Moonwalk - done

I would be lying if I thought it would be easy, but nothing could really prepare me for the physical and emotional rollercoaster that was the Moonwalk.

Ready and raring to go: my mum and I at Moonwalk city

When I first signed up for the 26.2 mile overnight walk for breast cancer I didn’t realise what I had in store.

Sure it’s a marathon but it wasn’t like I was running it, essentially it’s just a long walk…right?

Wrong, very wrong.

It took my mum and I just over eight hours (including loo stops!) to complete the gruelling course around central London.

As the clock ticked over to 11.25pm we set off, marching with speed and determination with a crowd of 14,000 other women and the odd chap.

The atmosphere was fantastic and my stomach fluttered with excitement.

After all the training and preparation and agonising over decorating the bra, the moment had finally come.

Setting off through Hyde Park in the dark the miles seemed to tick over quite quickly.

Spectators cheered and shouted words of encouragement while boozed up party-goers clapped and raised their glasses to us.

As we passed a kebab shop in London Bridge blasting ‘We are Family’ at full volume its owners and customers danced wildly, gesturing to us to keep going.

At mile 10, as the Half-Mooners split off to head to their finish point, we continued on along the river by the light of the moon, feeling surprisingly good.

It wasn’t until we wound around the streets of Kensington and Chelsea at about 5 in the morning that things started to get really tough.

Well-wishers and friendly drunks had vanished and most of the city was asleep.

We had walked 18 miles, a massive achievement anyway but we still had more than 8 miles to go.

I was feeling okay, I ached all over but I still had reserves, while my mum had well and truly hit the wall.

My friend Gemma had by then reached the point where if she slowed down she might not get going again so we watched as she vanished into the crowd ahead.

Giving my mum words of encouragement while trying to maintain I was fine and not struggling at all (obviously not true), we reached the last stretch, entering Hyde Park for the final three miles.

By this point we were barely walking, I think hobbling would better describe our state.

And that final mile…wow. I felt like a fatigued adventurer trekking through the desert, looking for an oasis in the wilderness.

The road stretched on and on ahead of us and as the finish line failed to materialise, it really felt like there was no end in sight.

And then like a mirage, there it was.

I put my arm around my mum’s shoulder, the emotion surging in my chest, tears welling in my eyes, and with the biggest, weariest smiles we crossed the line.

The sense of achievement and pride in what we had just done was overwhelming.

Nearly 12 hours on I still feel a bit wobbly when I think of that moment.

Yes, my feet look like that of an 85-year-old – red, blistered and swollen – my legs are stiff and aching and when I get up I resemble the Ascent of Man in 3D, but we did it!

We made it!

And I couldn’t have done it without the support of all my brilliant friends and family, from coming out on training walks with me to giving me a leg rub after them (thanks Jon!) and of course by digging deep to sponsor me.

I’m so proud of myself, but mainly of my mum – you are amazing!

Emotional: Mum and I crossing the line

I’ve now raised £360 for a vital cause so thanks so much to everyone who has donated, without your money this whole thing would have been pointless.

If you haven’t sponsored me yet you still can here. 

Walk the walk

It’s been three months and more than 160 miles since I started my training for the Moonwalk.

And now the date is nearly here. In just five days I’ll be strapping on my hideously be-feathered and sequined bra and stepping out for a midnight stroll.

My decorated Moonwalk bra

Well not a stroll exactly, a walking marathon – yes that’s 26.2 miles – all in aid of breast cancer charities.

I’m not going to lie, I’m a little apprehensive about the whole thing.

Not just of walking around in public in my bra for all to see (feathers or no feathers), although that part doesn’t exactly fill me with joy.

No, I’m worried I won’t finish. ‘Oh don’t be silly, you’ll be fine!’ I hear you cry.

But what if despite spending hours trudging around London in the rain in my ever-so flattering pink mac, I don’t manage to reach the end?

The Wandle Trail

The idea of getting to mile 25 and having to bow out with a blister and a mild case of hypothermia sends me into a bit of a panic.

Saying that, there’s no reason to believe I won’t make it. I’ve followed the training plan to the point where I’ve got calves the size of rugby balls.

Yep, I've been all over the place. From walking up and down the banks of the River Thames and following the Wandle Trail, to traipsing up the A3 on my way home from work.

I've got to know parts of London I probably never would have visited.

Underneath it all I know I'll finish because it's such a vital cause.

Walking a few miles a week is nothing in comparison to what women (and men) with breast cancer have to go through.

And if walking for eight hours through the night in a bra helps researchers get that little bit closer to winning the fight against the disease, then I’m ready.

So too I hope are you… to sponsor me that is! Well this whole thing would be pretty pointless if I didn’t manage to raise any money wouldn’t it?

So if you haven’t already, please visit my fundraising page and donate whatever you can afford.

Thank you!

People Power

The lengths people will go to for power have been well documented throughout history.

You only have to cast your mind back to the Second World War to realise what the drive for power (mixed with a cocktail of fascism and hate) can do.

That is of course an extreme and perhaps obvious example but the list is endless.

Assad in Syria, Taylor in Sierra Leone, Pol Pot in Cambodia, the US in much of the world…

Hey it doesn’t even have to amount to gross human rights atrocities.

What about Nick Clegg, who sold out his party along with everyone who voted for it, just for a sniff of power?

But like most things there is a flipside to this – for every mind-melting act of abasing violence and betrayal in the pursuit of power – there is another force that strives to crush it.

People power is alive and well across the world, as we’ve seen in North Africa and the Middle East in the last year.

Those fighting injustice everywhere – whether in Saudi Arabia against an oppressive regime or in Britain against an unjust policy – will keep going as long as it exists.

Power and all that it evokes was the theme for the second issue of PoV Magazine.

Exploring everything from the power of humanity and war photography to superheroes and the power of Formula One, this bulging issue is a feast for the eyes… and the brain.

Read it here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Big brother is watching

People in the UK spend nearly half of their waking life watching TV, on the phone or online.

So it’s inevitable we're giving away more and more information about ourselves, either by updating our Facebook status or ordering our weekly food shop online.

Like most people I accept this as an unsettling but inevitable trade-off for the world of freedom and possibility opened up by 21^st century technology.

But a proposed new law allowing the Government to monitor all phone and online communication is a price I’m not willing to pay.

The plans will call on internet service providers to gather information about the public – namely who is talking to who, and when – and allow security services to access it.

It may sound like a policy more at home in China or within the pages of 1984 but the UK coalition wants to make it a reality, in order to; you guessed it, “protect the public”.

When will the Government realise the public rarely feels more threatened than when its civil liberties are at risk?

Collecting information from the general public is not only an affront to privacy, it’s open to widespread abuse and negligence by authorities which have all too often proved themselves incompetent when it comes to handling sensitive information.

In Dominic Raab’s 2009 book ‘The Assault on Liberty’, in which he relays the steady creep of anti-terrorism legislation brought in by the last Government, he makes this point.

‘A broad brush approach is open to abuse. It was disclosed that during one month in 2007 police at Gatwick airport conducted hundreds of random searches outside the (already wide) rules, without the required ministerial authorization. And the wider the powers, the greater the risk that innocent people will be caught in a net so widely cast.’

Now in government MP Raab is sticking to his guns, leaking an Information Commissioner report that warned strict safeguards must be put in place if the plan goes ahead.

In response to it he told the BBC it “fundamentally changes the nature of the relationship between the state and the citizen”, turning every individual “into a suspect”.
The popular argument in favour of such ‘security measures’ is that if you have nothing to hide you shouldn’t mind the authorities gaining access to your private data.

But what is the point in using this in our supposed fight against terrorism, if by doing so we are wearing away the very thing that makes the UK worth protecting?

Snooping on our own people is not the answer to Britain’s security problems and it never will be.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither.” 

Catching cancer early saves lives

A survey by Cancer Research UK has found thousands of people could be dying because they’re too frightened to go to the doctors.

Of the 2090 people questioned, 40% said they might put off going to their GP, even when they had symptoms, because they were worried about what they might find.

Catching cancer early can raise the chance of survival massively, meaning thousands of people in the UK could be needlessly dying every year.

Cancer Research UK said if Great Britain matched the best cancer survival rate in Europe, around 11,500 deaths could be avoided. And late diagnosis is at the heart of the problem.

I know too well the distress cancer can cause.

Two-and-a-half years ago my boyfriend Jon’s sister Lilly ended up in hospital when doctors found a tumour on her pituitary, a gland found at the base of the brain that produces hormones.

She first went to the doctor with stomach pains a year earlier but was mistakenly diagnosed with IBS.

When the problem didn’t go away Lilly saw a specialist, and after months of tests a scan found the tumour.

Despite a successful operation to remove it, the nightmare for Lilly and her family didn’t end there.

Just weeks later she was rushed to hospital when she started fitting.

A closer look revealed why - another tumour, this time on her pancreas.

I can remember the moment I found out Lilly was in intensive care. I had been out of the country for six months travelling around Asia, so the enormity of her ordeal hadn’t really registered.

Touching down at Heathrow, I switched on my phone.  My heart stuck in my throat as I read the message from Jon telling me the news.

In the arrivals hall greeting my parents I fought back tears, the reality of the situation finally hitting home.

Although Lilly said her GP was great from the beginning, she admitted her experience had made her realise how vital it is to get even the slightest lump, bump or pain checked out.

She said: “To be honest I coped with the symptoms for way too long as I thought, well hoped, they were nothing. I would say any change in your body is worth checking out as if you catch it early they can keep an eye on you.

“Even a slight delay can make a massive difference; it was progressing fast and a two day delay with my scan caused complications that could have been avoided.”

Although experts are still trying to work out the cause of Lilly’s cancer, she is now thankfully in remission.

In her case, catching it early not only spared her chemotherapy but almost certainly saved her life.
Later this month we will be celebrating Lilly’s 30^th birthday, and after everything she’s been through I know it will be a special one.

 

Lilly has inspired me to take part in this year’s Moonwalk in London, a power walking night time marathon, to raise money and awareness for breast cancer.

If you would like to sponsor me please give generously (26 miles is a long way in a bra!) here. 

Silence on arms is a ticking bomb

This week UN negotiators are meeting in New York to discuss a global arms trade treaty, ahead of final negotiations this summer.

Believe it or not there are currently no laws in place to control the sale of arms around the world – from bullets and cluster bombs to tear gas – although the trade in consumer products like coffee and bananas are heavily regulated.

With Amnesty International estimating that around 1,500 people are killed in armed conflict every day, this is a huge opportunity for the UK government to save millions of lives.

Yet it’s already showing signs of backing down, with foreign minister Alistair Burt saying in this week’s Independent on Sunday, "there would have to be compromises".

The West has been shaken by the violent crackdown that’s happening in Syria at the moment.

And with countries like Russia thought to be still selling the very weapons being used against civilians, something needs to be done to control this trade.

The idea that Governments around the world are profiting from slaughter is abhorrent but it’s been going on for decades.

According to The Guardian’s research, in the year ending in September 2010, £215million worth of UK export licences for ‘controlled’ products were granted to companies selling to Libya.

‘Controlled’ goods can include everything from radioactive material to guns and tear gas.

So it’s likely crowd control equipment sold to Libya by the UK was used against protesters during last year’s uprising.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has shown his support for the treaty, saying: “A key element in helping prevent conflicts, and making them less deadly when they occur, is better controls on arms supplies.”

But double act Cameron and Clegg have been pretty quiet on the subject.

Government ministers are speaking of compromises but how can you compromise on human life?

It’s high time the UK stood up for the individual instead of big business. I don’t remember Cameron’s Big Society mentioning anything about destroying societies overseas.

This week will help decide the content of the treaty – what will be controlled – as well as how it will be enforced and who is allowed to take part in the talks this July.

Now more than ever is a crucial time for the potentially game-changing treaty.  So here’s hoping the UK stands it ground and does its bit to make the world a safer place.

Raise your hand

If you asked a group of people to raise their hand if they had their dream job, I’m guessing less than half would do it.

Let’s be clear here. I don’t mean these people aren’t happy doing what they do or they don’t enjoy their day jobs. Maybe it’s the best job they’ve ever had.

No, I’m talking about whether they have their ultimate, one-in-a-million, wake up every day and pinch yourself kind of jobs.

Okay so this isn’t based on any kind of scientific research, call it anecdotal observation.

And this is so much more the case for creative people.

How many poets do you know who only write verses to pay the bills? What percentage of artists can afford to live off their canvas?

I don’t think it’s a high number. Otherwise where did the term ‘struggling artist’ come from?

This is where PoV magazine steps in. It’s a place where creatives everywhere – be they journalists, photographers or sketch artists – can get their stuff published without their bosses sticking their noses in.

It’s a quarterly free online magazine based on a different theme each time and the first issue is out now.

Take a look below, enjoy and if you’re a creative person with something you want the world to see, why not get involved?

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Some justice at last

This week brought justice at last when Gary Dobson and David Norris were finally convicted 18 years after killing teenager Stephen Lawrence.

A catalogue of failures in the original investigation made this a landmark case, exposing institutional racism within the Metropolitan police.

For me it was interesting that this case came to a head as I was reading ‘In the Place of Justice’ by Wilbert Rideau.

The book is a memoir of Rideau’s 44-year stint in one of America’s most violent prisons, Angola.

He ended up there after he killed a cashier during a botched bank robbery.

As a 19-year-old black man in 1960’s Louisiana – at a time of racial segregation, the Klu Klux Klan and mob rule – killing a white woman made him public enemy number one.

During his three trials Rideau was never allowed to give a defence against his crime, which was grossly embellished by the prosecution.

For example, they claimed he decapitated the bank cashier. This was not true.

What he did was terrible – after all he did take someone’s life. But while he always admitted his crime, his enemies continually made out he was a dangerous man who had set out to kill that day.

In reality he was a frightened teenager who did the unthinkable in a moment of panic.

The prosecution’s claim was later disproven but these stories – a result of anger and bigotry by the overwhelmingly white population meant Rideau served double the time for what he did.

After escaping the electric chair when the state introduced a moratorium on executions Rideau made it his life’s mission to try to put right his wrongs while inside.

He became the prison’s first black editor of its all-white newspaper The Angolite, winning a plethora of journalism awards for writing exposés on life behind bars.

But as those guilty of similar crimes were released he continued to lose countless appeals for clemency, despite having the support of corrections officials.

Even in the ‘90s Rideau came up against prejudice as politicians used his case to win votes from the white population.

Rideau was eventually freed in 2005 after a retrial found him guilty of manslaughter not murder.

Now I don’t think for one minute his case can be directly compared to that of Stephen Lawrence, who was killed in an unprovoked attack. He was the victim while Rideau’s actions put him where he was.

But I was struck by the power of racism to interfere with justice - keeping the guilty free and the reformed locked up.

As Doreen Lawrence said, this week’s verdict is not a cause for celebration.

This is a step in the right direction for the fight against racism in this country, but both here and in the US we still have a long way to go before we can stand up and say we are free from prejudice.

Two wrongs make a riot

In August thousands of people in cities across England took to the streets in the country’s biggest riots for decades.

Apocalyptic images of burning homes and businesses, track-suited looters raiding JJB Sports and lines of armoured police, beamed into living rooms everywhere.

Even those living in the leafiest of London suburbs flinched at the sound of a siren, as they anxiously checked Twitter for news.

Nearly 4,000 people were arrested for their involvement in the unrest.

Among them was teenager Danielle Corns, who was sentenced to 10 months in prison for stealing two left-footed trainers from a shop in Wolverhampton.

Pointless? Yes. Wrong? Of course. But worthy of nearly a year in a young offenders institute? I don’t think so.

A string of harsh penalties have been handed out to those involved in the summer riots.

While I believe those who caused criminal damage and spread fear up and down the country should be punished, the punishment should fit the crime.

It’s easy to say the book should be thrown at them, but in reality what will sending someone with no previous convictions to prison achieve?

Sure it’ll make them think twice about doing it again, but for most of the people punished, a court appearance would have been enough to put a stop to their faltering criminal career.

In the months since the violence some have put what happened down to the desire for a free TV. But I’m not so sure.

So why did rioters firebomb a family carpet shop in Croydon? What made them trash 89-year-old Aaron Biber’s Tottenham barber shop?

In the heat of the moment we could accuse them of being a “feral underclass” -  a la David Cameron – but we can’t  ignore the rising discontent bubbling beneath the surface that sparked the violence in the first place.

A joint study by the LSE and The Guardian released last week found for most rioters it was a sense of social injustice that fuelled their anger.

The research, which interviewed 270 people involved in the four-day riots, said they were reacting to a lack of opportunity and jobs.

However, it also found those that looted acted on impulse and opportunism.

So those girls who were recorded saying they loved rioting because of the free alcohol were clearly not political activists.

But there’s no denying that for many there was nothing to lose.

While this may not be true of Danielle, who had just finished her A Levels, I’m not sure that just because someone has something to lose we should take advantage of that.

Instead of handing out disproportionate sentences, which only serve to perpetuate the injustice people felt in the first place, we should be addressing the causes of inequality in our society.

·         A Reading the Riots report will be published in full on Wednesday

·         For more on riots and protest in 2011 look out for the first issue of POV, a new magazine full of creative content, out in January. 

Why our culture is priceless

Last week I got talking to a friend about a popular Twitter feed I’ve starting following.

MetPoliceCO11 isn’t a real life crime fighting message board. Instead the spoof account tweets about amusing and often implausible incidents.

After guffawing at the genius of a tweet about catching a drunk Brian Blessed with a large net, my friend replied, ‘But what’s the point of it?’.

At first I wasn’t sure how to respond.

Because it’s funny, I thought.  It lights up my otherwise dull day.

Then I got thinking. You could ask that question about almost anything.

What’s the point of music, of poetry, or fine dining? Why go to the cinema, play sport or watch the X Factor?

Whatever your views on reality TV these things exist because in one way or another they give us pleasure.

From watching a play that moves you to tears, to listening to an Adam and Joe podcast, none of these things are strictly ‘necessary’ but they’re what make life interesting.

While a joke twitter feed or a televised karaoke contest aren’t exactly Orwell, most people get that art has a vital role to play in our society.

The UK Government however doesn’t seem to share this opinion.

Its cuts to arts council funding and humanities education feel like an attack on the desire to create something beautiful or imaginative. (OK I know this is a bit of a jump but bear with me.)

According to most politicians it seems the only thing that matters is business and making money. Who cares if university courses in the likes of philosophy, English literature or history have to close or ramp up their fees to survive?

The Government seems to have forgotten that for every £1 invested in arts and culture £3.50 is put back into the UK economy.

Despite this more than 200 organisations up and down the country are losing Arts Council Funding.

At the same time universities only offering courses in arts and humanities will have their funding cut to zero.

I’m not saying cutting cultural funding will somehow stop people from creating funny and whimsical twitter feeds.

But it’s this attack on the idea of creating something just for the sake of creating it that I find depressing.

The impression that if something doesn’t have a strict purpose and isn’t there purely to make money, it’s somehow redundant or unnecessary.

This view is short-sighted and simply untrue. We should be embracing our diverse and colourful culture, not stifling it.

So next time you find yourself wondering why on earth someone has bothered to build a life-size bear out of Lego, or painstakingly hand-make millions of ceramic sunflower seeds, give yourself a mental kick and embrace it.

Go on, open your mind.

11.11.11

This week thousands of people across Britain paid tribute to those who have died in conflicts all over the world since WWI.

Either through attending a remembrance service, watching TV coverage or by simply wearing a poppy, nearly everyone in the UK marks the anniversary in their own way.

And this year was the first time services were held since the world’s last known WWI combat veteran Claude Choules died in May.

That makes my generation the last to have any real living connection with the two wars.

Many people my age will remember sitting down with their grandparents to hear tales from the front line.

A couple of years ago, working as a freelance journalist for a local paper in North London I interviewed Donald Wilson, an 89-year-old WWII veteran.

He was there during the D-Day landings and the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

I remember the interview well; he spoke proudly of his fellow troops, describing them as “good blokes” who faced head-on the fearsome tasks at hand.

Describing the scene as he arrived at the notorious death camp, he said: “We fed the prisoners because they’d been living on potato soup and they were starving.

“We had 2,000 under our control and we managed to evacuate 400 of them to Switzerland but the rest died.  It was very hard.”

The Second World War left such a gaping hole in Donald’s generation, they became defined by it.

They had experienced an unprecedented moment in history and the overwhelming need to make sure it was never repeated left its mark.

Today in 2011 war has mutated for us here in the UK. The country isn’t caught in the grip of air raids, rationing and black-outs.

The so-called war on terror is really only felt by the families of the servicemen or women fighting in Afghanistan.

It’s only Remembrance Sunday that reminds us of the loss inflicted by war.

We are detached from war – a distant reality only experienced through our TV screens.

Remembrance Day is a way for us to feel connected to today’s conflicts, and more so the events of the 20^th century.

And even when the last veterans from WWII have left us, marking the 11^th hour of the 11th day of the 11^th month will always bring home the sacrifice made by the generations before us.

Feeding the world

The world’s population hit seven billion this week, pushing our planet’s resources to the limit.

As the West’s obesity epidemic grows, around one billion people are starving, with the famine in Somalia expected to kill up to one million.

Something somewhere has gone horribly wrong.

The balance has been badly tipped in favour of rich Western nations scoffing their faces with what is often factory-farmed, low quality meat.

Meanwhile those in Africa and the developing world are struggling to feed their families at all.

The New Internationalist magazine pointed to food market speculators in its feature The Food Rush as those gambling with hunger.

In the piece by Hazel Healy it explains how the rise of commodity trading is seeing banks and hedge funds bet on the price of crops like wheat and corn – the staples of the world’s poorest.

This is pushing food prices up to the point where one in seven people can’t afford to eat.

She writes: “There is something particularly sick about wealthy and unaccountable elites increasing their fortunes in a way that stunts – and starves – children. This is raw-edged capitalism at its worst.”

And as land to grow food for multiplying mouths shrinks, feeding the world gets even more complicated.

Sadly intensive farming – where animals rarely see the light of day and are bred to the point where they can no longer stand, let alone reproduce – is playing its part.

Precious space that could be used to grow crops for the starving is instead being used to produce enough animal feed to fuel the West’s obsession with cheap meat.

According to Compassion in Word Farming chief exec Philip Lymbery’s blog, it takes six tonnes of plant protein to produce just one tonne of animal protein.

If that space was used to grow plant crops there would be more to go around.

And while big farms would argue there’s a demand for this meat, the fact is, we don’t need it.

If everyone cut out meat from just one meal a week it would make a huge difference to the world’s health, as well as the environment.

In the end this global problem is being caused by greed.

From the banks gambling on hunger, to farmers sacrificing welfare for profit, the West’s greed only serves to exacerbate the plight of the poor.

And with the population set to rise by a further two billion by 2050, unless something changes, this will only get worse.

Tibet's lost children

This week two Tibetans – a 19-year-old former monk and a nun – set themselves on fire in protest of China’s rule.

Their acts took the total number of self-immolations to nine so far this year.

And the ‘Free Tibet’ campaign, calling on China to release its stranglehold on the region and for the return of the Dalai Lama, is showing no sign of slowing.

China’s repression of the Tibetan people in their homeland has caused thousands to flee, with more than 100,000 currently living in exile in India.

One of those is Sambo, a 24-year-old Tibetan I met when I was travelling in India two-and-a-half years ago.

His tale of extraordinary courage and determination has stuck with me ever since.

Growing up in the north-east of the disputed region, Sambo came from a family of nomadic people.

Along with the 50 or so other families living in the village of Wayang Rho, they lived off the land, moving from place to place with their herd of yaks, sheep and horses.

Sambo said despite not having much, his existence there with his father and two sisters was a happy one.

“There were wide grasslands filled with colourful flowers in front of the village,” he said.

“Although most people in my village were illiterate, they were very happy because they were living in a peaceful, natural place.”

At the age of nine Sambo started school but by the time he reached 16 his thoughts had already turned to India.

China’s tight grip on Tibet spreads to the education system, and he was forced to learn Mandarin, a language he struggled to grasp.

His desire to learn English – along with his longing to meet the Dalai Lama – was one of the reasons he made the decision to take on the treacherous journey to India.

In the autumn of 2003 without telling his father and aged just 16, he and his two cousins travelled to Lhasa, Tibet’s administrative capital.

Knowing what was on his son’s mind, Sambo’s father followed them. But only to give him his blessing.

Sambo said: “One day we suddenly met in front of the main temple in Lhasa city. When I told him my thoughts he smiled widely and said, ‘I must let you do what you want, but always remember you are leaving behind a group of people who will always worry about you and will hope that one day you will come back home alive.’”

That was the last time he saw his father.

Sambo’s journey through Tibet and Nepal was a dangerous one.

Together with nine others and one guard, the group travelled for several months, moving only at night to avoid being spotted by the Chinese army.

During the day they sheltered in caves, sleeping in tents and sometimes went for days without food.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, to travel thousands of miles in such fear,” said Sambo.

“The whole journey was filled with terror.”

It took the group two months to reach the Tibetan Reception Centre in Nepal.

Then on December 12 2003 Sambo finally arrived at the exile centre in Dharmsala in India.

And it was there he achieved his first aim of meeting the Dalai Lama when he gave an audience with the new arrivals.

Sambo said: “It was a thrilling experience. The tears of pleasure were dripping down my cheeks when I saw his smiling face and heard his great voice.”

As far as I know Sambo is still in India progressing well with his English, but the reality of seeing his father again remains distant and faint.

According to the Central Tibetan Administration, in 2006 alone nearly 2,500 young Tibetans, many under 18, arrived in Dharamsala.

And as you read this many more will be making that same dangerous journey.

Cat scrap over rights laws

The claws came out this week when Home Secretary Theresa May once again argued for the scrapping of the Human Rights Act.

And while her cat gaff left tabloid headline writers across the land tapping at their keyboards with glee, they barely scratched the surface of the debate on this issue.

In Mrs May’s view the use of Article 8 – the right to family life – has been used to prevent the Government from deporting illegal immigrants and suspected terrorists.

So she wants to scrap the Act altogether and replace it with a UK Bill of Rights.

For a start she was wrong about the case of the Bolivian and his cat.

But even if she had been right, why throw the moggie out with the bathwater? Wouldn’t it be better to amend the Act or clarify how it should be applied rather than get rid of this country’s most important piece of human rights legislation?

Take a recent story of the police van that drove hundreds of miles so a prisoner wouldn’t have to walk a few yards in handcuffs.

Apparently they were worried it would contravene his human rights.

But rather than being treated as a genuine claim this would most likely have been laughed out of court.

It’s an example of how badly the law can be misinterpreted and misunderstood.

The Human Rights Act is there to protect us from real violations, and it’s used to positive affect hundreds of times a year.

We don’t condone torture, we believe passionately about freedom of protest, expression and to a fair trial.

These rights are something to be proud of.

And scrapping it would almost certainly weaken our call for democracy in countries like Libya and Egypt.

Charity Liberty has called for the Government to do more to educate people about their human rights.

It recently commissioned a poll that said just 9% of respondents remembered ever seeing any information from the Government on the Act.

So while a new Bill of Rights may seem on the face of it to be a good idea, really we should be doing more to help people understand the law we already have.

Because just like a new kitten that’s cute and playful when you first take it home, the Bill will inevitably end up just like the old tabby you traded it in for. 

Step on it to improve Saudi women’s rights

Allowing women in Saudi Arabia to drive is a move in the right direction.

The fiercely Islamic country’s King Abdullah revoked a sentence of 10 lashes to a female driver this week, as part of an apparent new wave of women’s freedoms.

Although this year’s municipal elections were reserved only for men, women will be able to vote and even stand in elections in four years time.

But the ban on women driving is still in force, provoking the June’s Women2Drive campaign, which saw a group of women take to their cars in defiance.

And despite the King’s reprieve in the case of Shaima Jastaina, all those arrested during the protest were apparently warned not to drive again.

The country’s guardianship laws are also still in place, meaning no women can participate in public life without the permission of a male relative.

So say you just want to nip out to get some bread, better check with your husband.

Or you decide to sign up at the local university to improve your education, only if your father will allow it.

This hard line approach to treating women as second-class citizens only serves to highlight the religious right’s own weaknesses.

Take the views of 25-year-old Nawwaf, the Saudi man interviewed by Radio 4’s World at One programme, who believes allowing women to drive will cause them to suddenly abandon their whole belief system.

Talking to the show, he said: “I think women driving is the key to a lot of things. In Western countries, 100 years ago women's clothes were different but now you can see they are a little bit naked.

“If you start now to let women drive, let them go wherever they want, let them do whatever they want, we will be in the same position some day.”

Forgetting the fact that women should be free to do whatever they want regardless of their religion, I’m sure those women following the rule of Islam would be astonished to hear of such a lack of faith.

Women’s rights and Islam do not have to be an oxymoron.

Commenting on the new vote for women, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director Philip Luther, said: “The whole system of women’s subordination to men in Saudi Arabia needs to be dismantled.

 “We can only hope that this announcement on voting will be the first in a long line of reforms that guarantee Saudi women the rights that they have been demanding for so long.”

Better step on it then.