OPINION
Menopause (Image: Getty)
Menopause used to be the ultimate taboo alongside, as Sir Thomas Beecham reputedly once said, “incest and Morris dancing”. My eloquent and communicative mother died in 1995, aged just 57 of endometrial cancer, and we never once discussed the menopause. I didn’t dream of asking her about it. Thirty years ago, the taboo was so iron-clad that women put up, shut up and never breathed a word about theirsuffering – even to their own daughters.
Campaigns by courageous crusaders including Davina McCall, Diana Moran and Mariella Frostrup have changed all that. You’d have to be stuck on a space shuttle with Katy Perry not to know chapter and verse about hot flushes and HRT in 2025. Even reluctant GPs mired in ancient medical misogyny are, quite rightly, being forced to come to the aid of the nation’s be-fogged and flustered 50-plus females.
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On my new Channel 5 show Vanessa this week, with former Hear’Say star Suzanne Shaw as my guest, I collided headlong into another enduring taboo – postnatal depression. So full of anguish is PND that, even decades afterwards, women are still unable to bring themselves to talk about it. PND flies in the face of every expectation placed on new mothers, by society and by themselves.
Mums anticipate being flooded with happiness, maternal instinct and a wonderful mixture offulfilment, true love and delight. When, instead, they are suffused with panic, anxiety and an inability to bond with their babies, they feel not just disappointment but intense shame.
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As Suzanne bravely spoke of her isolation – she was 23, in the public eye and had been left suddenly and without explanation by her partner Darren Day to care for their seven-week-old son alone – our phone lines lit up.
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With expert Liz Wise on hand, we spoke tocallers who had never dared discuss their PND before. They spoke of their guilt, their self-loathing. They recalled feeling they were failing their babies, while the doctors they reluctantly consulted seemed unable to dispense more than lectures. Some improved on anti-depressants. Others were still suffering the after-effects although their babies had grown into successful adults.
Let’s take a lesson from the public conversation about menopause and shine a spotlight on PND. Pregnant women need to know the symptoms to look out for and support – medical, psychological and practical – must be easily accessible to pilot them through what can be a truly traumatic period.
***
My generation detests the word “triggered”. We pre-date the term. Occasionally we might have said something like, “Lord, the sight of congealed rice pudding really sets me off” but in general we were brought up to keep our feelings to ourselves, believing – with excellent reason – that others should be spared the mundane minutiae of our inner turmoil.
How, then, could “triggered” have been le mot juste for me when I heard that US manufacturers Mondelez would discontinue dark Toblerone in Britain? It’s not as if I don’t adore what was dubbed the “triangular chocolate from triangular trees made with triangular honey from triangular bees”, it’s more the echo of some bossy adult unilaterally deciding what we are and aren’t permitted to eat. Triggered? Yes – and I will be stockpiling. Sorry, not sorry.
***
Celebrities are blessing Robbie Williams, who describes being ambushed on a flight with his children by selfie hunters with humour, modesty and frustration. He gets fans’ desire for a trophy pic, and is mindful of the demands of those who put bread, butter and caviar on his table. He is also gripped by social anxiety, after decades in the limelight, plagued by mental-health vicissitudes and panicked about being stuck on a plane unable to escape an avalanche of unwanted attention.
I’ve never ascended to the dizzy heights of Take That, but I agree with his contention that if famous,you’re obliged to behave like a town’s jovial mayor. In my auto-biography I describe “the all-purpose grin” plastered all over my features whenever I’m out and about. I hate the thought of someone saying: “I saw that Vanessa Feltz at the crematorium today. What a surly sour-faced cow she is”.
***
Assembly, 1969. Henrietta Barnett Junior School, north London. You could have heard a pin drop. Why? The headmistress was reading us a letter from one of the many primary school pupils “in foreign lands”, as they said in the 1960s, who was sponsored by us via what used to be called The Save The Children Fund.
These letters, always in fluent, vivid English, brought different worlds alive. We received photographs, became familiar with family members, hopes, fears and dreams. Donating pocket money was not just part of our ethos but personal and a pleasure. We cheered their every achievement. Now the charity has abruptly stopped emails between donors and children in the name of “inclusion and greater equity”. The charity wants to end the sponsorship of individual children and focus onfundraising projects instead. Donors have been told to write goodbye letters.
Nothing is known about how the children feel about this. I’ll tell you what I feel though – that it’s a terrible, de-personalising mistake. Donations will surely dwindle.
***
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Curtis Stigers, 59, admits he confuses the recording industry by combining singing, releasing jazz tracks and playing the saxophone and guitar. He certainly confused me. I insisted my children and grandchildren attend one of his shows at gorgeous venue the Sea Church in East Cork’s glorious Ballycotton, telling them I’d never enjoyed anything more than his unforgettable performance years earlier at Camden’s Jazz Café. They dutifully took their seats. When I realised I’d mixed him up with the late Curtis Mayfield my embarrassment was boundless. Stigers was terrific, luckily.
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***
Lest you lie awake in the small hours worrying about 13-year-old Harper Beckham who seems to be constantly dolled up in the same VB-brand silk evening gown her mum and older brothers’ girlfriends are wearing – and who schleps in and out of sophisticated venues when she should be gaming in her bedroom like other early teenagers – relax. Harper is a right laugh and a reassuringly run-of-the-mill adolescent.
How do I know? I happened to be at famous toy shop Hamleys’ Christmas party with my grandchildren and some bright spark pointed out the kid in the sweatshirt and trackie bottoms whizzing about mischievously with her mates was Harper. She was with a little gang of pals thoroughly enjoying herself in a typical giggly 13-year-old way.
Harper, right, is positive, polite and a credit to her parents.