INSPIRATIONAL!
They insist they’re ordinary. But the incredible way our competition winners change lives proves they’re truly . . .
THEY are five women united by their courage, compassion and burning determination to improve the lives of others. Meet the remarkable finalists in this year’s Daily Mail Inspirational Women Of The year Awards. We asked you to nominate the women you know who really make a difference. We were deluged with the names of those who show the rest of us how life should be lived. A judging panel chose our five exceptional finalists, who were invited to 10 Downing Street before being taken to a star-studded gala at the Marriott hotel in Mayfair, London, on Tuesday evening.
It was there that esme Page, founder of charity Cornwall hugs Grenfell, was crowned our Inspirational Woman Of The year by TV presenter Sian Williams. At the ceremony — held in association with L.K.Bennett and YounMinds, the UK’s leading charity committed to improving the well-being and mental health of the young — there was laughter and tears. Visibly moved, Sian summed up the incredible impact these women have had on their communities.
‘They are all completely inspirational and yet the most humbling thing is that they all think they are very ordinary,’ she said.
‘American First Lady eleanor Roosevelt put it beautifully: “A woman is like a teabag. you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” That is so true of these remarkable women who saw something needed doing, so they got on and did it.’
here, we tell the finalists’ truly remarkable stories, starting with winner esme.
ESME PAGE, OUR WINNER
LIKE every other woman in Britain, 48-year-old esme — mum to sons Pax, ten, and Kes, seven — watched the tragic events unfold at Grenfell Tower with a mounting sense of horror and helplessness.
She imagined the trauma of losing your home, friends and relatives, and how it would feel to be a fireman sent into that horrific inferno.
Then she imagined what a difference it might make to have the chance to escape, temporarily, to a place of tranquillity.
Suppose those caught up in the nightmare could enjoy a holiday far from London, in Cornwall...
On June 20, six days after the tragedy esme — a life coach and former teacher from Truro — posted a message on Facebook.
‘ Imagine if we could put a Cornish holiday on the horizon of every Grenfell resident and firefighter family: a time to rest, a time to let our beautiful county bless these people and work its gentle magic,’ she wrote.
her idea was to make Cornwall’s 30,000 holiday homes available to the 120 households of Grenfell Tower and the 200 or so firefighters who attended the disaster.
By the following day, esme had 100 pledges of accommodation. And within the week a website, called simply Cornwall hugs Grenfell, was established.
To date more than 200 people — firefighters, Grenfell Tower residents and neighbours affected by the trauma — have been guests of Cornwall hugs Grenfell.
This half-term, more than 30 will arrive, and a further ten families are expected in November. Already 230 weeks of accommodation have been pledged and esme plans to fund the voluntary organisation (it is still awaiting charity status) until 2019.
‘Once the idea was in my head, I couldn’t let it go,’ says esme, who was raised in Cornwall and moved back to the county with property manager husband Rob, 48, after teaching in London.
She describes herself as ‘just an ordinary mum’ driven by compassion and the conviction that it was the right thing to do.
‘The most magical thing is that my little message unleashed a tidal wave of goodwill.
‘everyone from the little old lady with a spare room to big holiday-let businesses rushed in. The generosity has been staggering.’
And so it was, on July 28, that esme welcomed the very first visitors: a firefighter and his family.
Then on August 24, a party of 62 Grenfell Tower guests arrived.
They ranged from a grandma to a babe in arms. ‘ I was really nervous,’ says esme. ‘Were they going to enjoy it?’
They certainly did. Thanks to people’s amazing generosity, esme was able to offer the guests a packed programme.
‘The sun even shone every day. We want our guests to build lovely memories which will go some way to erasing the bad ones,’ says esme, a committed Christian.
She recalls that for one little boy the holiday was extra special. Osman had actually turned three a few weeks earlier, but his birthday had gone unmarked.
After escaping from the burning tower and huddled in their cramped hotel room, his family had neither the will nor the means to celebrate. But esme managed to organise a cake and a huge impromptu beach party. ‘It was one of the very happiest moments in an amazing week,’ she says.
One mother who visited summed up her experience: ‘The hearts, the souls, the strength, the courage that went into bringing us down from London, not knowing us, just feeling for us and feeling everything that we felt is a wonderful example to humanity.’
It has taken the generosity of a county’s entire community to realise esme’s dream.
But it has taken esme with her charm and enthusiasm to inspire all this change. That is why she truly is a worthy winner of our Inspirational Woman of the year Award. See www.cornwallhugsgrenfell.org
CORINNE HUTTON, FINALIST
WHEN Corinne lost both her feet and hands after falling dangerously ill, it would have been very easy for her to turn her face to the wall. But a comment from her doctor transformed her outlook. ‘he told me I wasn’t unlucky. I was actually exceptionally lucky. I was still alive,’ she says.
‘I realised I’d been given a second chance and had to make the most of every single day.’
Corinne, 47, had been a super-fit, successful businesswoman running a small graphics company
ATIONAL! when her life imploded in June 2013. After developing pneumonia, she contracted septicaemia. ‘Overnight I was a quadriplegic,’ says Corinne, who lives in Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, with her son, Rory, nine.
‘I lost my company. My marriage collapsed under the strain. All I had was my son and the determination not to give in.’ Just weeks after having her feet, much of her legs and hands amputated, Corinne started a gruelling programme to learn to walk again using prosthetic legs.
‘It was agony,’ she says. ‘But now I can wear them all day. I had to relearn to do everything. I was distraught that I couldn’t teach Rory how to tie his shoelaces.’
Corinne also found herself lonely and isolated. Rather than sit and mope, she decided to found a charity using money donated by friends and wellwishers.
Finding Your Feet was born in 2014 to encourage fellow amputees to enjoy as full and challenging a life as possible. Corinne herself has climbed Ben Nevis (the first female quadraplegic amputee to do so) and finished the world’s biggest triathlon. The charity now helps more than 200 amputees, bringing them together to talk or try swimming, cycling, table tennis and skiing.
Corinne says: ‘It may sound daft, but when I walk into a hospital to visit a young woman coping with the same stark diagnosis I was given, I hope she will see that if I can enjoy life, she can too.’
See www.findingyourfeet.net
CJ BOWRY, FINALIST
A SIMPLE decision to find a disadvantaged child to benefit from her son’s shoes led CJ to transform the lives of an estimated 300,000 children. CJ, 37 — who lives in Oxted, Surrey, with her property developer husband Carlo, 49, and their children Sal, seven and Clementine, four — says: ‘ When Sal outgrew his first shoes, they were good as new, so I decided to donate them to charity. But none could tell me exactly where they would end up.’
So CJ dispatched them to a friend of a friend on a children’s oncology ward at a hospital in Uganda. ‘ A few weeks later she sent me a photo of a smiling three-year- old standing proudly in Sal’s shoes. His happiness made me feel brilliant.’
Enchanted, CJ posted the photo on her Facebook page with the simple tag: ‘ Sal’s shoes have become another’s.’
Within hours, friends were asking how they could do the same. Within a week, 150 strangers had contacted her asking where they could send shoes. ‘ I was completely overwhelmed and a little frightened,’ admits CJ. ‘But I’d started something I couldn’t turn my back on.’
She duly sent off another huge parcel, this time to a village she knew of in rural Zambia. And in November, 2013, CJ established Sal’s Shoes.
In just four years the charity has distributed 300,000 pairs of shoes — ranging from smart school footwear to trainers, football boots and ballet shoes — in 35 countries including the UK. Last week alone, containers of shoes were sent to Syria, South Africa and Zambia.
CJ says: ‘Having a pair of shoes for these children is life changing. There are an estimated 300million children for whom walking with shoes is a rarity. This makes them vulnerable to infection, injuries and other conditions which are almost always left untreated. Without shoes, many children are not permitted to attend school.’
Various branches of John Lewis are currently accepting donations for Sal’s Shoes. For more information, go to www.salsshoes.com
WENDY TARPLEE-MORRIS, FINALIST
LIKE so many little girls, Hannah Tarplee loved playing with her soft, bright blonde hair. So it was especially cruel that when she was diagnosed with a Wilms’ tumour, a type of kidney cancer, in 2004, one of the sideeffects of the treatment was losing her beautiful locks.
Tragically, Hannah died in June 2005, aged five.
As a fitting legacy, seven months later her parents founded The Little Princess Trust, providing wigs for children who suffer hair loss through illness. ‘Like so many little princesses, Hannah loved her hair and though she was very brave, losing it was traumatic,’ says Wendy, 39, who has two other children, George, 15, and Emmeline, eight.
Wendy and her now ex-husband Simon searched for a wig. But it was a long struggle before they found a company who could make one from real hair in an extra small size. ‘Hannah felt like a normal child again,’ recalls Wendy. ‘The difference that wig made was phenomenal.’
When, after Hannah’s death, her teachers at Hereford Cathedral School raised money in her name, Wendy decided to found a charity.
Now it has grown beyond her wildest dreams, funding free wigs for 100 children a month. They are made from real hair and cost between £500 and £1,000 each.
Last year, the charity raised more than £4.5 million, using it to create wigs and also contributing £ 1.2 million to 18 projects researching causes, cures and treatments for paediatric cancer.
Wendy says: ‘Nothing will replace what we have lost. Hannah was very loved and we were inspired to do something great in her memory. I think she’d approve.’
See www.littleprincesses.org.uk
FELICITY WARNER, FINALIST
FELICITY will never forget the young mum who told her that every night she would secretly go downstairs and bury her face in the family dog’s warm fur to cry her eyes out. The woman was dying of breast cancer. But while she had come to terms with the shattering diagnosis, her devastated family hadn’t, and this was the only place she could let her true feelings out.
The first time she let her guard down was when she met Felicity, then a medical journalist, through a friend. ‘Just being listened to seemed to soothe her immeasurably,’ she says.
Felicity, 58 — who has two daughters Daisy, 35, and Lusea, 31 — decided to volunteer in her local hospice. ‘I held people’s hands and listened, things that staff were often too busy to do.
‘I discovered that simply being with a dying person, touching them and showing you care is immensely powerful. It convinced me there was a desperate need for compassionate, caring people to comfort the terminally ill.’
The result is Soul Midwives, the foundation Felicity established ten years ago. There are now more than 700 Soul Midwives in the UK, all trained at one of Felicity’s workshops. Her movement is recognised by hospices, GPs and care organisations. Felicity, who lives in Dorset with solicitor husband Richard, 67, says: ‘My dream is that no one dies feeling lonely, frightened, unheard or unloved.
‘We offer everything from organising funerals to holding the dying person’s hand at the very end.’
It’s turned into an all-consuming commitment. Felicity even found herself on call on her younger daughter’s wedding day in August. ‘I had two families in desperate need,’ says Felicity. ‘When I know I can make a difference, how can I possibly say no?’
See www.soulmidwives.co.uk