Banking on Tim Uncle

Slum dog millionaire thrust the street children of India into the hearts of millions but one man in Kolkata was already living the script. Banking on Tim Uncle tells the story of the real slum dogs whose lives have been transformed not by Hollywood but a city banker.

Disability is Other People

A new report by Leonard Cheshire Disability has shown 1 in 4 disabled people suffer discrimination when trying to use public services.

Run Around Twickenham Stadium for Charity

In 1988, Tim Grandage, a banker working in Calcutta, befriended a group of street children who looked after his car. They told him about their problems and needs. Tim did what he could to meet those needs, taking the children into his home.

But Tim met more and more children in need of his help and he soon left banking behind to care full time for Calcutta’s street and railway children.

Future Hope, run by Tim, is now a thriving school and home for over one hundred children. The school provides the children with an education and a real chance in life.

Most of the children brought to Future Hope have had to fight to survive and Tim helps them to adjust to school life through rugby. the boys compete in local and international tournaments, donning the colours of sponsors Harlequins. And now, with more and more girls coming to the school, they’re joining the boys on the field.

On June 5th Twickenham Stadium will be hosting a sponsored run for Future Hope – RUN FOR THEIR LIVES!

Get involved by clicking on the link below.

www.justgiving.com/Rachel-Mowbray

And if you need any further motivation to pull on your trainers for a round around the hallowed turf here’s a video of the children you’re running for

Blind Cords Strangling Children

Abi Mowbray

Children are dying because of unsafe blind cords.

On the fourth of February Harrison Joyce died when he caught his neck in a looped blind cord at his home in Staffordshire.

Just five days later 16-month-old Lillian Bagnall-Lambe died following a similiar accident.

Harrison’s Law

Now, the parents of three year old Harrison are calling for the government to take action.

The production of looped blind cords has been banned in the USA for over a decade following the deaths of hundreds of children in strangulation accidents.

Harrison’s law proposes that the UK follows suit and places a similar ban on the sale of dangerous blinds in the UK.

Accident Prevention

Speaking on the Harrison’s Law website, Roger Vincent, spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA), says:

“In an ideal world manufacturers wouldn’t produce blinds and curtains with looped cords. But even if that is addressed by the manufacturers there will be millions of these in homes.

“Our advice is that parents cut the loops on the cords and try to keep them out of the reach of children.”

Safety advisors recommend cutting the cords

Personal Experience

A looped blind cord makes a perfect rope for a child’s game and a perfect noose for an adult’s nightmare.

Strangulation is silent. Last year my two year old nephew hung from a blind cord while watching television in a room with his brothers.

But my nephew was one of the lucky ones. The paramedics got to him in time. Others have not and will not be so fortunate.

Blind Cord Safety Demonstration

Pill Cuts Cancer Risk

Abi Mowbray

Women who have taken the contraceptive pill live longer than those who haven’t.

That’s the conclusion of a study at Aberdeen University that looked at women who have been on earlier brands of the pill.

But is this all too good to be true?

Dangers Of Make-Up

Abi Mowbray

Bad news girls. That blusher you break out for special occasions could lead to you breaking out!

Most of us don’t hesitate to throw away out of date food but new research suggests that only 5% of women know that make-up also has a use by date that if ignored can lead to major skin problems.

Women in Cinema

Producer, Elizabeth Karlsen, talks about the success of female directors in the run up to tonight’s Oscars, at the Birds Eye View Film Festival in London.

If Kathryn Bigelow’s Hurtlocker beats box office smash, Avatar, she will be breaking new ground for women as the first to ever to take home the ‘Best Director’ award.

While Karlsen and the rest of the Birds Eye View team wait with baited breath for the imminent announcement, they are busy celebrating other undiscovered female creative talent throughout television and cinema in events held across London until March 12th.

Everyone’s A Singer

Abi Mowbray

Janet Edwards believes you can teach the world to sing and she should know! Voice coach and performer herself, she’s worked with everyone from West End understudies to singing sensation Leona Lewis.

“I believe everyone can sing. There’s such a range of freedom that we barely tap into, says Janet Edwards to me as we begin our interview.

And she believes that it’s society as well as individuals that benefit. “Never be in any doubt about the power of music. It’s been proven that you can keep crime down in shopping centres just by playing good music.”

“And parents must never discourage their children from singing. It really doesn’t matter what sound they make. Children must be allowed to just sing and be free.”

The freedom to perform herself is important to her, although she has found that in countries like France older women are much more appreciated than here in the UK.

“Europe has always been a wonderful place to perform. They have a good attitude to culture in general there is an openness to music genres and appreciation for quality which over-rides ageism.

“We’re completely obsessed with age in the UK especially with women and particularly in the pop industry. I don’t think it’s exclusive to music, I think it’s a British attitude in general. In France they tend to value a woman for what she can produce in the way of art. If it’s good and she happens to be older, she’ll be given great respect.”

Janet’s own style evolved from classical training. “I was a violinist, pianist and church organist. I had complete professional training from a very young age. But I also always had a great love of jazz even as a concert pianist so I started to do a lot of modern cross over music. Now the soul jazz area is something I spend a lot of time in, it’s so free and creative, it allows me to improvise a lot.”

The skills she has helped to build and confidence that she has given to others has set many on the road to musical success. “Everyone is vulnerable, even those who appear to have it all. We are all human and as artists we’re always learning.”

She began to work with Leona Lewis when she was just eight years old.  “I was working with lots of leads in the West End at the time and it wasn’t usual for me to take someone so young but she was exceptional.  To start with I gave her simple guidance and left her to have fun.  She was very quick to learn and hungry to do more.  I took her through the classical repertoire and then as she got older introduced other genres and artists like Mariah Carey.”

But what does Janet think of the current crop of TV talent shows?  “They don’t give a realistic picture of the industry and encourage lots of young people to believe that in a short time they can be amazing when the groundwork hasn’t been done.  That’s why lots of reality stars will run into trouble beyond the programme.

“Reality show winners’ schedules are horrendous. It’s extra pressure that is not conducive to the rest of their performance. You have to have the right people around you and also be able to know what’s right yourself.

“I’ve had some wonderful people around me during my career but creativity is our own responsibility as artists. We are only as good as our last performance. The music industry is political. You have to be wise and have integrity. It’s veryeasy for young artists to get manipulated.

“We can be inspired by all kinds of things. Good artists should be keen to perform live. Audiences inspire us to a better performance. Miming to tracks is not what music is about. The artists I work with will be doing their own performing and even through sore throats and flu and they still sing well.”

Janet believes that without the groundwork you have little to build on. “Anyone who trains with me will start to work from music even if they haven’t read a note in their life. But for those who have learnt to play an instrument or sung in choirs as children, it really does show through.”

Janet advises parents to give their children music as a valuable gift.

“Learning to play an instrument is very, very valuable to a child. Music is a great uniter as well. There should be more music being learnt and played in schools. The effect good music can have on any community, children especially, will be very important and bring value in the long term to us all.”

Janet is currently performing in France but plans to play in London and across Europe in the near future.

If you would like more information on Janet or her innovative voice coaching courses then check out her websites at www.powerthroughvoice.comwww.janetedwards.co.uk. and

Photographing London

Louise Leonard, who provides most of the photographs for this site, is a finalist in the Metro’s photography competition. Her picture ‘Eye of the storm’ (seen at the top of this blog) needs your votes! Vote London at:

www.metro.co.uk/onemomentinmycity

See more of Louise’s work at:

www.leonardeye.com

Divorce was the making of Sarah Millican

With Sarah Millican appearing on BBC 2′s Mock The Week tonight, now seems like as good a time as any to repost an interview I did with her at Newcastle’s City Hall just before she performed in front of her home crowd two years ago:

So many women will tell you that divorce changed their lives, and their perspective on the world and gave them a licence to start living again. They will then return home to sob into a microwave dinner for one as they chug down a cheap glass, or two, of red, wondering where  it was that life went so wrong.

New beginnings

For Sarah Millican, however, divorce really did mean a new beginning. The miserable times that divorce thrust upon her were to become her muse, as she turned to comedy as a means of therapy, and as it turns out, she’s rather good at it!

The quiet child who had always taken a back seat in class, preferring the company of teachers to her peers, in the comfortable knowledge that “they were middle aged friends who didn’t want to come round for tea“, suddenly, found herself standing in front of a small, expectant crowd in a musty room in the North East pouring out her most personal woes in the form of a monologue.

And the response? Laughter! Sarah Millican had found her vocation. She was a comedian. I am reluctant to use the politically correct ‘comedienne’ equivalent as Sarah is keen to highlight the inferiority of the feminine form of the word, “It’s like being a smurfette! You’re not quite as good as a smurf somehow“.

Sarah admits she’s always had a creative streak, “I used to perform poetry for my parents’ friends“, though it was dogged by a coy disposition “but only from behind the curtains“. That coyness is still evident in her delicately polite mannerisms that accompany her soft Geordie lilt. You could be forgiven for mistaking her for a primary school teacher or a nurse with an unfaltering bedside manner.

Sarah’s delightful demeanour makes me feel totally at ease when I meet her just before she is due to perform at Newcastle city hall. She apologises for being late, even though she is exactly on time and draws my attention to the pretty dress she’s put on for the occasion.

Parental pressure

I assumed she’d be a bag of nerves, performing in front of a home crowd, but she assures me that everywhere in England is, in essence, the same and the only thing that she is nervous about is performing her set in front of her dad, who’s going to be in the audience, and who she invites me to sit with. I assume at this point that she is merely keen to impress her father and that this is the cause of her nerves, even though she has pointed out to me that her sets can be “a bit rude“.

It’s the incongruity of her sweet demeanour and the element of crudity that has the crowd in stitches. I knew that her divorce was a rich source of material and that she would draw upon real life conversations with her comedian boyfriend but what I wasn’t expecting was her opening story detailing an encounter with a young couple in a supermarket and her inspection of their basket, which revealed only a bottle of wine and a cucumber. She ingeniously drew upon her apparent innocence when she described her misconception of the situation, suggesting that by no means had they gathered all the ingredients required for a Caesar salad. The audience roared with laughter.

She then displayed her ribald side simply by adding “Lube. I should have suggested she buy some lube.” concluding with “But, she had to learn the hard way.”

She left the audience only able to expect the unexpected, which side of her juxtaposed character would show up next?

When chatting I had quizzed Sarah on how she responds to hecklers. I was impressed to see her in action when a middle aged man at the back tried to match her wit with jokes of his own. “Oh! You’re a bit weird aren’t you?” she retorted. “You know when someone’s a bit weird but still strangely attractive?” She put to the audience allowing for a pause, “Erm. No!” He soon shut up.

Best job in the world

Sarah feels so lucky to have found a vocation that she truly enjoys. “It’s the best job in the world!“ She beamed. Comedy comes naturally to her, “It’s not hard” She tells me “I mean, it’s not McMillan nurses hard.” She regards the constant travel as the real effort. And Sarah Millican is travelling up and down the country armed with comic material that will leave you in stitches and by no means is she the token female in a line up, Sarah Millican steals the show and is well worth watching.

Sarah’s upcoming gigs can be found at www.chambersmgt.com/shows

Abi Mowbray