The D word

I have no idea why I do it. There is no explanation for the fact that I’ve ended up with these things. Some time ago I spotted a book about the late Princess of Wales in a charity shop and bought it. Since then I’ve bought a few more, along with a couple of thimbles on Ebay though I think the thimbles had more to do with their kitsch appeal than sympathy. For some reason I have taken more interest in Diana since her death than I did when she was alive.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the books that were produced about her in the 1980’s have begun to crop up for sale amongst the bric-a-brac, possibly because someone has moved and decided to let go of a collection or because there has been a death. It is likely to be the latter because so many of her fans were loyal to the last.

Looking through those books it is impossible not to feel sad that the behaviour most of us took to be a coy shyness was in truth indicative of a fear and nervousness we could not have begun to imagine. How mean some of the comments made about her then seem now, with the benefit of hindsight. I can’t help wondering how she felt, at an age where young women are particularly self conscious about their appearance, to have all that aimed at her when she was coming to terms with such a strange new life. Regarded as one of the most elegant women of 1981 she was then voted one of The Ten Worst Dressed of 1982.

From what she said to those who recorded her thoughts, she could never really understand why she had such a potent effect on some of the men around her. I saw this for myself when a teacher at the school I attended at the time came back from a lunch break having seen her. The tough, blunt Scot was useless for the rest of the day because she had smiled at him.

Of course her daughter-in-law to be, the girl she never had the chance to meet, has all that ahead of her and the strange thing is that there has a been a lapse of time large enough for many to forget that the same things are being said all over again. That Kate is a style icon, that she is bound to encourage new interest in the British fashion industry, that she will set trends rather than follow them.

“It was really on the day that she became engaged to the Prince of Wales that she became a leader of fashion. Copies of the magnificent sapphire and diamond engagement ring were very soon on sale for anything from a few pounds to a few thousand pounds, depending on whether they were made of coloured glass or the real thing. Of course the soft blue suit, which became the perfect foil for the engagement ring, was copied everywhere too, and the colour of the season became ‘Lady Diana Blue.‘” “Princess, Leader of Fashion“, Martina Shaw

A few weeks ago I was walking behind someone who looked so much like Kate because of her clothes and hair, and I realise now that what she has in common with Diana is her ordinariness. Diana set a trend for pie crust blouses and that bobbed hairstyle because the media transmitted her look (worn by hundreds of women in central London) to thousands elsewhere. The woman I was following by chance wore her hair long, her raincoat belted in at the waist and her long boots kitten heeled because so many others of her generation do. And now even more do simply because she does.

How easily the lessons of Diana’s trials at the hands of the media have been forgotten. Kate and her family have already suffered the ignominy of being scrutinised and then criticised when her relationship with William broke down briefly. The footage of her walking quickly through a horde of photographers in the early days, head down and hunted, brought back many queasy memories of Diana and her ordeal, both before and after her marriage.

Few are willing to say it out loud, that Kate will inevitably be seen through the filter that her mother-in-law’s experience created. Every British royal bride will be for the foreseeable future. Diana has slept on her island at Althorp for over a decade now and she isn’t coming back but her influence is as powerful as if she had risen from the dead. The special but intangible wedding gift she has given both her boys is contact and experience of the real world. Their experience of normality may still be a long way off from that of the man who waves at them as they drive past today but they are so much closer to it than their father and his siblings ever were.

I hope that this gift will give the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton a fighting chance. I wish them a long, happy and drama free life, full of all the things that a certain blonde, whose memorabilia I will probably continue to accumulate, was denied.

Royal Wedding Charity Fund
Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund

Better than the real thing

A week or two ago there was a bit of a fuss over Cheryl Cole’s hair. Someone in the media felt it was time to notice the teeny-weeny disclaimer on the ad for the L’Oreal hair product she has been promoting. Those flowing locks in the photos? They aren’t all hers! Shock! Horror! She wears extensions!

This revelation has led to complaints to the Advertising Standards Agency by outraged viewers who believe that Cheryl’s hair only looks that good because of her natural hair extensions. Actually, they aren’t even natural ones. Her stylist says that the glue used on the natural ones was damaging her hair. The complainants include journalist and parent Daisy Goodwin who said that her nine year old daughter had asked her to buy the product because she wanted her hair to be just like Cheryl’s. I guess she wasn’t interested in any of the hundreds of other products pushed at us that have disclaimers for hair extensions or false eyelashes worn by celebrities in these ads.

The fact that Cheryl has managed to get nine year olds pestering their mums to buy a product is a testament to her power as a style icon, although I think much of her appeal lies in the fact that she is a gorgeous version of the girl next door. The girl next door would probably wear extensions if she could afford to maintain them but she has probably blown all her cash on one pair of Chanel earrings, or a high street version of a dress worn by Kate Moss.

Recently I was asked for directions by a young woman who was carrying a very smart Gucci bag. A smart Gucci carrier bag. They carry home evening gowns and handbags worth thousands of pounds and are then sold on by enterprising Ebayers. They are actually worth something in themselves. In Knightsbridge and Mayfair they end up amongst malodorous coffee grounds and vegetable peelings unless they are extracted in time by a maid or housekeeper with an entrepreneurial streak. I’m not proud, I’ve done it myself. They’re great for storing accessories. The best one I’ve bagged came from Miu Miu.

Naomi Klein's "No Logo" revealed the lengths that global brands will go to keep us interested. When I first read it I’m afraid that I was really impressed at how crafty they are. The hold of brands like Adidas is extraordinary, their products are as likely to be worn by those who have no intention of going near a track as those who do. I don’t know when they began designing items that fell entirely into the category of fashion but the dress I spotted in a catalogue shows that their place in the hearts of the fashion conscious is secure. If the girl next door wants to wear that dress (and she does) they’re doing fine.

Unfortunately the credit crunch has meant that funds are even more limited for those with expensive taste but it would appear that some aren’t letting a lack of cash get in their way. Shoplifting has become more common as those who really want something just steal it. The other option is of course the knock off. The local authorities do their best to clamp down on anyone selling this stuff in markets and at car boot sales but I suppose that as long as there is a demand there will be a supply. No thought given to those who make these clothes and accessories, working in sweatshops for little pay.

That also applies to some of the high street stores that produce fashionable but really cheap clothes. Primark seems to go out of its way to be seen as ethical after accusations of the use of child labour. If they are ever be able to control their supply chain to the extent that unacceptable practices of that kind are eradicated no one will be embarrassed to admit that they shop there. At this point I put my hand up and admit that I have come home with a brown paper biodegradable Primark bag full of cheap gloves or socks. And yes, I did feel guilty.

For some years The Attached One worked as a warehouse supervisor for a company that supplied leather clothing to a number of high street stores. This was at around the time when the demand for a constant supply of new designs developed, which meant short runs of a specific design that would hopefully sell out. If that happened the run would be repeated before the taste for it faded.

What amazed me was the disposability of these clothes. I keep clothes for years and make them last. I can’t imagine throwing anything away unless it is in shreds. It turned out that some don’t actually buy and then bin. They buy, wear, find a fault and return it to the shop for a refund. He and his colleagues would spend hours checking and processing returns.

One person at the company was developing the concept of selling designs that were near copies of clothes worn by celebrities or on screen. As Seen On Screen, ASOS, is doing rather well these days. As good as the real thing if not better.

All this makes me even more surprised that anyone was bothered that Cheryl’s hair has had some help. In an era when breast enlargements are something that a man might pay for as a gift for the woman in his life it seems a bit odd that anyone can get worked up over extensions.

A lttle interaction goes a long way

I spent yesterday afternoon in the company of a BBC radio producer and an expert on the built environment. And then I rushed off to my job as a cleaner. The unusual encounter came about as a result of a comment I made on the BBC’s website, specifically the Radio 4 “iPM” programme’s comment section, regarding CCTV.

Internet access has opened up opportunities for communication that were unheard of just a few years ago. There was a time when you had to rely on the post to get your point of view across to a news programme, which took a while and there was likely to be some editing. Now you can email an opinion and, depending on the time available or the number of emails received, your comment could be aired as soon as it arrives.

The radio phone in show has been a huge success in Iraq, following the fall of Saddam Hussain, Iraqi citizens rushing to exercise their right to express an opinion after years of having to keeping them to themselves. This form of expression seems to have been born in 1940’s America, when some talk show hosts began to take calls from their listeners. Now they take emails and text messages as well.

The BBC has become particularly good at involving their viewers and listeners in programme making. That’s how I came to be standing under a busy flyover on a hot afternoon with two people who were far more confident about what they were doing than I was. We were feet away from the place where a man had died, alone, after being stabbed in a grimy subway. Even before this happened I had felt that this space needed to be used in order to prevent an assault of this nature. The incident had led to calls for CCTV, which I feel would be expensive and pointless, and this was confirmed by Henry, an expert on this kind of problem.

I couldn’t quite believe that I was actually talking to the man whose book I had read in order to give me some plan of action but Chris, the radio producer, had arranged it so that we could discuss the phenomenon of SLOAP (space left over after planning). We hope that the feature about this on a Saturday afternoon radio programme will encourage some debate about the problems caused by these blank underused spaces. They tend to come about when large structures like flyovers are imposed on existing communities by urban planners who don’t go back to see the impact of their creations.

The presence of an expert allowed me to test the ideas that I had for using the space in a positive way. I would probably not have had access to him had I not expressed my opinion in the way I did. Someone at the BBC recognised that my story would have some appeal to other listeners which made it worth their while investigating. Everyone gains.

The Vanessa Feltz Show on BBC Radio London is a very popular call-in, airing between 9am and noon, Monday to Saturday. Charming, funny Vanessa has just won the Sony Radio Academy Speech Radio Personality Award. I think part of her appeal is that she really has been through the mill and isn’t afraid to talk about it. She comes across as someone who gets it when her callers describe their experiences but she isn’t afraid to declare herself if she disagrees with you. Her show is a very good way of gauging the opinion of a cross section of Londoners which is why politicians and other significant public figures are prepared to appear on it and take questions from listeners. The Mayor of London is a regular. Listen online and see if you agree with me.

I hope that my rather rambling comments will lead to a positive outcome in my neighbourhood as a result of my interaction with the media. It was certainly made easy for me by a friendly BBC man with smiley eyes and a man who is (thankfully) obsessed with his subject.

I love the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0089nbb
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/radio/presenters/vanessa/index.shtml

Michael, the latest Diana? Err, I don't think so...

I have taken to listening to the Vanessa Feltz Show, a phone-in, on weekday mornings but today I switched it off before it was over, once I realised that it was to be a wall-to-wall love-in for Michael Jackson fans.

One of my recent posts described the unease I feel, since the child sex abuse allegations made against him, if I happen to watch one of his videos. I needn’t have worried. Since the news of his death it has become clear that the overwhelming majority of those contacting bodies such as the BBC to express their opinions are more interested in his creativity than in whether he was a preferential paedophile.

He was cleared of the allegations and, in his defence, he had a very unusual, troubled childhood and was milked for his talent, whatever the psychological cost to him. I expect columns will be written about the form his strangeness took. Body Dysmorphic Disorder perhaps (think of the surgery he had on his face). I have found myself thinking of the reclusive Howard Hughes who probably had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and the people who took advantage of it to become his best mates.

I suspect that Jackson was, in his mind, stuck at ten years old and this probably did play a part in his need to be in the presence of younger people. The problem is that anyone else less marketable with this mindset would have been told very firmly by those around them that this would not do but there was too much to be gained by humouring him. He was clearly vulnerable if not actually predatory and I feel that, if anything untoward did take place, those who enabled it are as responsible as he might have been.

There is no doubt that Jackson had at least one or two in his circle who would cater to his every whim in order to skim off some of the wealth he generated. They must be rubbing their hands together at the royalties that are rolling in at this very moment as a result of the many tribute shows being broadcast to mark his death. I was astonished that BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme felt the need to play exerts of a number of Jackson tracks. It won’t make up for the billions they would have made had he completed the final world tour he was rehearsing for.

The moment I heard the news I felt certain that someone somewhere would allege that he is now in hiding, having faked his own death. Read the message boards across the web and you’ll see that this is already happening. I predict that someone will be selling photos of the corpse before very long. For a profit of course. The circus rolls on.

There have been a number of references to the vast amount if money that he donated to charities and while that is to his credit it I would have thought more of him in this aspect if he had paid his own bills first. As it is he died in considerable debt and I have no doubt that the three children that he somehow produced (please, no details) will suffer for this. I expect that they are being watched like hawks to see if talent is genetically transferred.

Alas, the fuss over Jackson has overshadowed the news of the death of the lovely Farrah Fawcett. I wasn’t really a fan of “Charlie’s Angels” but she was such a star that she was everywhere. My neighbour’s teenage son, Jameel, was a Farrah fan and the image of her in a clingy, revealing top, taped to the wall in his room will always stay with me. She epitomised the ‘70’s beauty and millions must have wanted to look just like her. How sad that a surgically deformed man of dubious reputation has taken some of the remaining glory that she should have been entitled to. Never mind Farrah, you’ll always be fabulous babe.

Through a glass, darkly, and whilst wearing dark glasses

I was channel surfing a few nights ago when I came across a documentary about Eric Gill, the sculptor. As I began to watch it there was something at the back of my mind, a slightly uncomfortable feeling. Eventually I remembered that Eric Gill was thought to have been a child abuser. This was confirmed by a visit to Wikipedia. These weren’t just allegations made against him, he described his activities in his own diaries.

Eric Gill was responsible for monuments, sculptures and plaques all over the country, the work of almost forty years. Much of his work is to be found in churches and he had quite a lot to say about man’s relationship with God. Some may wonder if God has had quite a lot to say to him, if there is an afterlife. As far as I know no one has asked that his work be destroyed or removed, and typefaces that he designed are still in use. Does this mean that the work of a self confessed abuser can be regarded as absolutely separate from the crimes that he has committed? Should I feel bad for liking the work of Eric Gill?

I find it difficult to sit through a Michael Jackson video, even though he was found not guilty on all charges of sexually abusing children in 2005. I wonder how many people in his entourage breathed a sigh of relief when that happened, not because they were concerned about him or believed in his innocence but because it meant that there was nothing to stop his music being played by the respectable and therefore royalties would still roll in. I’m no fan of his later stuff, but if “Don’t stop ‘Til You Get Enough” comes on I’ll watch it, feeling queasy and guilty all the way through it.

When it comes to Gary Glitter that opportunity never arises. His former backing band are till touring but I doubt if he has made much money from royalties lately. I loved Gary Glitter’s music when I was a kid and when the charges against him were first made public I couldn’t believe it. I suppose that by not buying his albums his former fans are punishing him in the only way they can. I suspect this means that the Glitter Band can’t use any material that he wrote and have to come up with their own songs. If I came across an old LP in a charity shop I might even consider buying it (not that I have the equipment to play it on any more) but I probably wouldn’t show it to anyone.

There is just something about a charge of child abuse that leaves a stain that cannot be erased or ignored. It isn’t like any other crime, partly because those who commit this kind of offence tend to keep on doing it or trying to. You can’t help feeling that even when most offenders of this nature are caught out they really don’t believe that they’ve done anything wrong. Society can tolerate a murderer who has done his or her time being amongst them but rarely a proven paedophile. The strange thing is that “Alice In Wonderland” is still a best seller when it must be obvious to anyone with functioning brain cells that its creator, Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), had an unhealthy interest in photographing little girls. There is no evidence that he took his attentions towards his models any further but I am sure that if Dodgson was alive today he would have taken advantage of the internet in the same way that many paedophiles have.

That looking is considered to be as bad as touching means that the career of an actor like Chris Langham is probably over. He was one of the main characters in “The Thick Of It”, a very popular TV satire of the Blair Government, but since his conviction for downloading child pornography he has not been seen in anything other than vehicles clearly meant to rehabilitate his career. In Langham’s case the images in question went quite a lot further than small girls in tastefully arranged drapery. They included video clips of the most violent kind and extreme kind. The impact on his colleagues must have been devastating. To find that someone who you may have introduced your own children to has tastes of this kind must have been shattering, knowing that your very successful television career may now depend on the amount of distance you can put between him and your next great script must have been almost as unnerving.

I still don’t know how I feel about this. I am thinking of buying a DVD of “The Thick Of It”, even though it features Langham. That Glitter LP might turn up. If it does I’ll keep the volume down.

Remembering

There has been a fuss over the failure of the French administration to invite a member of the British Royal Family to the commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the D Day landings. If French commentators are to be believed Mr Sarkozy was so keen on a love-in with his new best friend, US President Oabama, that he forgot about asking along the only head of state who took a part in WW2. Mr Obabama’s intervention has meant that Prince Charles will now be attending the event. We will at least be spared the prospect of the Queen’s outfits being compared with those of the elegant clothes horse that is Madame Sarkozy. The true stars of the show are, as ever, being overlooked.

I’m not sure why the memory of a particular D Day veteran makes me well up. We were in the art gallery of the Imperial War Museum in 2004, standing in front of a painting of Arromanches, liberated on the 6th June 1944. A pensioner was standing next to us wearing his beret and medals. He had a huge smile on his face. “I was there,” he said, “Arrowmancheese!” He couldn’t pronounce the name of the place where he might have been killed but in the tradition of Tommies from Wipers to The Sandpit he had made it sound more interesting. He didn’t tell us anything else about himself and we have no idea what he did there but the thought of that encounter still moves me to tears.

I wonder whether most people understand the hurt felt over that delayed invitation by many of those marking the 65th anniversary today. The 60th anniversary of the D Day landings in Normandy was a big occasion. Everyone from the BBC to the Royal Family turned out for events in the UK and France. There seemed to be a sense that this was the last time that so many survivors of the Allied landings would be able to gather at one time, as age and ill health would now begin to take their toll. There were special events, exhibitions, television programmes, in particular there was an attempt to explain to a much younger generation the significance of the event and the role played by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

There must have been a time when the Second World War was something that most wanted to forget, especially those on the home front. Victory in Europe meant the removal of tape from windows because there were no more air raids, no more blackouts and nights spent in shelters. Today we make do and mend because we choose to recycle. It is hard to imagine what it was like to long for new clothes. Goodbye Utility, hello Dior. For those who had been away for years, so long in fact that their children did not recognise them, there were different things to forget. The sight of good friends blown to pieces. The fear and hunger of those who were prisoners of war. The terrible recurring memories to be endured in silence. All that misery, anger and pain buried in the work and play of “normal” life.

My great uncle, whose part in “The Great War” ended in a shell hole where he was found with a broken leg by the opposition, rarely talked about what had happened to him. He became a clergyman in the years between the wars and returned to France In 1944 as a chaplain in the Territorial Army. My limited understanding of what he went through comes from Sunday afternoons watching “The World At War” as a child. I remember craning my neck to look at the memorial to the Royal Artillery at Hyde Park Corner when we passed it on the bus because there was something sad and beautiful about those caped figures. I got to know the mock up of a WWI trench at the Imperial War Museum quite well although I have to be honest - this little girl didn’t really get it. Someone I knew loved black and white war films because they reminded her of the exciting and liberated days when she drove an ambulance during air raids. Looking back I realise that references were made constantly to those wars because they had such a profound effect on those who had lived through them but I had no real understanding of that at the time.




Living with someone who spends quite a lot of his time making models of planes, tanks and ships has left me a little more informed about WW2 but it was Northern Ireland and the Falklands that had the most impact on me. I grew up in a city that was under threat from IRA bombs so I couldn’t help but understand some of the fear. I watched the news reports from the Falklands but it took years for me to develop a real understanding of what war can do to those who engage in it. The odd thing is that it was my encounter with someone who didn’t go to the Falklands that stays in my mind.

In 1990 I got talking to an exceptionally tall man who used to hang out in the subway at South Kensington Underground Station. He clearly wasn’t a rough sleeper but he usually had a can in his hand. Eventually he told me that he had been persuaded to join the Welsh Guards by his father, which he could deal with until the Falklands came along. He had not been on the boat when it left and in the course of avoiding the MPs who had come to find him he had jumped from a window causing irreparable damage to his back. The irony was that he had to live with the guilt of avoiding the tragedy of the Sir Galahad and the Sir Tristram because he deserted whilst being on a pension for his disability. In a home of his own but marginalised by society, he felt that he had more in common with homeless alcoholics than the men he had trained with.

He isn’t the only one I have come across who had been talked into a career in the armed forces (usually by a civilian parent) at a time when becoming involved in an something other than a tour of Northern Ireland was unlikely. It was a bit of shock suddenly to find yourself being sent to war. I don’t judge them as I do not know whether I would have the courage to fight if I was told to. It means that I am all the more impressed by those who are joining up now, with a clearer knowledge of the risks they face. They can hardly have escaped the news reports and videos posted on the internet make it difficult to hide the truth. They have something that isn’t often mentioned these days, a sense of duty. I heard that word, duty, used by a member of the Royal British Legion when I stopped by at the local branch to take a photograph. It is that sense of duty that makes someone organise the sale of the poppies that fund the Legion’s work, and keep on doing it for thirty years. I hope that a sense of duty is behind the attendance by Prince Charles at the commemoration in France and any future invitations from Mr. Sarkozy.

“Their lives have ended, but dreams are not yet lost
if you remember in your laugh and song
these boys who do not sing and laughed not long.”

from “The Lost” by Herbert Corby




http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/
http://www.remembering.org.uk/ra_memorial.htm

That villainous creature, the teenage mother

A couple of days ago a discussion about teenage pregnancies took place on the excellent Vanessa Feltz show on BBC Radio London. It turns out that every year around 57,000 teenage girls become pregnant in the London area. Some have protested at the reaction they get from the general public. They aren’t seen as role models.

At my school very few girls fell into this category and those who did were regarded as rather stupid by the ones who had plans for the future. This did not mean that we weren’t having sex. We had taken on board the information provided during sex education lessons and in those pre-HIV days this usually meant taking the contraceptive pill. I wonder how many of those who took this superior attitude now have gone on to have children? I suspect they have left it too late by putting their careers first and discovered that, in spite of what we were led to believe by teachers and parents, it is not possible to have it all.

We are now in a situation where older women are trying to fix the situation that the passing of time has left them in, using fertility treatment to give them the children that come too easily to those who succumb to a persuasive boyfriend in the heat of the moment. It has to be said that in both situations having the ideal father for your child is not likely to be the motivating factor. Older women may have searched in vain for Mr. Right and girls are probably on the receiving end of a good deal of persuasion that they have found him.

The irony is of course that it is the teenager who is at the right age to cope with pregnancy and produce healthy children. It is the mature mother who runs the risk of a child with significant (and expensive) health issues. Midwives will tell you that younger mothers have quicker and relatively trouble free births, whereas older mothers sometimes have a harder time and their children are more likely to need intensive post natal care.

I wonder if there ever was a time when the majority of young women married before becoming pregnant. I suspect that there were far more “unwanted” pregnancies than we will ever really know about and a great many more people “living in sin” than was admitted at the time. The fact is that women were afraid of getting pregnant because childbirth could kill you in an age when midwives were poorly informed. The urge to procreate is a powerful thing and resists all the rules that society thinks it can impose. Some sacrificed their own chance of motherhood to their careers as teachers, nurses and carers for other people’ children. How often were these women sneered at and described as “dry old maids”? How many women committed suicide because they were conscious of the shame of being pregnant but unmarried?

It’s very sad to hear that some teenage mothers have been on the receiving end of abusive comments from some older people. Where this has happened I think it has more to do with the suggestion that they are all living off the state rather than ensuring that they can support themselves and their child before becoming mothers. Times are hard and there is a largely unfounded theory that a teenage mother automatically qualifies for free public housing, unlike the many single men who are the ones most in need of this kind of accommodation. How frustrating it must be for a man who has been on the council waiting list for most of his adult life to see a very young pregnant girl “get” the flat that he has waited years for. Undoubtedly, a small number of young women who, having seen others (in some cases their own mothers) benefit from a system that tries to ensure that every child born in the UK has an adequate roof over its head, deliberately become pregnant in order to benefit from it themselves. However I don’t think it’s that easy for all of those concerned.

Someone usually takes in that teenager, even when she is turned out by an outraged father. This is often the mother of the boyfriend who allowed that underage girl to share a bedroom with her son in the first place. This seems to happen so often now that I can’t help feeling that there is a degree of calculation in all this. They are guaranteed at least one grandchild during their lifetime, unlike the parents whose well-educated, well brought up daughters have left them waiting in vain.

I also feel that we are missing the point when it comes to schoolgirl mums. How often does the person who got her pregnant get punished or even criticised? Unless you have been through it yourself it is hard to describe the pressure that the person you believe that you love at that moment can exert when they want sex. You don’t want to lose them and, for a very young woman who has yet to develop the self-confidence that an older woman searching for the right man has, it may seem as though this is your one and only chance for love.

A few months ago I happened to overhear a discussion between two young men that was mostly about girlfriends and parenthood. It was a fascinating insight into the older teenage mind but it revealed an unsettling degree of confusion. They seemed critical of those of their peers who had become parents but their own physical needs and desires were likely to get in the way of common sense when it came to getting what they wanted. The concerns about HIV and AIDs that dominated my teenage years had passed them by. And so the cycle continues.

One of the things that struck me about the radio discussion was the number of callers who had been teenage (and often schoolgirl) mums but had gone on to gain an education, even a Master’s Degree. One young woman had married the father of her child when she was a few weeks away from giving birth to her child. Her husband was now a plumber and although they were still living with the in-laws she was determined to be part of a self-supporting family.

I still believe that it is preferable that parenthood should be put off until those considering it are in a financial position to fund it. I no longer sneer at young women who want to be wives and mothers rather than having a career. Those who become pregnant when they are going through their education should be given the option of continuing it at some stage but I believe that the interests of the child should come first. Mum should be there until they start school but should expect to start supporting herself or re-enter education at this stage. I think fathers should be on the receiving end of more criticism for their part in getting very young girls pregnant – it’s nothing to be proud of that you’re the absent father to several children by different women, especially if you aren’t paying for them.

Above all I believe that children should never be punished as they once were for being the consequence of a moment of weakness. They should be regarded as a very precious resource whatever the circumstances of their conception.

Save the Innocent 3

Richard Reed, Jon Wright and Adam Balon are, depending on your view point, brave or cunning. They are the founders of Innocent Drinks, the company that sells a range of fruit and vegetable products to those who are prepared to pay a premium for smoothies and veg pots made without additives, flavourings and anything else that might worry the concerned consumer.

Ten years ago they risked £500 of their own cash on fruit which they turned into smoothies, sold at a music festival. They did so well that they packed in their day jobs and set up the company. Their positive, ethical approach to business and their charitable efforts have won them a loyal customer base. However this has now been threatened by the decision to allow Coca Cola, a company that has been the target of fierce criticism by human rights, environmental and anti-globalisation activists, to become a minority shareholder in Innocent.

Recently they invited some of their customers along to an AGM where they explained their reasons for taking the decision. They want to expand into Europe and continue their charitable activities at a time when everyone, including potential investors, is tightening their belts. They felt that Coca Cola offered them the best chance of doing this on their own terms.

I watched their responses to the criticism on YouTube (the meeting was recorded) and have to admit that it brought me back down to earth. These men are running a business and they have marketed it so well that many of its customers have forgotten that this is what they are - customers.

The fact that Innocent donates so much to charity does not mean that we can forget that its main aim is to make money. The reality is that in order to be in the position to be so generous it does have to generate a considerable income. If those who feel that Coca Cola’s dealings around the world are so despicable that they taint everything they touch then they must vote with their feet and go squash their own fruit. If they are that concerned about the environment they would be doing this anyway because, lets face it, it does use up petrol and electricity to make and sell all those bottles with the cute smiley faces on them.

I admire Reed, Wright and Balon because they are very, very good at what they do which is marketing. I am also really impressed that they have given away so much that they could have kept for themselves, including the right to run their own business without the interference of whining customers. Inviting them in through the door at Fruit Towers to ask awkward questions could be part of a cynical marketing ploy but if that is the case more fool them for being suckered. An article in The Independent newspaper makes it clear that Innocent’s founders are not that innocent:

“The reality was rather more businesslike even before Coke came on board. Reed, after reading geography at Cambridge, was working at BMP, the advertising agency whose clients include Barclaycard. Wright, an engineering student, had joined Bain, the big US management consultancy – hence his time in California. The third founder, Adam Balon, used his economics degree to secure a job at rival consultancy McKinsey.”
“Slaughter of the Innocent? Or is Coke the real deal?”, Richard Northedge, Sunday 12 April 2009.

Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” (2000) persuaded many that they should be more discerning about their consumer choices and aware of the impact that they can have on working conditions and pay, but I am sure I am not the only one who was impressed by the cleverness of the campaigns run by some companies. The consumer should learn to keep one foot on the floor when he or she falls in love with a brand. Rushing into a love affair without taking precautions is a mistake whatever the context.

By taking Coca Cola’s money Innocent’s bosses have bought themselves an aspidistra and given their dedicated fans a dose of reality. There was a price to be paid for all the fluffiness. I will continue to crochet little hats for their annual Age Concern fundraiser. Viva the Innocent 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBvTI-4AHTQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp7w7ifIhPc
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/slaughter-of-the-innocent-or-is-coke-the-real-deal-1667412.html
http://www.killercoke.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4603511.stm