Tough love? Absolutely

IN ABSOLUTELY Fabulous, her riotous character Patsy wouldn’t have understood the meaning of the word discipline. In real life though, Joanna Lumley, right, is distinctly old-school, at least when it comes to keeping children in line.

‘I know we are not allowed to do slapping any more,’ reflected the 75-year-old star during a talk about the true meaning of ‘compassion’ in Oxford last week. ‘I understand that it can lead to violence – and that’s indefensible,’ she added, ‘but if I hadn’t been slapped, I’d literally be in jail now.’ Lumley’s belief in a bit of tough love is partly the result of her despair at the sight of children locked on to screens.

‘Put the screen away,’ she beseeched the audience.

‘We are so glued to screens we have forgotten how to think. We react to things. We’re not proactive.’

The remedy begins, she added, ‘by talking to children’.