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By Ellee, on October 15th, 2010
I was stunned to learn of the death of actor Simon MacCo rkindale of cancer, aged only 58.
He was a great supporter of Headway and was truly fabulous when he visited us at our Cambridge centre two years ago. Simon also had a local connection as he was born in Ely and retained close ties with his mother who lived outside Cambridge.
At the time Simon was on tour with a theatre group performing in the thriller Sleuth at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge and offered to call in and share some of his thespian tips with our drama group.
I sat and watched transfixed. There was no superstar act, he was so humble. He sat and listened to the group, offering words of encouragement and advice. He captivated and inspired them and told the group that learning lines was not the most important part of acting, that it was more important to learn the story and be able to develop your character around the role. This was great advice and very relevant to those with an acquired brain injury as they are likely to struggle with remembering lines.
Simon was a class act and spent much longer with us than anticipated, happily posing for photographs. We had no idea he was suffering from cancer at the time, none of us had an inkling. We were so appreciative of his kindness. Looking back, it was an Oscar performance which came straight from his heart.
I was mesmerised by his gentleness and patience and remember thinking, “lucky Susan”, his beautiful wife Susan George, who he told us was a keen horsemwoman, as well as a lovely actress too. He died in her arms in a London clinic on Thursday night.
Simon really left his mark with us. I will always remember him and I find it unbelievable that he is no longer with is. I feel so upset about this, and, of course, give my very sincere sympathies to his wife and family.
By Ellee, on October 15th, 2010
I was confused when I saw Made in Dagenham last week as at the end it included some black and white news clippings from the 1960s showing older women on strike, while the film used much younger women.
The successful and inspiring film is a dramatisation of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination over pay. But how truthful was the film?
A woman who was brought up on a council estate in Dagenham in a street full of Ford workers wrote to The Mail this week and doesn’t think it was. She wrote to the paper saying:
“I was intrigued to to see that most of the women strikers in the film are young, whereas most of the women I recall working on the factory floor were middle-aged. They certainly didn’t use bad language: they come from the Forties generation and women just didn’t swear then. Nor did they strip down to their undies at work.”
Well I guess the film makers can defend themselves by describing this as “a dramatisation”, and at least they didn’t knock 30 years off Barbara Castle – a real heroine for standing up against Ford and supporting these determined and courageous women.
The part of the film which I found most moving was when the beautiful wife of one of the Ford bosses confided in Andrea, the feisty strike leader, about how unhappy and unfulfilled she felt. She was highly intelligent and had a degree, but was not allowed to use her brains, and instead lived the life of a servile wife whose husband looked down on her.
I was reminded of the ageism untruths behind Made in Dagenham after reading today about two Corrie soap stars, Sue Nicholls and Beverley Callard, who compalined that the acting industry was ageist towards women. There is certainly no shortage of talented older actresses in this country.
Now wouldn’t these two have been great in the film…….
By Ellee, on October 13th, 2010
I had planned to stay up and watch the first Chilean miner being brought to the surface – ending 69 agonising days beneath the earth’s surface. I had wanted to share their exhilaration and see their faces as they were reunited with their loved ones. I’m afraid I nodded off as this didn’t happen until 4am, but I immediately switched on to Sky News first thing this morning just as the third miner was brought up in that amazing capsule. It was an extraordinary scene.
What has impressed me most is the composed nature of the men, the way they supported each other through their nightmare ordeal and found comfort in their strong religious faith, the meticulous attention to detail during the rescue and all the considerations that have been made to help them cope with their nerve wracking ascent.
By Ellee, on October 12th, 2010
The radical review of university tuition fees by Lord Browne will allow universities to charge unlimited fees. It proposes a free market in fees, though universities charging more than £6,000 a year would lose a proportion of the fee to help cover the cost of student borrowing.
Not only does this sound complicated, it will also deter many poorer students from applying, and even “middle class”. But why is Lord Browne on one hand expecting teenagers to amass a huge debt for their university education, and then on the other hand saying that if they later have a job which doesn’t pay very much, they won’t have to pay it back?
He said: “They will only pay it back when their earnings go above £21,000. If you choose to go into a job which doesn’t pay very much or if you choose to go out of the workforce to build a family, you won’t have to pay it back.”
That doesn’t make sense to me, it doesn’t seem good economics. Surely a loan is a loan and should be repaid, just like any other loan, else it is wasted public money, which defeats the object of this review.
It is estimated that only about 40 per cent of university graduates will repay their entire loans — including interest — with the rest of the debts being written off by the government. So how can this be perceived as a successful and workable scheme?
Crucially, what guarantee will students have of improved teaching quality and more contact hours with lecturers?
This is also set to result in the first major coalition confrontation as Lib Dem MPs signed a pledge not to vote for rising tuition fees during the general election.
I shall be visiting a university open day this weekend with my younger son James. It will be interesting to see what parents and lecturers say about this. I have felt a sense of relief during our previous visits that the review had not yet been published, that the moment which hard-pressed parents of future university students had been dreading was yet to come…
Update 13 October: Cambridge’s Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert promises to stick to his election pledge and will oppose university tuition fee increases. You can read his interview in the Cambridge News here. This issue contributed to the defeat of the city’s Labour MP Anne Campbell back in 2005 and is obviously very important to Cambridge’s large student population. This world leading university is proactively seeking bright students from less privileged backgrounds and, like many other other universities, may suffer as a result of these proposals.
Nick Hillman, our Conservative parliamentary candidate who stood against Julian in the 2010 general election, reminds me that although Julian does not support Lord Browne’s proposals, he has not come up with any ideas about what should be done.
By Ellee, on October 11th, 2010
All charities are very grateful for any celebrity endorsement they can get, though we do not seek it from such tragic circumstances as this. Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell sustained a devastating brain injury this July while cycling in America, and I am pleased to learn that the champion rower has been making good progress since his return to the UK.
His stunning wife Beverley Turner, a television and radio presenter, will describe on Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour tomorrow morning the impact his brain injury has had on the whole family, and will say that although James is recovering well, there is a long way to go as many of his difficulties are not obvious to the general public. This is all too familiar to families of those with a loved one who has an acquired brain injury, who have suffered a tragic accident like this without warning, and can affect their lives for ever..
Peter McCabe, CEO of Headway UK, will also be on the show to support Beverley and talk about how brain injury can affect families, explaining why brain injury is often referred to as the “hidden disability”.
Thank you Beverley for highlighting these issues publicly, and I sincerely hope James continues to make good progress.
Headway Cambridgeshire is the chosen charity I support as its chair of trustees. I never fail to be moved and inspired by the dedicated staff who work there, and the service users I meet who have suffered a brain injury.
By Ellee, on October 10th, 2010
Today is 10/10/10 and is meant to b e incredibly lucky for some.
I spent the day visiting a stunning garden which is only open three times a year to the public. It is close to where I live and I can’t understand why I have never visited it before. I can thank one of my blog readers for alerting me to today’s open day, and I took my friend Wendy with me, an art conservator and accomplished jazz singer, who heads off to Australia next weekend on a five month stay.
As we drove through into the gracious grounds of Chippenham Park, Wendy and I marvelled at the wonderful collection of varied treas. We marvelled at the creative planting and clipped hedges, the clever and amusing vistas and fabulous sculptures which we adored. We both thought it was an incredibly witty garden, and its designer clearly has a terrific sense of humour and succeeded in bringing the garden alive in a captivating way.
We were not the only visitors who were hugely impressed. One man told me he considered it superior to the National Trust’s Anglesey Abbey, and one of the plant sellers told me he felt it was the best garden in East Anglia. It really is a very special, if belated, discovery. So 10/10/10 was certainly fortuitous for me.
There are so many other tiny corners of England that gladden the heart in the same way. “There’s just nothing like this in Australia,” mused Wendy, with a sad tone in her voice. “There’s nothing like it there at all. England just has so much history, and there is such a cosy feel about it.”
Wendy loves the beaches down under, as well as Sydney and its spectacular harbour. But this is a corner of England that tugs at the heart. When she is thousands of miles away, Wendy will look back and remember how we we ended our visit tucking into the tasty home made cakes which were served on the manicured lawn. As we basked in the warm autumn sun sipping our tea, I felt Wendy was already beginning to feel homesick.
I’m looking forward to her return next spring because I hope to join her on a house hunting trip to Puglia where she wants to buy a property near the beach….
By Ellee, on October 8th, 2010
Besides the surprise of seeing the considerable lead Yvette Cooper had with 232 votes in a Shadow Cabinet ballot – what would have happened if she had entered the Labour leadership contest instead of her husband? – I was not expecting such strong support for twin sisters Maria and Angela Eagle, neither of whom are household names.
Maria Eagle, 49 , (left) is the new Shadow Transport Secretary and her previous roles include Equalities Minister as well as Minister for Children. She played chess for England and is a keen cricketer. She is the daughter of a printworker and went to Oxford. Voting records show she voted against laws to stop climate change, but will her brief not include concerns about this, and getting traffic off the road to reduce carbon emissions?
Angela Eagle, (right) a former union official, made news headlines two years ago when she became the first female MP to tie the knot in a civil partnership. She has been appointed Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. She was also educated at Oxford and her previous middle-ranking roles included social security minister and pensions minister. She is a chess player too and was joint winner of the British Girls’ Under-18 championship. They are currently the only pair of sisters in the Commons.
There was a commendable record number of eight women elected to Labour’s new Shadow Cabinet, with another three women already in Cabinet posts. The present coalition Cabinet has only four women!
The full Shadow Cabinet is:
Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband MP
Deputy Leader and Shadow International Development Harriet Harman MP
Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson MP
Shadow Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Minister for Women and Equalities Yvette Cooper MP
Shadow Secretary Home Ed Balls MP
Chief Whip Rosie Winterton MP
Shadow Education and Election Coordinator Andy Burnham MP
Shadow Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice Sadiq Khan MP
Shadow Work and Pensions Douglas Alexander MP
Shadow Business, Innovation and Skills John Denham MP
Shadow Health John Healey MP
Shadow Communities and Local Government Caroline Flint MP
Shadow Defence Jim Murphy
Shadow Energy and Climate Change Meg Hillier MP
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP
Shadow Transport Maria Eagle MP
Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Mary Creagh MP
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Angela Eagle MP
Shadow Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward MP
Shadow Scotland Ann McKechin MP
Shadow Wales Peter Hain MP
Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Ivan Lewis MP
Shadow Leader of the House of Lords Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
Shadow Minister for the Olympics Tessa Jowell MP
Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office Liam Byrne MP
Lords Chief Whip Lord Bassam of Brighton
Shadow Attorney-General Baroness Scotland
By Ellee, on October 8th, 2010
The surprise visit of Hollywood hearthrob Johnny Depp to a primary school after being sent a letter by a nine-year-old schoolgirl asking him to help her classmates “mutiny” against the teachers just proves that if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and nothing is impossible.
Shocked staff at the school in Greenwich had only 10 minutes notice that the world’s most famous pirate was going to appear with some fellow shipmates; they are filming at a nearby naval college. How could he refuse the enchanting letter penned by Beatrice Delap which said:
‘Captain Jack Sparrow, At Meridian Primary School, we are a bunch of budding young pirates and we were having a bit of trouble mutiny-ing against the teachers, and we’d love if you could come and help.
‘Beatrice Delap, aged nine, a budding pirate.’
This video shows what happened when he turned up:
By Ellee, on October 8th, 2010
International a doptions should not just be accessible for celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Madonna.
I’ve heard of two stories about about these adoptions recently – one is inspiring, and the other is tragic, denying a young boy left disfigured after being thrown face down on a fire, the chance of a loving home.
I’ll tell you about 10year-old Kevin Wafula first who was flown to America from Kenya for major reconstructive surgery to his face after being hurled face-first into a burning fire when he was only 4 or 5 years old. He was left with a disfigured face and the loss of his left hands, and had been cruelly abandoned by his parents on the streets of Kenya when he was little, and lived in an orphanage there.
The generosity of philanthropist Paul Zimmerman (Kevin’s legal guardian in the States) and the South Hill Rotary Club funded Kevin’s trip from Kenya. Shriners Hospital provided his reconstructive surgeries free of charge in the Washington community where he settled in well the local school. He has had three major reconstructions over the last few months, enabling Kevin to sleep with his eyes closed, but he now has to leave America. On 18th October Kevin is due to fly back to Kenya. Several people in his American community have warmed to him so much that they expressed an interest in adopting him, but are unable to because of complex international adoption bureaucracy. He will return to his orphanage, turning his back on the kind of hope and future opportunities he may never have again.
I find that tragic.
Then there is the inspirational story of Francesca Polini who lives in London with her banker husband Rick and offered to adopt a black or Asian child because of the national shortage of ethnic minority couples offering to adopt – only to be refused because they were “too white”. What makes Francesca’s story remarkable is that she was not wanting to adopt because of infertility difficulties, but because she and her husband genuinely wanted to give a child from a deprived background the chance to live in a loving environment.
Francesca, a former Greenpeace communications director, eventually adopted a baby girl from Mexico after overcoming countless obstacles and bureaucracy and believes there should be a radical review of the UK adoption system, with regulated international adoption agencies being able to help families in the UK, instead of being forced to use less reputable agencies overseas.
She has also set up an organisation called Adoption with Humanity, and has written an enthralling book recounting her experiences. A quick search on mumsnet shows that some of the countries families have used for international adoptions include Guatemala, Kazakhstan, China, Thailand and Russia. And David Miliband and his wife Louise are perhaps the UK’s most famous couple for adopting two baby boys from America.
I met Francesca recently and I’m convinced she has the determination, energy and skills to help make a change to the complexities surrounding international adoptions in the UK.
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