Polishing the precious jewel

I was born and brought up twenty miles north of here, between Worcester and Birmingham, and I went to school in Edgbaston. I met my husband at college. We both started to work in different cities, but after a while we gave up on the commuting and came to Worcester. We love it here. It has its own charm. You feel part of something, with a strong sense of identity and belonging.

An important part of my life here is the cathedral. I go every week. Another thing is that my husband and I both go to Tai-Chi. It’s a new development for us, and it’s been quite a profound change in our lives.

Each week, I become more successful. But because of the way I have been brought up, and the way I think and feel, I’m not just going off to the leisure centre or buying myself a Jag. I’m working as hard as ever. I still have my feet on the ground. It just takes self-discipline.

I’m very sensitive to the outside world and I tend to form opinions according to my gut reaction. We have different papers every day, which is something we’ve done for twelve years. We have the Mail because it’s a comic, The Guardian for the Education section, The Independent for the strong black and white photography, and The Sunday Times is just tradition. I read them all from cover to cover.

I watch the news on TV without fail. But I’m quite selective about what other television I watch. I don’t watch rubbish. Having said that, between 1986 and 1997, I became a great fan of Coronation Street. But I was once watching it with my four year-old son, and it was the episode where Curly got thumped in the head by Mr Battersby. And I just thought, that’s it. Enough. I haven’t watched it since. I thought the violent element was so unnecessary.

In general, I avoid violent programmes. About twenty years ago, we saw a Vietnam film that had a torture scene in it, and I was in floods of tears. I was very affected by it. I try to edit my life so as not to see violence.

With violence on the news, I’ll brace myself and look at it through my fingers. Or if it’s really gruesome, I’ll look away. But I won’t switch off or turn over. And say with what’s happening in Borneo, I really find it dreadful, and deeply upsetting. My way of dealing with it is to say my own personal mental prayers, maybe about half a dozen times every day, for people around the world who are victims of violence.

With sex on TV, if it was rape and torture then I’d switch off. But if it’s mad passionate sex, and it’s a positive thing, then great! It depends very much on the context. But then with the internet, I think the distribution of pornography is a real problem. Child pornography, in particular, concerns me, and I think that it must be eradicated. It’s absolutely abhorrent.

Actually, a while ago, the Daily Mail reported a child pornography ring that had been broken up, and they published photographs of children in chains and so on, though with the children’s faces blurred out. To my mind that’s still pornography. I thought it was dreadful.

The rose-tinted 1950s

The media are very manipulative. But it’s not just them. I feel very strongly that there’s an absolute decline of the moral standard. Many children, teenagers and young twenty-year olds, just don’t know the difference between right and wrong.

But I’ve got rose-tinted spectacles about the 1950s. People might have been poor and fed-up after the war, but there was also a tremendous sense of relief, and a strong sense of right and wrong. There was a sense of making the best of things, of personal pride, self-respect and responsibility. You polished your shoes, didn’t drop litter, kept your front garden neat and tidy. Even if you were poor and hadn’t got two ha’pennies to rub together, you were a good neighbour. But all these aspects of being a good and proud citizen, and perhaps being proud to be British, too, all this has been lost.

Before, there seemed to be an understanding of the importance of certain social functions, like family meal-times. You know, meat and two veg - a balanced diet and a balanced family life, with a few games, a bit of Ludo, a bit of television if you’re lucky, family walks to the park. All these basic values have gone out of the window. But they are the very fabric of the future.

From my own experience, I can say that teenagers respond well to a strict code - my parents were quite strict - because it gives them a foundation for life, a basis for decision-making.

I have a strong sense of right and wrong. Maybe it’s because of going to church from the age of six to seventeen. But it’s probably also to do with having children. I had my first child when I was thirty and my entire perception changed. I think this is the same for men and women. You suddenly realise the gravity and importance of everything. All your ideas change gear. All your selfish behaviour, your days of just having a good time, all this stops. It takes a tremendous amount of nervous energy. But you’re happy that way.

My husband was brought up going to church, too, but when he was fourteen he was banned by the vicar because he let off a stink bomb. He never went back. Now, he just says to me, ‘You can take care of our spiritual welfare.’

Who wants a nanny state?

But you can’t make slobbish parents suddenly become more responsible, can you? And you can’t expect teachers who are stretched already, suddenly to put in a moral dimension. You can’t expect the church to do it all either. In the 50s there was a sense of shame if you didn’t go to church - and it’s our sense of shame that has been lost.

If you read the Press, you see that they applaud bad behaviour, slobs abroad, football hooligans. They hype it up, and print pictures of all these tattooed blokes, the core element within our society who are anarchic, who egg each other on. And it must be education, in the broadest sense, that has failed. Of course, this is the responsibility of schools but also home education, how children are being brought up. Again, it comes back to a sense of right and wrong.

There’s even a kind of ‘gang of girls’ culture now. They’re happy to get drunk, use drugs. And this leads to a lack of tenderness and appreciation of feminine characteristics. It also leads to a lack of judgment, self-control, the sense of one’s place in society, and the value of other people and of oneself. It’s leading to no decorum. Decorum est - what should be done in a civil society, what is acceptable.

The moral standards of a sector of society have gone in steep decline and somehow this trend has to be reversed. We’ve got to bring back the common idea of decent behaviour. Perhaps there could be some kind of incentive-scheme set up, to change a parent’s sense of leadership and responsibility, so they pass it on to their children right from the start. Because young people really will respond to clear, strong guidelines.

Feminism brought about absolute equality, but parents and grandparents have to share the blame if feminism has gone off on a tangent. These young, yobbish girls are misusing their freedom. You’ve got to show them how to use their freedom responsibly. Yet the media are creating a culture where teenagers are purely self-obsessed, where the only important thing is fashion and appearance, the latest brands. It’s very superficial. And it leads to girl-gangs and a culture where it’s cool to be sneering and leering. The goal is to be popular and to “get really out of it” on drink or drugs.

But parents, teachers, the press, advertising and role models - all these people could play a part in bringing back a moral code. Perhaps the government could have a quiet word in their ears and say, ‘Look, this is where we’re heading, towards an anarchic society, and this is how we can all do something about it.’

But people are like ostriches in the sand. We don’t want a nanny state. We don’t want the government intervening. But somebody’s got to intervene, haven’t they? So I think the government should. They’ve got to spell things out to everyone though the media.

And the government and Church could re-instill Christian values. The church should get its act together. It’s got to get out on the streets, go to schools, sports centres and supermarkets. It could set up youth groups that are about morals and right living. It could establish a good strong moral code, that in the small print is Christian. Nothing too heavy about God and biblical things, just Christianity in its broadest sense - being good to your neighbour as a start. The church should go to the people, rather than expect the people to go to them.

From sound morals to bickering

When Labour came into government, we all thought it was going to be a huge change, that everything would improve. On a purely visual, physical level, we expected it to be apparent, absolutely, through every strain of life. Everybody was fed-up with graffiti and low morale. After the election, we were all on a high, thinking that things would start to happen, that vandalism would lessen, that there’d be a general clear-up campaign. But it just didn’t happen.

I’d always voted Liberal Democrat before. But at the last election, I voted Labour because I couldn’t vote for a party that wouldn’t get in. I had to use my vote to get rid of the Conservative party. But the first local elections we had, I went back to voting Liberal Democrat.

I felt so positive in 1997. I think everybody did. In particular because of Tony Blair. I really thought he was the right man for the job. He’d got sound morals and sound vision. He was categorical about everything he would do and everything he wouldn’t stand for. And I thought the Labour Party was absolutely unified behind him.

But within six weeks there was bickering and in-fighting. I watched the cracks start to appear with absolute amazement. It was so disappointing. I’d really believed he’d be such a strong leader. And I thought, Hang on a minute, I thought you said you wouldn’t stand for any nonsense from your party? But he didn’t live up to his promises.

I thought Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were best buddies who saw eye to eye. In fact, I thought they were all united and that they’d change everything for the better. Suddenly I realised - and it was like the dawning of understanding after ten years with Prince Charles and Diana - ‘Oh, they don’t love each other.’ It was the same with Blair and Brown. Suddenly I realised they couldn’t stand each other. And with that kind of dislike and jealousy, how can you have a good working relationship?

What’s needed is a unity of values, on a personal and professional level, so that the cabinet are unified, with a sense of common purpose. And you really can’t have personal immaturity getting in the way of important jobs - like that case of Robin Cook messing up with his wife, which is just pathetic.

I know it’s idealism, but people should be upstanding in their private life - like the Queen. Her personal life is second to her professional life as Queen. And if you’re going to do a job, you’ve got to do it properly, with absolute dedication for your term of office.

Social anarchy

But so much comes down to questions of respect and responsibility. And I think that the media have lost their respect for figures in authority. It’s all become too personal. Whether it’s criticising what John Prescott is wearing, or a long-range photographer invading someone’s privacy. I think the media have absolutely lost their sense of right and wrong.

They don’t even call people Mr or Mrs anymore. Everything is sliding down the levels of respect. Calling people by their first names, or photographing the Prime Minister while he’s on a private holiday, it all indicates how respect is being chipped away. It’s so cynical and so wrong. Whether the Press Complaints Commission can stop it, I don’t know. But a standard has to be kept so that things don’t get worse, because otherwise there’ll be an anarchic society where anything goes.

One can’t turn the clock back, and one wouldn’t want to, but it was probably the Sixties when it all started. Of course, everyone wants freedom. But it’s got to be used responsibly, for the greater good. People have to be wise to that.

I make sure I’m acting responsibly within society. I’ve got talent and I use it. If I wasted what I have, I’d be irresponsible. It’s important to put as much positive input into people’s lives as you can.

The little jewel of Britain

I fly over to the Mediterranean two or three times a year. I feel European, in a way. But I’m very proud to be British. And I’m also proud to be English.

When I travel, I prefer to travel in Europe where I feel safe, though I think America has huge potential. You can only ever scratch the surface. Each state is very different from its neighbour. But it must be strange being part of such a massive country, like having an identity crisis. Culturally, I think it’s quite superficial. And what it passes on to us is always quite superficial, too, whether it’s baseball caps and burgers, or perhaps violence.

Down the road there’s a massive Victorian house, very elegant and solidly built. They want to knock it down and build another one that looks a bit like it, only out of MDF. For modern flats. And it concerns me that people can be so ignorant and crass. People should conserve our culture - not preserve, but conserve, it’s a very different thing. They shouldn’t be demolishing things left right and centre. You have to be very careful with our country, with it’s beautiful parks and countryside. Britain is very special and precious, like a little jewel. It would be easy to destroy it through lack of foresight.

It would be easy to lose our identity, just as we could lose the farmers with this latest foot-and-mouth crisis. They should be supported. Then we should start again and re-think the way we farm livestock in this country. It should be like the 1950s, where meat was scarce, a rarity that we have on Sundays. So it’ll be expensive but it’ll be good. It’ll be home-reared. It won’t have travelled thousands of miles. It’ll be disease-free and something you save up for. Unfortunately, we’ve got into the American idea that everything is cheap and cheerful, and that’s not right.

But then it’s the American way, and it’s happening more and more over here - with great big supermarkets out of town. It’s horrible. Yet in Worcester, once a month we’ve got the farmers market where you can buy all different types of cheeses, honeys, vegetables. It’s a return to supporting local produce and people love it. We’ve all got to help the farming community create an income.

And so we really should treasure our environment. All the things that have a positive effect, like recycling, have to be pushed. I think the government has to create incentives. They’ve got to take the initiative. If I was running the country, that’s how I’d be. There are so many people who are uneducated, who haven’t got a clue and who need guidance. The government should see the population as young people who need strong, responsible guidelines given through the media for the common good. People will respond.

Back-to-basics for everyone

The point is, we’ve elected the government because we expect them to be good, strong, professional citizens who are there for a better society. So we have to give them some leverage to get on and make recommendations, without always having to come back to the people to check it’s OK, with referenda and so on.

You need elected people, who are in regular contact with the Church of England, or with the Queen - the usual fail-safe mechanisms to check that the agenda isn’t going too much one way or the other. You need to avoid a situation where everything is being decided by committees, with things always going wrong, costing a fortune, and public money always being diluted. People should take personal responsibility for making sure that things happen when they should. People have got to be accountable, whatever job they’re doing.

It’s passion that you want. A high morale. People who are proud of their profession, who haven’t been worn down by lack of wages. Whether it’s policeman, teachers, or nurses. There was a case in the papers recently about a ward sister who couldn’t find out which one of the contracted-out management companies was responsible for cleaning the ward, which was filthy. Twenty years ago, it would have been her own staff.

It should be back-to-basics for everyone. And it seems obvious to me that if something like the National Health Service is run by the country for the country, then it will be the best. If it goes into private hands, that’s when corruption creeps in.

Materialism lays siege to families

But every day, the press are pushing materialism. A society where everything is replaced every six months doesn’t make you happy. This is one of the key messages that we’ve got to get through to young people. We have to change the mentality that says, ‘You must have the latest CD or computer game. You have to try drink, drugs and everything in excess, because then you’ll be popular amongst your peers’. At best, that materialist attitude is just short-sighted.

When I was a teenager, I had to wear my older sisters’ clothes. I occasionally had new things, though not very often. We were absolutely non-materialistic. But we were content. And there was always someone who looked tattier than we did. Just as there’s always someone in the world with infinitely less than you. It’s all relative. But now it’s as though that sense of relativeness has gone. There’s the impression that we all have the same things. So then people expect the same things, too. But that’s completely wrong - and untrue. And it’s putting huge financial pressure on families to provide.

I think that our own children understand this. As a family, we’re not materialistic. We’d rather spend our money on travel, which creates memories. We go walking in the hills at the weekend - which doesn’t cost a fortune. And the closest our children get to being materialist is looking through the Argos catalogue. But we don’t give in to commercial pressure and that’s a deliberate stance. We make up for it by buying them something that’s creative, something that will aid their development.

But I think that the value of the family in society is still understood in Europe. Look at the way they eat together, go out together. In this country, the only time you see families together is when they’re trailing round the shops buying things they don’t need. Happiness doesn’t simply come from owning things, does it? It never has.