one that really counts. The most obvious example, currently, would be the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Harry’s given up his family, friends, country, status, job and is all set to play a walk-on-role in the Oprah interview and Second Gentleman if the plan works out). Adorer Marriage This would be George and Amal Clooney – he’s only too happy to worship the ground she walks on and do her sewing and mending. It’s the traditional marriage in reverse and we can’t help but admire from afar. Tag Team marriage Thinking of David and Sam Cam here, Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory, all those couples who take turns at the helm and are perfectly capable of stepping back, switching roles, and taking their turn at being supportive while watching the other one shine. Properly modern really. Is it just me...
LifestyleThe TelegraphHow Covid helped my husband and I split the household chores equally – at last
It had all started so promisingly. In 2008, my husband Ben and I left our jobs – him as a BBC correspondent and me as a PR director – to start our own communications agency. We had two small clients to start us off and we remortgaged our house. Little did we know the financial crisis would happen barely six months later, forcing us to abandon our plans and pivot quickly to selling what we knew we had the edge in – Ben’s skills as a media trainer and crisis consultant. We rented out our London home and moved back up to Lincolnshire to be near my parents, who could help look after our three children, Charlie, Sam and Mirabelle who are now 17, 13 and 9. The new strategy paid off. But it meant a life on the road for Ben, flying around the world advising senior executives and responding to crises. While I could advise him behind the scenes, the more he travelled the more disconnected I became from the business. To make matters more stressful, shortly after we moved, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, swiftly followed by my father being diagnosed with myeloma, to which we lost him six months later. Ben was riding high, doing career-defining work. But I was left at home literally holding the babies, struggling with the loss of my father and caring for my mother. This had not been the plan. A lot of the time I was a single parent and I can’t tell you how many school plays, sports days and parents’ evenings I attended alone. On one occasion we were all packed up ready to go off on holiday early the next morning when the telephone rang at 2am. A passenger aircraft had crashed in Russia and Ben was on a 6am flight to the company’s headquarters in Dubai. When they woke up, I had to explain to three small children that Daddy had gone to work and we were off on holiday on our own. In 2016, my mother entered a care home, and the children were all at school. We started to look at ways I could be more involved in the business, while Ben really wanted to stop travelling so much.
LifestyleThe Telegraph‘I’ve gone from fashion girl to land girl – and I love it’
Normally, at this time of the year I’d be in Paris. I’ve been on the international fashion circuit for so long that my subconscious responds to the unfolding fashion seasons like a migrating bird. No need for a calendar. My schedule goes Resort, Couture, Catwalk, Capsule, Bridge… and repeat. This spring things are very different. For a start I have been on my own since December 29. This spring I am hammering the damp lath and plaster off a sagging attic ceiling and patching up an aluminium greenhouse that has seen better days. This spring I am learning ways to cook wild leeks and am up a ladder following YouTube directions on how to prune wisteria. And all because last summer I fell in crazy love with an old vicarage in Cornwall and, like true love demands, dropped everything that had been my life in London W11 and relocated to EX23. For 30 years my working life has been a cycle of fashion shows, networking lunches and product launches. Hand luggage was kept packed at all times with essentials for lightning trips to Milan, Paris, New York, Munich and Dubai. I had a walk-in wardrobe with options for everything from dinner with Karl Lagerfeld in Venice to lunch with Dries Van Noten and his dog in Antwerp. I was once invited to fly to Tokyo for the presentation of a watch strap. I have an address book stuffed with the contacts of VIP enablers and, in more normal times, could have got a restaurant table or theatre ticket on short notice just about anywhere. I have drawers full of items known affectionately as my “drag” – grazing chandelier earrings, bicep-length white leather gloves, a felt sombrero, a Givenchy couture evening skirt embroidered with shamrocks. I have kept it all because I have always had conceivable expectations that it might come in useful one day. For 30 years this was how I paid my bills… until Covid. In the first lockdown, the golden treadmill of fashion weeks and product launches stalled as an undercurrent of panic stirred: I spent my time on Zoom yoga, baking F standard sourdough and sympathising with a succession of clients as our world changed beyond recognition. But in June, while visiting friends at the seaside, my life changed. I spotted the house in the property section of a national newspaper and joined a long queue of people to view it. Like an old school cad, the rambling Victorian vicarage on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic played very hard to get. But the gods of the Cornish property market weren’t prepared for the kind of tenacity that gets a girl to the front of the queue at the Chanel sample sale.
NewsThe TelegraphZara McDermott: From Love Island contestant to revenge porn ‘influencer-activist’
Zara McDermott doesn’t like the term ‘influencer’. “People look down on it,” the 24-year-old model and former Love Island contestant tells me, distancing herself from the label – and it’s easy to see why. We’re speaking not long after a group of Instagrammers were widely criticised for exploiting an ‘essential work’ loophole to send poolside pictures from Dubai while the rest of us civilians stayed at home, following Covid restrictions. Now is not a great time to tell people you make your money by harnessing a gargantuan social media following. But that’s the negative side of the industry. There is a growing trend for influencers to use their platforms to promote positive change in the real, unfiltered world. And McDermott is one such example. While her Instagram page shows that she’s not afraid to post a selfie, she’s increasingly using her 1.5 million-strong following to speak out against revenge porn, the sharing of explicit images without consent. The influencer-turned-activist has teamed up with Refuge’s The Naked Threat campaign, to push for Parliament to criminalise the threat of revenge porn. While the practice itself is illegal, there is currently no law against the threat of doing so.
NewsThe Telegraph'I took topless photos when I was 14 – I have no idea how many people saw them'
When I was 14, I was very shy, wore glasses, and didn’t look anything like the petite blonde girls in my class. I would have done anything to be as confident as they seemed - so, during the summer holiday, I straightened my hair, got contact lenses, and walked back into school as a different person. The popular girls started to pay me attention. They said that they wanted to set me up with their male friends at the boys' school over the road, and I started to join in their instant messaging groups at night. I was so excited - I thought I was finally going to be like them. But those boys had no intention of dating me; it was only later that I realised they were making fun of me and had told the boys I would do anything sexually. The atmosphere at my all-girls' school centred around pleasing boys. One day I received a message from Oscar*, one of the most popular boys in the year above at our neighbouring school. He was being so nice to me, and sent me a topless picture of himself. Then he said: "your turn." I had never sent naked pictures before, but speaking to him gave me the confidence to take them. I sent one in my bra, and one without; he never replied. Later, I found out the message had been from a different boy, who had changed his profile picture and name pretending to be Oscar. I'll never forget that next morning at school: walking into my classroom with all the girls sitting on the window ledge squealing with laughter. My pictures had been sent around. Everyone was talking about it, and practically the whole year group came into our classroom to laugh at me. It was crushing to realise that something that made me feel so confident and body positive was so hilarious to everyone else. One girl - who I thought was my friend - had printed the pictures off and posted them outside our headteacher’s office. Suddenly, everyone had access to the most intimate parts of me. People called me a slut and a slag, and thought that I was "easy". But there wasn’t a single conversation had or question asked by my teachers. No one asked if I was OK. They didn’t contact the police, and there was zero communication between the schools - despite the fact they are right opposite each other. Because of that, I convinced myself that there was nothing wrong with what had happened. I still have no idea where those pictures have ended up or how many people they were circulated to. It's a very frightening thought. Now, a few years on, I am also angry. I'm angry that no one acknowledged what took place, or that I was a victim. I'm angry that I was made to feel as if I was to blame. I have since struggled to trust people. In relationships, I have sent nudes to boyfriends and have then had flashbacks to what happened in school. Now, thanks in part to the Domestic Abuse Bill, there is finally a legal definition for what happened to me: revenge porn. Having a name to put to my experience - and the experiences of so many other young women - gives it the attention and gravitas that it deserves. I now work as a political staffer and think the DAB is a landmark because it recognises revenge porn, and even the threats to share it, as a crime - as well as other forms of abuse that don't leave physical scars. After nearly three years of delays, the Bill needs to be enshrined into law. Being a young victim of revenge porn can define your sense of self for the rest of your life. I hope that safeguarding in schools has improved since my experience and that they teach a comprehensive sex education. I hope young girls in a similar situation aren’t made to feel they are to blame - it is always the other party who has done something wrong by sharing images without your consent. As told to Maighna Nanu *Names have been changed
NewsThe Telegraph'I am truly afraid for my friend Princess Latifa'
In a villa close to Dubai’s popular Jumeirah Beach, as tourists enjoyed the pale sands and sea, a nightmare was playing out. My best friend, Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum, had been imprisoned by her own family – confined to one room. Inside there was only a bed and a television. Latifa could walk to the kitchen for food, but that was the extent of her freedom. She has had no access to fresh air or medical assistance since her incarceration in 2018. This week, a BBC Panorama documentary broadcast videos that she had secretly recorded from her “jail” and sent to me on a phone I had managed to smuggle to her via a third party.
NewsThe TelegraphInside Britain’s last temperance bar – the first of a new brand of boozer
During its 122-year history, Mr Fitzpatrick’s bar in Rawtenstall has endured enough crises to turn many to drink – two world wars, the Spanish Flu pandemic, and now Covid, to name but a few. But with Britain’s hospitality trade tanking and many pubs closing their doors for good, spirits are still high at Britain’s last original temperance bar, which has stood on Bank Street in the Lancashire mill town since 1899. Behind the bar and original stone fireplace are optics containing 29 flavours of home-made cordial: dandelion and burdock, cream soda, sarsaparilla and a curious concoction described as ‘blood tonic’. Due to being contractually obliged not to serve any alcohol on premises, owner Ashleigh Morley-Doidge has been able to stay open serving her soft drinks to take away during the pandemic. And business, as it has been ever since she took the bar over five years ago, is good. Morley-Doidge’s family also operates a separate company brewing the cordials and now regularly supplies the US, the United Arab Emirates, Europe and Japan. Here as well, demand is on the rise. “It is really interesting to see how many people don’t drink alcohol and are looking for something unusual and different,” says the 35-year-old. As the last man standing of the temperance bars that once proliferated across the country (and particularly the North) Mr Fitzpatrick’s remains something of a novelty in the modern era. But perhaps not for much longer. As revealed in The Telegraph earlier this month, ministers are contemplating a temporary booze ban as part of the roadmap out of lockdown, with pubs and restaurants allowed to open even as soon as April, permitted they do not serve alcohol. The move is being discussed to allay concerns from chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and others about the effect of drinking on social distancing and to avoid last year’s chaotic scenes of ‘Super Saturday’ when pubs reopened after the first lockdown. Whether or not this policy comes to pass, on a wider level the pandemic has reshaped our relationship with alcohol for better and worse. While drinking increased during lockdown, with many turning to it as a coping mechanism, experts believe that in the long term, pre-pandemic trends of abstinence – particularly among a younger generation – may be accelerated as we focus more on our health. “This crisis is a bit like others where things don’t go back entirely to what they were like before but instead build on what was already happening,” says Virginia Berridge, professor of history and health policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Pubs were already playing a much bigger role in serving non-alcoholic drinks and food. There has been a generational shift of people going to the pub for a convivial experience but not necessarily drinking huge amounts of alcohol.” Mr Fitzpatrick’s Bar was one of 40 established across the North West by the Fitzpatrick family who moved from Dublin across the Irish Sea in 1899. By then the temperance movement was at its peak, the first temperance hotel having opened in nearby Preston in 1833 by local reformer Joseph Livesey who invented the phrase ‘teetotal’. Livesey also published England’s first temperance publication, The Moral Reformer, focusing on the impact of the ‘demon drink’ on the working classes.
LifestyleThe TelegraphThe gospel of good housekeeping, according to Kirstie Allsopp
Quite how we’d manage to conduct meaningful lives without the regular pronouncements of Kirstie Allsopp is anyone’s guess. Luckily we haven’t had to try, because each time we’re wondering where to stick our washing machine, or what to do with an iron, up she pops with a helpful suggestion. When we say helpful, we mean in the same way it’s helpful for someone to point to the only other single person in the office when you’re single and say: “What about him?” It helps crystallise in your mind exactly what you don’t want. Take, as example, this sneak peek inside the House of Kirstie, offered on her Twitter feed this week:
LifestyleThe TelegraphThe pressing question: should you iron your tea towels (and underwear, for that matter)?
TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp and I have little in common. She has two large houses, knits her own bunting and has a penchant for floral dresses. I do not. But this week I discovered we both share a belief in the therapeutic joys of ironing. Twitter followers scoffed at her proud pictures of pressed tea towels, while I looked at the before and after shots of her ironing pile with the admiration and envy usually reserved for weight-loss boasts. Kirstie and I are part of a tribe for whom the phrase to iron out life’s problems is taken literally. At first my ironing habit was a shameful secret, given that it started, in retro housewife style, with my husband’s work shirts almost two decades ago. Before long I’d spent a three-figure sum on a fancy steam-generator iron – an unwieldy robot with the dimensions of a large Christmas turkey. There is nothing more satisfying than the effortless ploughing of a smooth path through a crumpled linen sheet with my favourite household appliance. As my face gets ever more wrinkled, my iron performs instant Botox on the pillow cases.
LifestyleThe TelegraphA Boomer's guide to spotting a Millennial – according to Generation Z
What is yellow, round and cries – but grins at the same time? No, not a picture of Donald Trump leaving the White House. It's the laughing-crying emoji, which is commonly used to represent someone laughing so hard that tears are streaming down their face. Too commonly, it seems. The leaky smile is apparently sending shudders down the spines of Gen Z, who have officially declared that the emoji is dead. Yes, that’s right. Just as you were getting to grips with the millennial habit of attaching a spherical yellow face to the end of every sentence, the rules suddenly change. This week, Generation Z, or “Zoomers” as they are known on social media, declared the laughing crying emoji is no longer cool, because it is overused by boomers and millennials. Many took to the video-sharing app TikTok to make their feelings about the emoji known. One user, @kykythattiktoker, posted a video captioned: “if you use the crying laughing emoji non ironically we can’t be friends.”
CelebrityThe TelegraphThe new rules of society romance... according to Gillian, Peter and Jemima
Just as we finish binge-watching Bridgerton and head off in search of more flighty, upper-crust escapism, along comes a lockdown love-triangle drama worthy of Nancy Mitford. In fact, the principal leading man could have written the script himself. For The Crown’s Peter Morgan, 57, has suddenly ditched society beauty, Jemima Goldsmith, 47, to rebound back to his former girlfriend, actress Gillian Anderson, 52, with whom he had a four-year relationship, prior to leaving her last December. Jemima has now been similarly blindsided – she is said to be “shocked and confused” – now that Peter has boomeranged back to Gillian, joining her on set in the Czech Republic, where she is currently filming. Which is confusing enough, before we learn how Peter is said to have taken to referring to Jemima as “the one”, before seemingly performing a handbrake turn to get back with Gillian. While we onlookers gawp slack-jawed at it all, in the new society – where aristocracy and celebrity seamlessly blend (and to be a member is to be gorgeous, glossy, rich and unbelievably well-connected) – relationships spin on a different axis. Furious fallings-out are infra dig; everything is always tempered, because this social set is so intertwined, an awkward froideur would be terribly non-U. Chances are that, once lockdown ends, Jemima and Gillian, who are said to be old friends, will be back, side by side again, beaming for the flashbulbs. Last month, it was reported that Gillian was said to be merely “bemused” by how quickly Peter’s romance had progressed with Jemima, and maintained a dignified silence as friends remarked that Peter and Jemima had formed a “legitimate support bubble”.
HealthThe TelegraphTracey Crouch on her cancer fight: ‘I'm one of the lucky ones – now I’m off to max out on life’
Tracey Crouch clearly remembers the day she discovered a lump in her breast, because she had just been on a mammoth 30-mile ride on the bike she bought at the beginning of Lockdown 1. The former sports minister was aching so badly on June 14 last year that although she had already had a shower that day, she decided to jump in her four-year-old son Freddie’s bath later that evening. It was then that she found a “thickened area, shaped like a thumb” in her right breast. Announcing her diagnosis on Twitter 10 days later, the notoriously competitive, sports-mad Tory MP for Chatham and Aylesford signalled her intention to “go into this challenge studs up” while advising “everyone to check their bits n bobbins”. Seven months on and two surgeries – to remove two tumours, potentially cancerous tissue and lymph nodes – later, Crouch celebrated her last round of chemotherapy with a glass of fizz in January and her last round of radiotherapy this Tuesday with a tweet declaring: “Off to max out on life now”.
LifestyleThe Telegraph‘Call me a middle-class hypocrite if you want, but I'm not getting rid of my wood burning stove’
Oh great. So now we have another eco-stick (or log, as the case may be) to beat ourselves with: government data shows that wood burning stoves are the UK’s largest source of particulate air pollution. They contributed around 41,000 toxic tonnes of the stuff in 2019 alone. PM2.5, as the form of pollution is known, are miniscule fragments of carbon. Measuring less than 2.5 microns, they infiltrate the body and get lodged in the organs, causing health issues ranging from respiratory problems to eye irritation. According to the new data, domestic stoves are responsible for nearly two-fifths of the PM2.5 in our air, despite only eight per cent of the population using them. Speaking as a member of that eight per cent, I’m loath to give up my wood burner. Yes, the stoves produce almost three times the amount of PM2.5 as road traffic, but lighting an evening fire has been one of the few things in which I’ve found solace during lockdown. When your home starts to feel like something of a prison, isn’t it only natural that you want it to feel like more of a sanctuary? Even when the weather began to warm up after the first lockdown, I continued, for a few weeks, to haul a couple of logs in from the woodpile, lighting it even if only for one log’s worth of a burn. Look, I’m an Australian in London, all right? I like to be warm. That wasn’t all there was to it though. It was the ritual of it; the building blocks of kindling, the satisfying scrape and hiss of a match, the smell of wood smoke, the glow it cast over the room. As soon as autumn came around, another delivery of logs was made, and the nightly practice began again. It’s the first time since having the stove installed three years ago that we’ve run out of logs before the spring: another delivery was made last week. Whether this is due to more nights at home, a greater need for comfort or a combination of the two, I can’t be sure. What I do know is that I look forward to that time in the evenings, when the children have finished their home learning and the dog humphs on to the sofa, we can gather together in front of that flickering warmth. It’s a feeling akin to that first warming sip of red wine, which yes, I may also have allowed myself to enjoy without guilt during these interminable months. And now, for the bit where I try to straighten my halo... One of primary reasons for buying logs in bulk is to eliminate the need to run to the local store or garage to buy one of those net-bound bags: these tend to have a high moisture content, which means that the wood is harder to burn and emits more chemicals. Buying ready-to-burn dried logs from a Woodsure certified supplier (and storing them correctly) lowers the footprint somewhat. I’ve been toying with the idea of trying coffee logs; after these recent stats, I’m even more keen to give these a go. Should I defend myself further? OK, fine: I drive a hybrid car. I buy my cleaning products and most toiletries at the local zero waste store. I don’t smoke. I do, admittedly, tend to fly rather a lot – although not in the last year, obviously. I have long been passionate about eschewing the High Street and wearing second hand clothing. When the seven-year-old Nespresso machine gave up the ghost, it was replaced with a bean to cup version to reduce all of that pod waste and contribute to good, rich, compost (in fact, maybe I should have a bash at making my own logs?). I collect rainwater for my junglesque collection of houseplants – hey, they’re air purifying, aren’t they? What does this make me? Somebody doing my bit, where and as I can, or a self-righteous middle-class hypocrite? I don’t honestly know. What I do know is that I used to joke about the light from a wood-burning stove being more flattering, and how it’s the closest I get, these days, to the wild camping adventures of my youth. Over the past year, in the absence of hugs, friends and parents, my stove has taken on a far more primal and vital significance. PM2.5 or not, it’s here to stay. Would you give up a wood burning stove for the environment? Let us know in the comments section below.
LifestyleThe TelegraphThe best gifts for Mother's Day 2021: special present ideas your mum will love
After a tough and tumultuous year, Mother’s Day is a chance to show the women in your life just how much you appreciate them. Whilst there's no gift special enough to truly say ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you’, I think we can all agree that every mum could do with a little extra TLC right now. A thoughtful gift is bound to put a smile on their face. With that in mind, we’ve curated the best Mother’s Day gifts that every mum, friend or mother-figure would be thrilled to receive. From subscription boxes to the best of beauty, fragrance and homeware gifts, this is our guide to the best Mother's Day presents (you don't want to be caught empty handed on March 14, after all). 1. The White Company Cashmere Bed Socks £36, The White Company
HealthThe Telegraph‘If only I could give my sister my vaccine – but helping her is out of my hands’
My younger and only sibling, Frances, has a genetic disease called Cri Du Chat syndrome, a chromosomal condition which means she is severely learning disabled and has diabetes. When Covid reared its ugly head, my parents and I knew Frances was suddenly very vulnerable and that her life would shrink beyond all recognition. For a year, she has been pretty much housebound – for the first lockdown with Mum and Dad, because we couldn’t bear not to see her, and later, when it became too much for our parents, she went back to her supported living home where some of her complex needs were better met. When the pandemic first started, we worried she would struggle to cope without us because her family are her whole world. Frances, 53, is a force of nature, with fiery red hair and a temper to go with it. The truth is, living with her is exhausting for my elderly parents because her condition means that she can be controlling and is prone to outbursts. The syndrome affects around 1 in 50,000 live births and symptoms can include severe cognitive speech and motor disabilities and behavioural problems such as hyperactivity, aggression, outbursts and repetitive movements. Put it this way – there’s no good china left in my parents’ house. She also needs to be with people of a similar age so she is stimulated. The last thing we wanted was to let her go into a care home, but we also had to face the fact that her mental health, and that of my parents, was suffering too. For Frances to fathom the concept of a pandemic is impossible. It’s hard enough being learning disabled, but since Covid came along she has been bewildered and even further out of step with a world that is not always terribly kind. She loved watching Boris on the news, along with Casualty, her favourite TV show. She knew something huge was going on but didn’t have any idea how it would and could affect her life – and that she was more vulnerable than she had ever been. Yet Frances wasn’t deemed sufficiently at risk, and her vaccination scheduled for the sixth phase of the vaccine roll-out. Some days Frances was OK, and she would listen to her music or spend all day – and I mean that literally – on FaceTime contacting family and friends. During one of my two-hour radio shows, she’d sometimes ring me 20 times until I’d give in and pick up. Other times she just didn’t bother getting out of bed. There was so little for her to get up for. There are only so many jigsaws she can be enticed to do. She’d also given up on baths. All she’d do was sleep, eat, repeat, ad infinitum. This was worrying of course, but we knew we had to focus on what was most important: keeping her safe indoors until she was vaccinated. Then, we thought, we’d get her back to being the vibrant, chatty, social creature that she is. We thought she was protected. Except she wasn’t.
LifestyleThe Telegraph‘Apart from the rash, I’m fine’: the dos and don’ts of small talk
Hiya! Good to see you reading this little feature down here, I hope you enjoy it. So how are you doing? Oh, me? I’m fine, just at home, mostly – lockdown, and all that. But today I noticed a news story about how BPP University Law School in Leeds is offering students what is thought to be the first module in chit-chat and networking. “We often talk about good conversation as if it’s just exchanging information,” says Georgie Nightingall, the course leader. “But my experience with – my addiction to – good conversation suggests it’s more about expanding your perspectives and your relationships.” While I would never claim to be “addicted to” good conversation, or bad conversation, it makes me wonder – and I think you’ll agree, but I’ll let you get a word in later – what the do’s and don’ts of great chit-chat are. The trials and tribulations of tattle, if you will. Let’s talk it over. DON’T ask dull questions According to Nightingall, “asking small questions”, such as what you do and where you live, means “the person receiving that question assumes it’s not asked with genuine interest”. As a result, the answers will be boring, too. So when you bump into a stranger at your first post-Covid wedding, try opening with something compelling like: “Hey, the ancient Greeks used spider webs to make bandages, did you know that? I’m Neil.” Or maybe: “Hello, nice to meet you. Tell me, if we were on Bake Off, what do you think Paul would say about this wedding cake? And do it in a Scouse accent. Go.” If they run away, it’s their loss. DO give interesting answers The follow-up to the above, naturally. It’s too easy to give a conversation-ending “Yeah, fine thanks”, or “I’m an accountant”, when really you want to surprise your interlocutor. Nightingall recommends answering something dreary like “How are you?” with a number, which apparently morphs into an absorbing dialogue about how we could grade our mood numerically. It’s one option. Others include: bare-faced lying (“I am a gunge-operator for CBBC”), giving too much information (“Apart from the rash, I’m fine”), creepiness (“All the better now you’ve drifted into my purview, mademoiselle…”) and mystique (“Guess”). DON’T act like you’re online A common issue for students these days, it’s said, is that they’re far more used to socialising online than in person. After three lockdowns, we’re probably all in that category now. So remember: in face-to-face conversations, you don’t need to switch your microphone on to speak, you are allowed to talk over one another a bit, you can’t simply reply with a thumbs up or a cry-laugh face, you do not have the authority to Jackie Weaver them out of the chat for shouting, and you do need to wear trousers. DO ask reciprocal questions A basic one, but you’d be amazed how far people can get in a chat without remembering to ask a single question in return. A conversation is like a game of Scrabble: you see what they lay down and consider what’s in your arsenal to build on it. “And you?” works well if you’ve just been asked what your last meal on death row would be, but they might have already given their answer, in which case you need to start somewhere else on the board. In that example, try: “So who would you be most likely to have murdered, if you were on death row?” It’s relevant. It’s pressing. It’s dark. The answer is probably you. DON’T bring up anything potentially awkward Sex, politics and religion are the classic no-gos, but to that we should add: the toppling of controversial statues, whether you’d rat on your neighbour in lockdown, gender rights, the sex appeal of Rishi Sunak, baked beans on Weetabix, screen time for your children, pineapple on pizza, the BBC, whether it’s pronounced “Gif” or “Jif”, if James Bond should be cancelled or not, and literally anything to do with Harry and Meghan. DON’T forget to make eye contact A classic, but for a reason. If you look over your conversation partner’s shoulder, it looks as if you’d rather speak to somebody else. If you look at your shoes, it looks as if you forgot to tie your laces. If you look at the other person’s shoes, it looks as if you hate their shoes. If you look at your drink, you look like a lush. If you look at the ceiling, you look like Chicken Licken. If you look at their chest, you’re in line for a slap. The eyes have it; anything else is wrong. DO repeat a person’s name A decade ago, Nick Clegg won a cupboard in Downing Street for five years simply by noting down the name of the questioner in a town hall-style debate and repeating it in his answers. The same applies in conversation. “Apart from the nipples, nothing,” you can say, “and how about you, Cynthia, have you had any plastic surgery?” Cynthia will be charmed: interesting answer, reciprocal question, and you remembered her name. 10/10 chit-chat. DON’T overdo repeating a person’s name Once is enough. Start every answer with: “Well, Cynthia, I’m really glad you asked because it’s a vital question…” and you’ll look like Rory Stewart.
NewsThe TelegraphWhy I started an anti-woke helpline
“Am I going mad?” As the founder of an ‘anti-woke’ citizens advice service that launched last month, Helen Pluckrose hears this question more than any other. “One of our purposes here at Counterweight is to provide reassurance that, no, you are not going mad. Your perceptions are correct here, and we want to help you have the understanding and the language to counter what you are being asked to do, think or say,” she explains. Pluckrose – a British author known for her critiques of ‘wokeism’ (or critical social justice, to give it its academic title) whose co-authored book, Cynical Theories, was a bestseller last year – set up the non-partisan organisation to combat ‘cancel culture’ in the workplace and elsewhere. “And the number of people who getting in touch…” she marvels, as she tells me about the clients of every religion, ethnicity and political belief that have flooded the site since it launched. “From social workers and teachers to the police, firefighters, paramedics and charities. Because there’s a real growing concern among humanitarian aid organisations and charities right now about funds that are being diverted away from essential care like food and clean water to be ploughed into the ‘diversity training’ of staff.” Pluckrose shakes her head. “Honestly, that’s the one currently making me angriest.” Last weekend, a survey revealed that almost half of Britons believe that freedom of speech in the UK is “under threat”, with 43 per cent afraid to speak their minds on immigration matters; 42 per cent said they were scared to speak openly about transgender rights. Those who contact Counterweight for help are asked to detail the ‘woke’ issue they are struggling with. They will then be triaged by Pluckrose’s five-strong team and either put in touch with a host of voluntary specialists that include parents, teachers, social workers, technicians, academics, lawyers and psychologists, or encouraged to join the Counterweight Discord server, where clients can get talking to one another in a bid to resolve their problem. Everything is kept confidential, “but there would be so much public sympathy if these cases were known about”, says Pluckrose. “We have a black engineer, for example, who is currently being disciplined for refusing to take Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training. And we have people in occupations where they are saving lives every day, but are in trouble for saying: ‘I don’t care what colour skin someone has – I will save them because that’s my job.’ We help them address the issue with their employers in the most effective way possible.” It’s not always about helping employees confront companies or older generations seeking assistance with a language they no longer recognise, however, but assisting younger individuals, some of them teens, who have been worked up into desperate states. “I had a panicked message from a teenage girl who had criticised a Black Lives Matter post on Instagram recently because it had made a horrible generalisation about white people,” recounts Pluckrose, “and she had been descended upon by a mob of outraged people, some of whom were at her school. I was really afraid that she was going to harm herself, so I told her to log out of her account and stop the apologising that would only feed the frenzy, and just let things die down.” When Pluckrose checked in on the girl later, she was relieved to find her feeling better – “but she wasn’t going to use Instagram again, and she certainly wasn’t going to criticise any social justice ideas again.” Conversely, another young woman who got in touch during lockdown “had got very into reading anti-racist books and had become consumed with obsessional thinking. She was asking us: ‘Is this my white fragility?’ ‘Am I selfishly protecting myself?’, and had got caught up in all these psychological questions.” Then there was the recent case of “a young man who was concerned that he was a terrible person because he had masturbated about a certain girl ‘without her consent’.”
NewsThe TelegraphWhat I learned when I posed for a naked 'pandemic portrait'
It was late on a Saturday morning in early December when I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer; I’d have to get naked. To take a nude selfie - my first ever - and send it to someone I had never met. Above my bed sits Modigliani’s painting ‘Female Nude’ so I found myself looking to her for guidance on how to pose. The sitter’s peace with her body is reassuring. But I didn’t want to be sleepily passive in how I presented my body, but rather completely awake and in control. Why was I doing this at all? I blame my sister. After I saw her post her own nude portrait on Instagram (by artist @_in_the_buff__), I had texted to say how much I loved it. Not just the Hockney-esque electric blue and pink, but her confidence in saying to the world “this is my body”. It reminded me of the Sex and the City episode in which Samantha Jones announces that she is going to get naked portraits taken. There’s a stunned silence. “Isn’t that a little narcissistic? asks Miranda. It’s been nearly 20 years since that first aired and the conversation has most certainly changed. Like many women, I have a complicated relationship with my body. As a teen, I just wanted to be as tiny as Audrey Hepburn or Carrie Bradshaw, and controlled how many calories I ate. By the age of 17, I was so underweight - a doctor told me - that I was only having one period a year.It was a pivotal moment. I didn’t want to be so thin that I was doing my body damage. It would be some years yet before my relationship with food normalised and oddly enough, it was during the first lockdown when I noticed that it had relaxed. The pandemic acted as a bit of a reality check. And a part of me wanted to commemorate that shift in paint. And so, after much humming and haahing on my part, I decided to press ahead with my own naked portrait; taking selfie after naked selfie to send to the artist. Shirt on, shirt off; jeans on, jeans off…turns out that taking nude photographs for yourself isn’t half as nerve-racking as it might be for a lover. There was no need for posturing, pouting, or saucy thrusting.