Anne Diamond Feed

Reaching Out...

2015-05-13T13:55:38+00:00

Some people in life simply leave you feeling humbled.

This morning I spoke to Dr Kate Yarrow, founder of the charity Doctors For Nepal. Kate worked in the country back in 2008 for Medicins Sans Frontieres and was so inspired by what she saw there, that she decided to do something to make things better.

The charity she went on to found now helps to train doctors from (often remote) Nepalese communities. They can then return to those areas and practice, helping the very people they have grown up around.

Eight thousand people were killed in the first Nepalese earthquake three weeks ago. Dozens more have died in the more recent quake yesterday. We’ve heard a number of stories from the Nepalese community based here in Berkshire over the last few weeks. Stories of anxious waits, of terrifying escapes and of long days helping those in need. I am often left amazed by the strength of the human spirit in such circumstances.

The will of Dr Kate Yarrow to really change things in Nepal, not just in the short but in the long term is inspiring. She is also offering practical help on the ground and is waiting to fly out to Kathmandu now to lend her support.

It’s warming to hear that such people are willing to donate skills that are sought after the world over. They are an example to all of us and a reminder of what it means to be an incredible human being.

Nominate a neighbour

2015-04-01T14:51:08+00:00

I don’t know about you, but it drives me nuts, when I’ve ordered something online or from a store, I just KNOW they’re going to deliver it when I’m out. Then, again and again, they attempt delivery at the same time – giving me no way of informing them that I actually work for a living, and need to opt for a mutually agreed time. Then, after they’ve made three attempts, they ask you to come and get it from a delivery centre miles and miles away. It’s so frustrating, it puts me off online shopping! Today, Royal Mail reckon they’ve got a solution by asking you to nominate a neighbour, but will that work? Or is that Royal Mail just passing the buck?

Economically inactive or working mums?

2015-03-03T10:05:29+00:00

Just one woman in every ten now stays at home to bring up the children. The way it’s being reported today makes it sound as though society itself is falling apart, and that perhaps a whole generation of young women are so selfish they’re sacrificing their children’s well-being for their own careers. All of this invective makes me so cross. The truth is that there’s a huge number of different reasons that women go back to work, leaving their children in the care of professionals. Many do it simply because they have to – because their wages are vital to the family’s survival. Others do it because they love their jobs and are not interested in a 24 hour day of nappies, washing machines and screaming toddlers. What’s wrong is that, if the government of the day is trying to financially help working mums in the form of childcare vouchers, then surely women who stay at home should also be offered some sort of financial aid too. Whatever you do, please do not let’s go on calling the stay at home mums “economically inactive”, the term coined by the Exchequer. Any mum doing her bit, either at home or at work, is anything but.

Rubbish rubbish everywhere

2015-02-12T09:45:00+00:00

High winds made driving almost anywhere last week pretty treacherous. There were wheelie bins all over the road, scattering their disgusting contents all over our highways. And even when the weather’s fine, our streets and leafy lanes are now punctuated with ugly bins – they’re everywhere, in combinations of various hues. When I moved house recently, I had to acquaint myself with a new fortnightly round of days when the green bin would be picked up, mornings when the black and blue bins were permitted, and afternoons when the kitchen waste (or slop bucket as some councils insist on calling them) had to be put out, alongside a big green box for cereal packets, junk mail and old Christmas cards...

You spend much of your working week in a state of sweaty anxiety that you’ve put out the right combination of bins, and won’t be rejected by a bin man, armed with nasty orange labels which commit your bin to a three week boycott because you stupidly plonked recyclable plastic where only glass jars should go. So I was thrilled to hear that – at last – the nation’s housebuilders and architects are being ordered to address this concern. We are all fed up with the amount of bins we have to sustain (they’re like greedy mouths to feed). In some councils around here you have to have 6 different bin types. I’m, told one up North insists on 7! But if life is going to go on like this, then the town planners, the house builders and the architects MUST build for them.

They’re already spoiling the look of our towns and villages – but at least in new-builds, we must insist on more and more clever ways of hiding them. And in a life where space is big money – we’re going to have to learn to give up valuable living space (no more granny annexe) to the bins.

Is this really the best way

2013-03-13T13:59:14+00:00

I didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for Vicky Pryce until I saw how she spent her last weekend of freedom – popping out to her local shop and buying bin bags; after perusing shelves of hair dye and socks. (Well, that’s how it was reported by the hacks in her wake.) It made me think – well, yes, those are what you’d probably need if you were contemplating your last moments of ordinary domesticity. What would you do? You’d sort out all of that tat in the kitchen, and jumble all of those old clothes in the back of the wardrobe… You’d fear for personal comforts – like cold feet and warm socks, and as a woman of a certain age – you’d worry about your roots. Crikey, I would. Although I do gather Holloway has its own salon nowadays.

On a more serious note, I’ve also found myself uneasy at the apparent press delight at the jail sentences finally dealt out to Chris Huhne and his ex-wife. Who exactly benefits from their incarceration? Why should the taxpayer fork out for their weeks of private punishment? Wouldn’t we all feel more satisfied from witnessing them, sporting fluorescent jackets, picking up tons of rubbish from our city centre streets, or manning soup kitchens for the homeless? Instead they’re now removed from our lofty gaze to “do their bird quietly”, as Jonathan Aitken advised today – and we won’t hear from them again until at least one of them produces a tome of memoirs!