I am Woman, Hear Me Roar (thanks Helen Reddy)

I had dinner with four Uni friends last night, who I met when we were all mature students some twenty years ago, all women and all very much my kind of women – bright, intelligent, funny, with a great work ethic, good appetites, and in favour of a decent drink. Some of us hadn’t seen each other for several years, we spent time trying to pin down exactly when we last met, between 5-9 years. It didn’t matter, we carried on where we had left off during our last meal in exactly the same restaurant, quickly catching up with each other’s lives, families, jobs, partners, we ate and drank, and our carriages arrived a bit before midnight. Actually, I was parked around the corner.

Yesterday afternoon, during a half hour writing break, I watched a comedy drama on BBC Four, called A Civil Arrangement with the very agreeable and now silver-haired Alison Steadman. SPOILER ALERT. She played the mother of the bride. The bride was gay. The wedding a civil partnership. It was basically a monologue, though other characters dropped in and out silently. I know it wasn’t based in a big city, but in the provinces, and I know not everyone is okay with having a lesbian in their family, especially, as I am constantly reminded by people who live in the provinces, people who live outside London (actually there are quite a few inside London who have problems too). I did think it would have worked better on radio, then discovered it had been on radio, and possibly also in the theatre, and now it was getting its TV airing. I read one review prior to watching, actually the review made me want to watch, before that, I didn’t much care to see it. I knew it would be full of stereotypes and I knew I would be angry. I did laugh, some of it was very funny, and Alison Steadman always delivers, but my anger began when the soon-to-be daughter-in-law emerged in leathers and on a motorbike and continued where lesbians were portrayed as having no sense of humour. I can be very funny, quite often, really, I can. Then, after Alison Steadman and her brand new daughter-in-law have a snog at the wedding (the whole way through there are gradual suggestions that Alison Steadman’s character is falling in love with the wonderful Janis), they end up having an affair. It ended with Alison Steadman in leathers (and very lovely she was too) and her daughter-in-law waiting by her motorbike, no doubt to be taken off to Hebden Bridge for the weekend or Lesbos. I’ve never been to Lesbos. I have been to Hebden Bridge, but only en route to another location.

There were some lovely father/daughter, mother/daughter moments, especially when the father refused to go to the wedding, as he could not cope with it, and then, just as Alison Steadman had offered her daughter her arm, the father appeared all jolly and smiling and at peace with it all (see, miracles do happen), and the mother was left, alone. I loved that, it was true and sad and honest. What I didn’t love was the fact that yet again, lesbians were written and highlighted in a way anyone of ethnic origin was written about in the seventies, as stereotypes and usually the punchline to a weak joke.

I know I bang on about it, but banging creates noise and noise creates change, and those who remain silent, do nothing. If I wrote a Black or Asian character being depicted in the way lesbians usually are, I would (rightly) be reprimanded.

When will we start to see lesbians being written as women, not as ‘other’ to women? In case you hadn’t noticed, we are women, we do what other women do, we just happen to like other women in a way our other women friends don’t – actually I reckon quite a lot of them do, but would never admit it, or have, but would never say. When can we just be women, and not have our own TV series where we are other to the rest of the world, where we live in a ghetto, where we either have to be killed or kill ourselves or move away, or live with a dark secret, or marry a man? When will we just be? The inspirational David Simon (The Wire, Treme) writes women like me brilliantly, because he doesn’t make a big deal out of the fact that they are gay and the whole plot does not revolve around the fact that they are gay. As Stonewall’s apt tee shirt says – Some people are gay, get over it.

This comedy drama also made the need for equal marriage and equal civil partnership, more urgent, so that we can start to see weddings and civil ceremonies in comedies and dramas, with same-sex or opposite sex couples, and not separate one from the other. As long as we are kept separate we will stay separate. If you want to stay separate, that’s another matter, I don’t. So let’s stop reinforcing that all people who live in the suburbs or provinces can’t cope with anyone who is ‘other’, and give them a little more credit. They are not all right-wing homophobes.

My blogs are usually driven by some kind of anger with the world, and this one is no exception. I wasn’t sure how to start the blog, what to say exactly, but after dinner with my Uni friends last night, I realised that not one of us had used the word gay or lesbian. I was talked to and about just like the others, I was not made out to be different by my heterosexual women friends, because that’s not how they see me and not how I see myself, because I am a woman, just like them. The only difference for me was that I don’t have children, and the rest of them do. But that is another story and another blog and has nothing to do with me being gay.

For now, see me as a woman and a writer, who is very often quite funny.

Coming Out About Cancer

I was invited to Bowel Cancer UK’s 25th Anniversary reception at No 10 yesterday. I went with my wife, Stella and my eldest nephew, Eyal. I went because my sister, Eyal’s mother, died of bowel cancer on February 3, 2011 age 53. One friend’s father died of this only a couple of weeks ago, another friend’s father has just been diagnosed. I went because I want to support this charity and make people more aware of bowel cancer, actually, of cancer in general, because, let’s face it, cancer is cancer, it ends up causing the same end result in those who are unlucky to have it, and whether we pretty it up in pink (there is nothing pretty about cancer) or have problems dealing with the less ‘appealing’ cancers such as bowel cancer, or don’t even think of the ones that rarely get a mention – my cousin is currently 9 years into Fallopian tube cancer, and on the twelfth or thirteenth different course of chemotherapy – it’s not going away. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer 12 years ago, and each day she is here is a miracle. Then there are all the friends who have been and are sick, and those who are no longer here.

A few things happened yesterday at the anniversary reception. I hadn’t given the event much thought, other than what to wear, booking a cab, asking the rain Gods to hold off so our suede shoes wouldn’t be ruined (and the Gods listened). Architect, Lord Foster spoke wonderfully well, I thanked Charlene White for her moving speech at the BC UK Spring Walk last year, and had a moment with Julia Bradbury outside the men’s loos – which I almost went in to by mistake – they have tinted glass in their loos, she said. I won’t ask why, I said. I looked at some gorgeous paintings, a Lowry, some Olympic art, a Henry Moore sculpture which I was told I could touch, so I did. Actually, I stroked it, it was that beautiful. What I hadn’t counted on was being brought to tears by my sister’s oncologist – it hadn’t occurred to me that he would be there. Whenever my sister and I went to see him, we wondered what colour bow tie he would be wearing. On the days he was more casually dressed, open neck shirt, no tie, he seemed like a different person. Just as Lord Foster started to speak, I saw the man with the bow tie and tapped him on the back. He turned round, looked at me, I flashed my name tag towards him, he paused, and I said, Shelley, Leah Israel’s sister. He stepped back and took a deep breath. I’ve never seen my sister’s oncologist without my sister. Ouch.

And of course my sister’s oncologist knew my wife’s oncologist, because cancer is cancer. Yes, it acts differently in everyone, and there are so many different treatments, and every day a new trial is underway and some breakthrough drug is available, and it works for some people some of the time and for a few people it works really, really well. Six months after my sister died, the treatment she had been seeking for several months on the NHS (which she eventually did have and partly self-funded), and which was denied by her PCT because it had not been approved in this country by NICE, (although was available elsewhere in the world), was approved by NICE.

I met some lovely people last night, caring people, who donate and do what they can for a charity that is relatively small compared to its higher profile cousins. I say cousins because they are all related, all the cancers, and treatments and drugs that cross over the cancers. Yes, there were some famous people there, apart from Lord Foster (I wouldn’t have known it was him if he hadn’t spoken) and Julia Bradbury (see above), I actually wasn’t looking to see who was there, because the famous, the people off the telly, are people, they do what the rest of us do, they suffer from the same illnesses and eat and go to the loo, they get angry and tired and frustrated, except, the one thing those people off the telly do, which the rest of us can’t, is make a difference to how the public perceive just about everything. They matter because we listen to them. I know there are many well known people who talk about their cancers publicly, but if more famous people with some of the less ‘fashionable’ cancers came forward, imagine the difference it would make. Some people moan about breast cancer having such a high-profile, but that’s because of the celebrities who come out about cancer. When I was growing up, cancer was never discussed, people used to say the C word, as if it was a secret code. Some people still say the C word. We all know what it means.

I had a great conversation with a trustee, and the CE of Bowel Cancer UK and various other committed people. I decided that the culture in the UK, particularly when it comes to the middle classes, is to not say anything about anything and hope it will go away – particularly in relation to health. The trustee told me that generally, in Scandinavian countries, their cancer survival rates are higher NOT because their medical care is better, but because they are diagnosed sooner. They are more at ease with their bodies and bodily functions, and they have no qualms about all the things most of us over here find too embarrassing to talk about, so while they do talk about it and do something sooner, generally, we wait. We wait and wait, and often it is too late. I’m not for one moment saying early detection guarantees that you’ll live to a grand old age, but it will give you more of a chance. But how do you change a culture?

I also discussed the government and their issues around charitable donations, and how children’s charities and animal charities do really well, but anything to do with the elderly or the less appealing charities/cancers receives much less funding. I’d always put a child ahead of me, always, but an animal, I’m not so sure. Sorry animal charities, I love my cat, she brings me enormous pleasure, but she is a cat.

After wine and canapes, a quick look out of the window to Horse Guards Parade, and a partial view of the gardens at No 10 (I was pleasantly surprised to see a small, raised vegetable patch,) I went to say goodbye to my sister’s oncologist. He does have a name, but to me, he will always be my sister’s oncologist. I told him how Leah and I used to take bets on what colour bow tie he would be wearing, and when he wasn’t, well, we weren’t very happy about it. And my sister’s oncologist told us a story last night, about when he was twenty-five his father was found dead, and left him a considerable selection of bow ties, no money and three pieces of advice. I’m sure he wont mind me sharing those with you. 1. Never play cards for money on a train with a complete stranger (because my sister’s oncologist’s father and his father’s brother, saved up to send their other brother to Canada, and he played cards with his fare money on a train with a stranger, and lost the lot). 2. Never book a restaurant for three. They always give you a table for two and squeeze in a third chair. Always book for four. 3. Never go for lunch at 1. Either 12.30 or 1.30 as the world and his mother go for lunch at 1.

My sister’s oncologist seemed more human to me yesterday, sharing personal information, telling us how privileged he feels to be doing the job he does. He said people come to him and give him specific times of their lives, bits of their lives and he feels fortunate. He said he really liked my sister, she did very well, given how sick she was, and I said I wish she had been here to know the genesis of his bow ties.

I left No 10 feeling sad and hopeful, but very aware that all cancers matter, that none is better to have or more appealing or favourable. There is nothing favourable about cancer.

Reasons to be Cheerful

full Guardian feature

Not gay = in a melancholy mood.
Ex gay = your ex is gay.
Post gay = you might have to pay a delivery fee.
Proud. YES. ALWAYS.
I am not a piece of meat. You cannot cure me.

Israel, Palestine and me

For the past couple of months I’ve been reading and listening to comments and discussions, quite a few of them heated and angry, about Israel’s National Theatre company Habima, and how the Globe Theatre must revoke its invitation from Habima to perform the Merchant of Venice in Hebrew at its forthcoming Globe to Globe season. Today I responded to a friend’s face book status about his feature in The Daily Telegraph which discusses Israel forbidding Gunter Grass into the country. This is my response to my friend, and this is a feature in the Guardian about Habima and the Globe.

I disagree with boycotting any arts (or education) organisations, as they are the ones where dialogue is usually made and enemies stand a chance to come together. When I wrote my play Eating Ice Cream on Gaza Beach for the National Youth Theatre a few years ago, we had, at an after show panel, a Palestinian, and a Jew (me) sitting side by side in a theatre discussing Israel, Palestine and the mess we have. I was shouted at by two white, middle class, middle-aged men, because I didn’t take sides (the Palestinians’ side). As one of the actors said, it is not a writer’s job to take sides. As Chekhov said, it is the writer’s job to ask questions, not to give answers. The lovely Palestinian woman said she could never have imagined that she would be sitting next to a Jew in a theatre in London talking about this subject. Israel is wrong to turn away Gunter Grass, and Habima should be allowed to come here if invited. A theatre company is not a government, it is not the voice of the politicians. If it is, you might as well stop the RSC from touring anywhere abroad. I know there are many other Israeli theatres, like the Cameri Theatre of Tel-Aviv, who could have been invited, but they were not, along with many other theatre companies from different countries who could also have been asked. I was asked to sign the Guardian letter (along no doubt with countless others), I declined. I am a Jew who does not see Israel as my home, who does not agree with the right of return, a Jew who totally and utterly disagrees with the settlements and has always been in favour of a Palestinian State, in fact I am a little fed up of promoting my opinions so that people see me for the person I am, not the person they often think I am. Nick you and I have discussed this subject many times, but boycotting the arts is not where change will be made, if anything encouraging dialogue and plays that enter into those places we dare not enter into in our real lives, is perhaps a way forward. However, I do wish Habima was doing something other than the Merchant of Venice. I’m seeing a Maori language version of Troilus and Cressida and I can’t wait, although a hip hop version of Othello is equally appealing.

Fuelling my anger

Fuelling my anger

Yesterday evening, on the way back from half an hour in Brent Cross (I know, it has to be a record) with my mum, I decided to stop at a Tesco petrol station, but the queue was so long I couldn’t be bothered to wait. This morning, en route to the supermarket I went to our local petrol station. The tank was less than a quarter full and I usually wait until levels are this low before filling up. The sign outside said SORRY OUT OF PETROL. I didn’t bother trying anywhere else. If we run out, it will be because of government scaremongering and greedy people and panic. If we run out I will walk or take public transport or use a Boris bike if convenient. Greed has never been attractive. This always happens when some government minister scares us, and hey, guess what, it’s the Easter holidays, people will be driving all over the place, but it’s best to make them buy when they really don’t need to, it looks good after all. And hey, guess what, the tanker drivers are not really going to strike, not yet anyway. In all the years we have been warned of tanker workers going on strike, I have never, personally, known anyone run out of petrol for any reason other than stupidity. If people only filled up when they really needed to, there would be enough to go around, but because we live in a first come, first served society, where look after thyself comes well before look after those who really need looking after, there is an imbalance thanks to fear and greed. It’s a government ploy, bet fuel prices go up soon, bet the panic buying of fuel in the past days will have an effect on economic growth, which the Tories will no doubt bask in having achieved. Stop being greedy, buy when you need to, not because you can or because you are scared or too bloody lazy to walk or tube or bus it, think of others as well as yourself, think of those who really need it.

The next thing to worry about, as 5th April approaches (wonder if the date has been set to coincide with the new tax year for a reason?) is the hose pipe ban in some areas. I’ve seen the posters, warning us that we are IN DROUGHT. Ok, so maybe we can do without hose pipes and baths (I prefer showers, always have, I’ve never found it appealing to lie in my own dirty water) until the reservoir levels rise, but drought? Really? Oh come on. According to my online dictionary drought means ‘A long period of abnormally low rainfall, especially one that adversely affects growing or living conditions.’ I agree that we haven’t had much rain and the farmers may well be worried, but my living conditions are fine thank you very much. There’s still water from my tap, lots of water, I can shower anytime I want, I can flush the toilet and use a watering can as many times as I want and it looks like it might just rain, so who needs to use a watering can anyway? Can we stop making everyone panic and start making everyone just a little more sensible, perhaps even responsible? Fuel shortage, water shortage, what next? Hot pasty shortage?

Mr or Mrs or Miss? Actually I prefer Ms.

It’s that time of year when household policies come through the door as fast as junk mail, offering deals of all sorts. Usually they go straight in the recycling bag, unopened. But this one looked appealing, I’d glanced at it but didn’t do anything about it, because I had no time. It has sat on the edge of my desk for over a month, its white and orange lettering prompting me every day to READ ME. When I eventually read the details, it wasn’t bad, actually it was great, £200 cheaper than all the household policies we currently have added together, you know the kind – cover your inside and outside pipes, drains, mains water, boiler, plumbing AND this one offered electricity cover too. I’d missed the ‘take out this cover’ date by a day, but the lovely woman on the phone said not to worry, all would be well AND I could still have the free carbon monoxide detector. I was on a roll. We went through financing details, I gave her my name, I asked if two of us could be named on the policy and she said, ‘we can only put one name down, but your husband can call anytime.’ I said, actually I don’t have a husband, I have a wife. Pause. ‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘Sorry,’ she said. And we continued. I felt good, I’d been open and honest, as I always am, and I had hopefully made her think again, and not assume all women, if married, were married to men. The amount of times we have to spell it out, hello, I am married to a woman, I have a wife, NOT a husband, and if you insist on including a title, I prefer Ms. I’m definitely too independent to be called Mrs and too old to be called Miss (though on occasion when I am called Mademoiselle or Signorina, I blush and take great delight, though we all know it has been said to charm, and it works every time).

This morning I received the policy. Addressed to Mr Silas. I said to Stella, ‘when I told the woman I had a wife, do you think she thought I was a bloke with a high-pitched voice, rather than a woman with a wife?’ ‘Yeah,’ Stella said, ‘I do.’

I have crossed out Mr and put Ms on the policy. Do I call and set them straight, or ignore it?

Yours

Ms Shelley Silas married to Ms Stella Duffy

Freelance not free lunch

I seem to be angrier or more upset or just driven to blog this week than any other week. But this one has been a long time coming, and it was finally propelled onto the page because someone tweeted my wife Stella, saying she is privileged to do what she does. She’s out there, in the public eye, speaking on behalf of those who cannot speak out, or are not given the chance to speak out and the person said she should do more of this, spend more of her time speaking out, for them. But she’s a writer, and she has to write in order to be where she is, and try and make a difference.

ANYWAY

She really isn’t privileged. Neither am I. I can only speak for me, so for those of you who think me (and she) might be privileged, here’s a brief history of me!

Left my secondary modern with three o-levels. First job ever, age 17 at Her Majesty’s Theatre as a dresser. I was earning the grand sum of @ £34 a week, plus tips! I LOVED MY JOB. I got it by sheer determination, I made the phone calls, wrote the letters (yeah, we had to do it the old-fashioned way, and it took time and patience, the latter of which I have very little of these days, technology has made me impatient). I did that work for some time, went to drama school, worked during all my holidays as a dresser and later as a receptionist at the Pineapple Dance Studios, and as a motor cycle messenger, (albeit for one day), and in my local chemist and then I thought PR looked like fun, so managed to secure a job with a technical PR company (I know what ball valves and actuators are, do you?). Then I worked for Townsend Thoresen (I was there when the Zeebrugge ferry disaster happened), then I worked for a woman’s magazine (where I had some short stories published – and rejected), worked my way from secretary to assistant fiction editor, left (actually was forced to leave), returned a year later to be fiction editor of another title (YES!). Did this for ages, worked in casting, as a casting assistant, which I had actually done before (in a small office in Soho with Beth Charkham, while her sister Esta was casting something big).

Applied for an English degree at Birkbeck, did that for four years (all paid for by me!) while working full-time. On to an MA in Creative writing, applied and received an award for my fees and maintenance, though I was still working full-time. By now I was in my late 30s. I started writing, but worked full-time, and gradually gave up the full-time work to write. And I have been freelance for about 15 years.

The word freelance makes some people think you don’t actually have a job, while others think, ooh, you’re so lucky, you can do what you want when you want, you can choose to get up late and go away when you want, you can watch day time TV (I never have) you don’t have to shop with everyone else at the weekend, when the supermarkets are packed with tired people with proper jobs. You can welcome the washing machine, dishwasher (we’ve only had one for 3 1/2 years, we’re not that posh) central heating repairman whenever it suits you. Yes, granted we freelancers can do all of this, and we do. But we don’t get sick pay or holiday pay or compassionate leave, or a guaranteed wage or a pension (my total pension will I think last 6 months). And if we wait for the washing machine, dishwasher, central heating repairman to turn up when he says he will, and mostly they don’t, we still have to do the work, we still have to create and finish our work in order to hope to be paid. And can I just add that often the pay comes months later.

I work whenever I can. I had intended to work on a play when I returned from university today, but I had some family business to attend to and then decided to write this blog!

I like continuity, I like to wake up, have two cups of tea, some breakfast, check my mail, tweet and Facebook and then work. All of that is a warm up for me. I prefer to have everything clear before I write and I like peace and quiet. So when we had major building work next door (six months on one side and three on the other), it was at times impossible to think, let alone write. But we did. Because we had to.

For the past two years I have been in the fortunate position of having a guaranteed income, not a great amount, but it has made an enormous difference to my otherwise financially unstable working life. I have a job at a university two days a week, and I love it. At the end of May, this job stops, and then I’m back to my financially unstable working life. Right now, apart from this lovely job, I am waiting to hear about six projects all in some stage of development, a mix of theatre, radio and TV and all with no money yet. I am also working on a new play, written on spec – that means with no advance, commission, with no money yet. Many of us do this all the time. It’s just the way this profession is for some of us. Some of you may ask why, why would you work for no money? Because the possibility of making some proper money is always there, and things could change for me over night. And mostly, I love what I do. And I’d rather do the thing I love which has the possibility of making it big, than settle for less with no change to my working life or finances. I wouldn’t change it for anything.

And yes, there are writers who get huge advances and rolling commissions, but they still work hard and they had to start somewhere. So next time you have a paid day off to welcome the washing machine, dishwasher, central heating repairman, think of me, who is not getting paid to welcome any of these workers into my house, who does not have a technical department to sort out my computer as soon as I ask for help and not have to pay for it, who has to fit in other work around my actual work, teaching and talks and talking to new writers who want advice and events which we all have to go to, it’s just part of our job. And sometimes the events are glorious and sometimes they are dull, but it is part of what we do, and making an effort counts.

I know everyone thinks we have a glamorous life, (right now I am sitting in my claret dressing gown and pyjamas) and occasionally we do, we meet inspiring people and go to wonderful events. Most writers, book writers particularly, have to go to great lengths to promote their work, which include library talks, readings and interviews and sometimes TV and radio appearances, occasionally at very late notice, (sometimes for little money, sometimes for no money, hey it’s publicity, you want them to be paid as well?).

And then there are the meetings, ones which take up a whole morning or a whole afternoon or a whole day, which put an end to any real work, because when you return home you think about the meeting, and write up those great ideas you talked about, and answer 101 e-mails. Often those meetings could be taken on the phone or Skype, but the people with proper jobs like to go out and have a coffee or a glass of wine, it’s time away from their work, why wouldn’t they? Do you know how many meetings I’ve been to which have taken up so much time and amounted to nothing?

And then there’s the back ache from sitting, and not complaining (well, maybe a little) and booking expensive time with the osteopath to help your back ache so you can sit at your desk and work and get another back ache, and so it goes on. Do you know how many times people assume I can just sit down and write and keep writing, I can switch it on? I am not a light bulb. I have flashes of inspiration, but ideas have to be developed and worked on, and that takes times, and if you’ve stuck with this blog, you will see that writers often do not have time to do the thing that makes them money, the thing that will make them money. Those writers who are in the public eye, got there because of their work, and some of them do good in the world, but they have to keep working to keep their profile so they can keep making a difference. If they stopped working, the public would forget about them and that would be it! There are those who do take time to make change in the world, but we cannot do it 24/7. We have to work, it feeds us and it feeds you.

Talking of which, I might just get an hour of writing in before dinner and TV! Then again, I have just written over 1600 words. Mushroom soup tonight. Ah, privileged me.

Sad, angry and what happens next

I’ve just been sitting at my computer crying, watching scenes from the funerals of the three children and adult shot by a gunman in Toulouse.  No parent should have to bury their child, but for a wife to bury her husband and two children made me wonder if we have achieved anything in the ‘fight against terrorism’, when innocent people are still dying, when soliders are killed in a French street because someone  doesn’t approve of the country they are fighting in, but also because he wants to avenge the death of Palestinian children by killing Jewish ones.  As a Jew, I do not consider Israel my biblical home or any other home, London is my home, it’s where I have lived since the age of two, it’s where my heart and soul are, it’s where my past, present and future are.  That the wife of the man and two boys killed (along with a girl, all buried in Jerusalem), now wants to return to Israel, will only confirm the view that Israel is the only safe place for Jews, to live and be together, away from the harm of anti Semites and right wing trouble makers.  And you know what, today, I think this too.  And it makes me so sad and angry that we have achieved nothing but more hatred and more innocent deaths, and for what?  I’m sad that the gunman is a Muslim, I had hoped he was a white, right wing neo Nazi, because all this does is create more boundaries between Jew and Muslim, Muslim and the rest of the world, pitting one against the other.  It will reinforce what so many people already think, that Muslims hate Jews and Jews have a right to live in Israel, and we take a step backwards, perhaps two.  I have no intention of ever leaving London for another other country, but I stand up for the rights of everyone, for the Palestinians and Jews and soldiers who fight for people who believe war is a good thing.  Stand with me.  We need the world to be safer for all of us, no matter what colour, race, religion, sexuality or gender.  I am sad.

This is why…

This is why, in our privileged and educated society, it is our duty to make it okay for those who are not so fortunate, to make it safer for them to be who they are without compromising their identity. This is why anyone gay in power and in the public eye, in sports and where they are considered to be role models, must think of others, as so many already do and put themselves out there, on the line, every day.

Thinking of Plastic Surgery? Buy some Tupperware instead.

For the past week I’ve heard and read a great deal about the problems concerning breast implants, and each time my anger increases. In fact anything to do with plastic or cosmetic surgery for the sole purpose of enhancing your looks, fills me with rage. Why have it in the first place? Why have your body sliced open and filled with saline, silicone, and a variety of composite materials? Why have botox, collagen lip injections or many of the other treatments available, because you honestly believe what it says on the packet, that they will make you look younger or more attractive? I totally understand having plastic surgery for needs which include congenital defects and deformities, for people undergoing gender reassignment, or for reconstruction for post breast cancer mastectomies. But just to allow a surgeon to cut and pin back and remove and fill and enhance because you want to look better, isn’t a good enough reason, IMO. When I read about a young woman in Florida whose buttocks were injected with a mixture of cement and tyre inflater, I was horrified, and the pictures were jaw dropping. It’s even been suggested that her incisions were held together with superglue. I hope this is a one off case, but I felt sad for the woman, because I cannot imagine that her treatment is reversible, or that she was so desperate, she would go to any lengths to create the ‘perfect’ body. Yes, I would rather be a stone lighter, but I know how to achieve it – eat less and exercise more, that’s my new year’s resolution, again! I think this time I might just do it. But I would never consider surgery to make my body or face look different.

I have watched my wife deal with the aftermath of surgery after breast cancer, witnessed my late sister’s blemish free stomach become extremely scarred after two major operations for bowel cancer and a liver resection. I have seen countless members of my family and friends cope with the repercussions of surgery for various illnesses, and I believe that every single one of them would rather not have been sick, would rather not have been cut into. The choice they had was surgery and treatment, or remaining unscarred and unwell. And yes, they all had choices, but choosing to live with scars, as opposed to remaining whole and die, was not a choice most of them made.

Then there’s my brilliant mum. She’s eighty-three and looks exactly what a mum at her age is supposed to look like, and I love and respect her for it. She has shrunk in height, as we all do when we grow older, she has never coloured her hair (she asked my sister and I whether she should and we both said we loved her as she was, though my dad has always joked about turning her into a blonde). She is now losing a little hair, (I fully expect this to happen to me and many of my friends), and I know it bothers her, of course it does, no one says you have to like it, but she grows older with such grace and her natural beauty increases. She has lost sight in one eye, the other is on the decline, and there is nothing that can be done to save her sight. She is an ardent reader, losing her sight will mean not being able to continue with her great passion, and it is a passion, and this makes me sad. I am already pondering audio books, not the same experience, I know and her hearing is not great. We have become accustomed to raising our voices. Then again, she has just come round to wearing hearing aids, and they do help, although she wasn’t too keen on them at first. She isn’t used to handling fiddly objects or anything high tech, the closest she gets to e-mail is typing letters and then my dad sends them. He, at the age of eighty-four, is a genius on his PC. Mum used her electric typewriter up until she and my dad properly retired last year. Sometimes she is a little unsteady on her feet, but she walks as much as she can, occasionally with the help of a stick, or my dad, and she never complains. She says there are people younger than her with worse problems, and she just has to get on with it. My mum. She’s never worn tons of make up, she doesn’t need to, she is beautiful. She isn’t one for designer labels, or any labels, she isn’t a great shopper (sadly I didn’t inherit the latter trait!). She is warm and generous and kind and stands on her feet for hours baking. She tells me to make the most of everything while I can. Everyone loves my mum, because a mum is exactly what she is and what she resembles. I cannot imagine what she would have looked like if she had any amount of cosmetic or plastic surgery or treatment, I’m just glad that she didn’t (not that it was ever in her mind), because her beauty goes deeper than her skin, and that is something that cosmetic or plastic surgery can never alter. It cannot make you a nicer person, a more successful person, a healthier person. It cannot make you younger, it cannot halt the ageing process, and even though those who have had cosmetic surgery or their teeth whitened so extremely that they resemble a badly touched-up photo, do not look younger or, in many cases, any better, they just look different and mostly they look odd. When I see men and women of all ages with distorted faces (the Duchess of Alba is a good example), due to unsuccessful (or too much) surgery, I feel sorry for them, because for some reason they thought they could do better, look better, look younger. I shudder every time I see botched surgery, irreversible botched surgery, surgery which people think makes them looks great, but which the rest of us know makes them look like extras in a horror film. We all talk about it, the lip jobs that have gone horrendously wrong and ended careers, the eye tucks which make people look strange, the face lifts which have rendered skin unable to take its natural course, to the point of no movement at all. I wonder if that’s why the current trend in all things nostalgic on television (Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire and any amount of classical adaptations) is so high, because the characters (mostly) look like us, not cosmetically enhanced versions of us.

I love my mum’s wrinkles, not that she has many. My grandmother and then my mother always taught us to wash our faces with water, no soap, and to dry our skin by moving the towel upwards in one direction only, to keep the skin firm. My grandmother had the most amazing skin, and so does my mother. My sister had wonderful skin, mine is not bad, but then I used to sunbathe as a teenager and young adult in sweltering heat and not think anything of it. But when my mum’s wrinkles show, so does her life, her eighty-three years of work and pleasure and sorrow and joy. I can see my sister and myself reflected in her wrinkles and in her face, and when people see me, they immediately see my mother. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I blame it on a culture, which shuns maturity and applauds youth, so those of us who are maturing, perhaps feel that in order to keep up with the young (which by the way, we don’t have to do by having surgery), we must pay heaps to look like the young. It doesn’t work.

I do colour my hair, probably because of the ageist world we live in, and the ageism that exists in my profession, but that’s about all I do, and anyway, I don’t think it’s the same as surgery. To many, grey hair = old = out of date = out of touch = unfashionable = we don’t want you, you can’t do the job. There is nothing attractive about an older person trying to look ‘younger’ from the chin up, the women with wrinkled necks and foreheads that don’t move, the men with ill-fitting toupées, granted I don’t know much about the latter but I doubt it requires surgery (unless you go for hair implants I suppose). You don’t look like a young person, you look like an older person trying to look young, which is not the same thing at all. Wrinkles and liver spots on necks and hands give the game away, so get wise, live for the now, be proud of who you are and stop trying to fool yourself, because you don’t fool me. When I look at you I don’t see the person you are, but the person you are trying to recreate and it doesn’t work. I’d rather live in a world where people look individual, where people grow older as they used to, than live in a world of Stepford men and women. I’m not suggesting we all walk around looking our worst (I have enough times, often in Sainsburys, and always meeting someone I know), but save your thousands of pounds for a real problem, which I hope none of us ever have. Enjoy being the person you are, rather than loosing sight of that for a false sense of appearance. As my energetic dad says, you’re as young as you feel, and he mostly feels sixty-five! He goes to the gym every week, he is constantly rushing around and living his life, being the person he is rather than the person he tries to be. I hope I am as energetic when I am sixty. I know what I want to look like if I reach his age and I know who I want to look like, two people I can see myself in and not parents I don’t recognise anymore. And I plan on doing it naturally, without faking it with surgery and injections. And I will let my hair go grey. Right now I am deciding when might be the right time. Perhaps when I am sixty.