Maverick and inspirational fashion designer who is a byword for the avant-garde and once jumped on a policeman’s back during a punch-up. Fervent and shy woman who is not afraid to shock and put punk, bondage and conical external bras on the catwalk. Humorous and scholarly lass who wore a fig leaf on her body suit on television and wants people to appreciate the intellectual curiosity behind her designs.

Enter, often on platform shoes, the weird and wonderful Vivienne Westwood; the erstwhile Punk Prophetess and Queen of Street Cred who is fed up with being dubbed a rebel.

‘I’m a bit tough looking today because I’m on my bike,’ she says in her soft northern accent. (Her intonation used to embarrass her, but now she’s more interested in what she says than how she says it.) For best, she currently wears her eponymous black velvet dress with Boulle – 18th century French furniture designer – print on it.

Right now she’s wearing polka-dot jeans – ‘how could I say I invented the polka dot? But I never saw a giant one until I started doing them’ – Azedine Alaia cap, rock-climbing boots, masculine ribbed camera and a leather thong around her waist, ‘which looks a bit like a whip’. She looks a mess. She’s wearing none of these in the picture because she didn’t want to be photographed. ‘It’s such a bore – I’d have to do my make-up and hair, which takes about one-and-a-half hours.’

The first impression is of a dizzy, gentle woman who is warm and friendly. She has an ageless face, marvellous cheek bones, pencilled eyebrows and pins in her hair. At the age of 35 she changed her blonde and spiky punk hairstyle and went reddish brown; now she has just gone blonde again. ‘So half of it is the colour of cabbage leaves with this other colour over it.’ Her eyes light with humour and she fiddles with her hairpin. ‘I like myself physically. I probably see all kinds of things in my face that other people don’t see – I think it’s very nice with all kinds of secrets and depth to it.’ She later says: ‘I know I’ve got these horrible saggy things around my chin – but I wouldn’t dream of having a face-lift or anything because I know I wouldn’t look like me.’

She rests her head on her hand, fingers across her brow. ‘I’ve amazing confidence in my looks – I think any man is either mad or stupid who wouldn’t prefer me to every other woman in the room, wherever I go!’ And how does she feel about her body? ‘That’s fine as well. I’ve always taken pleasure in it.’

She’s 50 years old, with a disco soul. ‘I don’t care about my age. If I were advertising in a lonely hearts column I’d say, ‘I have all the intellectual and sexual advantages of being a 50-year-old’.’ She’s a gorgeous woman: slightly dotty, warm, soft and unconventional with an extraordinary imagination. She sits relaxed, with open body language, and talks non stop – darting around in conversation seamlessly while she puffs on a Gauloise.

I ask if she could be a little briefer in her answers. ‘As Aldous Huxley said, ‘Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it can be the very body of untruth’.’ She laughs. ‘I prefer to tell the truth about everything,’ she says later. She thinks she’s very direct and honest.

How would she describe herself? ‘More than anything, I’m prepared to work for the future. I know it’s stupid to talk about horoscopes, but I’m a snake in the Chinese ones and I identify with that very long-term plotting sort of person.’

She says she wouldn’t want people to think she had an interest in matters mystical or religious. ‘The greatest function humans have is to be as critical as possible. That’s my function – but I wouldn’t say purpose because I don’t think we have a purpose apart from the ones we invent for ourselves,’ says the former teacher.

‘What am I meant to talk about? My virtues? My vices?’ She goes off to get a cigarette, claiming that it bores her to think about herself. I kept thinking she might be a prima donna, that she might throw a wobbly – but nothing like that happened and she remained scrupulously polite. ‘I think I’m kind. I’ve got a good sense of humour – I take pleasure in amusing myself and knowing that what amuses me will amuse others.’ She clearly enjoys making fun of herself. ‘More than anything at all really really really I am unorthodox. It’s like completely instinctive – I’m never satisfied to do things the way other people do them, never was.’ She’s also concerned about genius and style and being an artist.

Although pedagogic and serious, she seems light and content with herself. ‘I’m sorry if you think I’m complacent.’ I don’t, just content. ‘I suppose that’s because I had a sane mother who loved me and thought me wonderful.’ Her mother was a cotton mill worker, her father a grocer. ‘The other reason is that I really don’t care about myself – and also because I’m doing what I want.’

Is she an anarchist? ‘I’ve been asked that – but it was such a long time ago that I’ve forgotten what I’m meant to say . . . I think I’m a civilised woman. I can’t imagine myself killing anyone – and you have to ask yourself that sort of question if you say you’re an anarchist.’

And is she eccentric? ‘Yes, undoubtedly – and proud to be so in such an age of conformity.’ Shy? ‘Well, funnily enough, I am shy until I get in front of people. I hardly ever use the telephone.’ Vulnerable? She appears to be so – and friends have described her as a marshmallow. ‘I don’t feel at all vulnerable – I never get upset about injustices to myself. I don’t care if I do get knocks, because I have faith in what I’m doing.’ She’s not rich. ‘But I think I’m going to be quite rich, possibly very rich. Oscar Wilde said, I never waste money, I spend it . . . My ambition is to have a salon, a base in the middle of town where you invite intellectuals to talk.’

And what about her relationships? She married dance hall manager Derek Westwood when she was 21; and she has a son by her erstwhile lover, former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren. She gives brain stimulation priority over that of the body. ‘I don’t mind if I don’t have a relationship because I love to be on my own so much. But I’m a very loving person.’ She lives alone in Clapham, in the flat she’s had for 20 years. She’s choosy about men and often finds relationships too much of a compromise.

‘I’m quite happy not to have sex again until the day I die. I can manage without it.’ Don’t you like sex? ‘Oooh, I think it’s brilliant.’ She wants an uncomplicated relationship, but doesn’t have the time to look for one. ‘I wish men would proposition women more and that I could proposition men. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, a little recently on somebody – but I’ve given up.’ (Little laugh.) ‘They say art and creativity are a sublimation of sexual drives – and maybe that satisfies me. You know, what do you call this thing where you do it yourself, you’ll have to give me the technical word, ah yes, masturbation – I find that very satisfactory.’

The release of John McCarthy may signal a sea change in the Middle East hostage saga but the kidnappers’ bottom line demand is still as intractable as ever.

The twisted logic for hostage-taking by pro-Iranian militants in Beirut has always been demands for the release of Moslems in Israeli captivity including Sheikh Obeid who was abducted by Israeli commandos from the Lebanon in July 1989.

Although the Israelis are willing to make a deal, they want the seven Israeli servicemen missing in Lebanon, or their bodies if any have died in captivity, returned.

The clear drawback is that the Israelis were seized by different groups, some with no connections with pro-Iranian Hizbollah (Party of God). Iran’s original support for hostage-taking – to prove to the United States and the West that however powerful it could do nothing to save its citizens in the Lebanon, and also to pressurise the US to return billions of dollars of Iranian assets frozen in American banks since 1979 – has been dropped.

The release of Mr McCarthy indicates that Syria and Iran now recognise that the hostage issue remains a barrier to normal relations with the Western powers and see the United Nations, acting as an honest broker, as the only hope.

But with the crucial Middle Eastern conference expected to start in October new momentum has been given to efforts to remove any obstacle by releasing all the hostages.

Mr McCarthy, with a message for UN general-secretary Perez de Cuellar, will be used as another means to pressurise Israel.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said today that Mr McCarthy’s release was a test to see whether the West would now bring pressure on Israel.

He said the release by the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad (Holy War) group was ‘good news’ and claimed Syria had exerted tremendous pressure to try to prevent the kidnappers linking the release of Western hostages with that of Lebanese and Palestinians held in Israel.

However, he said the kidnappers were insisting on ‘the release of their relatives and friends (held) in prisons inside Israel’.

Islamic Jihad first surfaced in 1983 when it launched two suicide attacks on bases of US and French soldiers in Beirut, killing about 300 servicemen. It has claimed responsibility for a string of other bombings and several assassinations in Lebanon and the Middle East as well as the abduction of more than a dozen Westerners in Beirut.

Wife’s anguish after no news of Jackie WHILE John McCarthy had the rest of his life to look forward to today, the wife of one of the other hostages still held captive was dreading the next 24 hours.

Sunny Mann, wife of the eldest hostage Jackie, said she was pleased for Mr McCarthy but heartbroken that his release confirmed her husband’s continued captivity.

She said: ‘I don’t know how I will cope. I don’t know how I got through yesterday. ‘I can’t tell you how I will get through the rest of today.’ Mr Mann, 77, a retired airline pilot ,disappeared in West Beirut on 12 May, 1989.

Mrs Mann added: ‘I’m very, very happy for John and his family and friends, but I’m very upset naturally that it’s not my own husband.

‘Nobody has heard anything about Jackie at all. I’m at the end of my wits. ”I have spent two days with my bags packed waiting by the phone to go to Damascus – everyone thought it would be Jackie and it’s John.’

Direct and honest Streatham-living subject of Personal Services. Money-mad erstwhile madam who will perform an Afternoon of Innocent Cyn at the Edinburgh Festival.

Celebrated former brothel-keeper who used to hate going to bed on her own and now does after-dinner speaking. Sex-fascinated woman who threw the famous luncheon voucher parties and would like to be Minister of Brothels or an agony aunt.

This is the image of Cynthia Payne.

Does she believe in God? ‘I’m a Spiritualist more than anything. I’ve been going to Spiritualist meetings off and on for 25 years. But I’ve never really had any proof of life after death.’ And is money important to her? ‘Yes, because I become very insecure without it.’

She’s wearing a leopard-skin print dress and black high heels. ‘I’ve always dressed a bit like the Queen Mum really. Go on, next question.’ She speaks in a cockney voice with a hard edge; a voice that failed at elocution lessons and which she calls racy and on the common side.

‘I like leopard skin and Loony Party colours because I go around to different elections with screaming Lord Sutch ha ha.’ She says ‘sex’ and ‘money’ – her characteristic trick – to produce a smile for the camera. ‘I’ve also got three nice fur coats. But I can’t wear them because I do a lot of animal campaign work – and you can’t wear a lovely fur coat when you’re doing that.’

She dons a tartan jacket and skirt to buy the groceries. She also comes equipped with elegant earrings, necklace and amethyst and diamond ring. ‘During the day I look very much like an ordinary Streatham woman. You’d never think I was a retired brothel-keeper if you saw me in the shops in my brogues.’

So how would she describe herself physically? She’s short with big boobs and wears a Margaret Thatcher-ish wig. ‘I wear all different types of wig . . . I’ve forgotten the question now . . . Oh yes, I am plump, but I’ve always had a nice pair of legs.’ She lets rip with a dirty laugh. ‘I’m busty, aren’t I?’ There is also a beady toughness in her eyes. ‘What would I change? Well, what woman doesn’t want to improve her body? I’d like to knock a stone off, but I’ve got no willpower. My outlet is eating.’

And what about sex? ‘Oh, everybody wants to know about my sex life!’ She gives another huge dirty laugh. ‘I’ve never found it embarrassing to talk about sex. I’m just fascinated with it. I understand men . . . ‘But English men are so inhibited, aren’t they? I find that I have to do all the running. Even more now that I’m infamous.’ She clearly gets on better with men than women – and both the male photographer and the taxi driver melted visibly in her presence. Does she think she’s sexy? ‘I suppose I could be with the right man.’

So what sort of man would she like? ‘Somebody like Inspector Colin White what raided me. Every time I had a raid, I got a police boyfriend out of it. I find policemen and firemen very attractive. But weak men seem to be attracted to me – which is annoying.’

For 25 years she had a ‘slave’ who idolised her and cleaned for her. ‘But I seem to fall in love with the wrong men – men who don’t give two hoots about me, really. Of course that hurts me.’

And does she feel shame about the things she’s done? Any hang-ups? ‘No, naaah, no. Other people have the hang-ups. I told a vicar recently that if there’s a heaven, I’m going there. I even went to an S and M party the other day – I thought I couldn’t be the Sex Goddess and not go to one – I found my parties were very tame by comparison.’

She’s 58. ‘Oh, I hate getting older – because I want to do it all over again.’ (Another dirty laugh.) ‘When you’re young you’ve got your life in front of you, you can be optimistic – but I’m not so optimistic now.’ I like and feel sorry for her and ask whether she feels sorry for herself. ‘No, but I feel sad that all this happened to me.’ She makes big efforts to be entertaining and fun. But this sense that she is tired, sad and disillusioned recurs frequently during the interview.

Is she? ‘No, naaah, no. I’m tired because I’ve been up since six. I do feel that I’ve had it all, that I’ve done everything. But I wouldn’t say I was disillusioned. I suppose I feel I’ve fulfilled my ambition – I’ve always wanted to be famous because as a child I was always seeking recognition and never getting it. But fame’s not all it’s cracked up to be – I can’t easily go away for a dirty weekend, for instance, because I’m too well-known.’ Later she says that running a brothel fulfilled a need in her. ‘I suppose for once in my life I felt wanted. But now it’s all stopped I don’t feel useful any more.’ She looks doleful.

So how would she describe herself? ‘Now what was it I said to you in the kitchen? Oh yes. My morals have always been low, but my ethics are high.’ She cackles then pauses.

‘I don’t think I’m prim, but people think I am. I’m kind, soft and tough but not hard enough. I’m tough considering what I’ve been through in life – most people would have had a nervous breakdown. But if anything terrible happens, like when I went to prison, I think ‘right, I’m going to learn from this’. I do tend to see the positive side and turn things to my advantage. ‘My warmth of nature is my most important characteristic. And what don’t I like? Well, I talk too much – but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be me. I don’t know why I do, it’s not even nerves. I’ve always been outgoing. In prison I kept quiet for four months – and it was very boring. The only people worth talking to were the murderesses – because most of them are on drugs in Holloway – who were very hard nuts, but at least I could have a conversation with them.’

The character of a madam is generally portrayed as being quite hard. ‘They always play me as being a tough businesswoman. But to be a successful Madame, I don’t think you can be hard. Men and the girls come to tell you their problems. ‘I think as a madam you understand human nature more.’

I’m en route to hear Pavarotti in Pavarotti City, Hyde Park. O Paradiso. Opera buffs cross oceans to listen to him. But will the power of that single human voice send ripples across the Serpentine? And will there be a sing-along?

I brave forth, being stabbed with brollies and thinking of the 10 miles of cable the organisers said they used and the 50,000 ice-creams they anticipated selling. All this for the so-called man of the people – 100,000 of them (and most of them in anoraks) as it turns out.

The ground is strewn with bedraggled people wearing black dustbin bags and media people bearing portable phones. There are also a few City suits. Mrs Cartwright, modelling a noir trash-can liner, had arrived the night before from Shrewsbury. ‘We saw him this afternoon when he practised. He was marvellous. Mind you, we’re not going to see him now’ – she gestures to the crowds. Mr and Mrs Cheeseman, 68 and 72, sit on the damp grass. ‘We’d have come here in the snow.’

The splendid pink, red and columned stage stands beneath a grey sky – 70 feet wide and 200 tonnes of Greek (pop-gone-rococo-style) theatre. It’s 5.30 pm – and the crowds at the front are as thick as at a pop concert. Above a helicopter hovers and speakers hang suspended from cranes. There are also three 30 ft Starvision screens and an Oriental wholefood bar (among others) which seems to have attracted a fair crowd.

John Major arrives on the screen, with a brolly crumpling over him. Then Charles and Diana arrive. She appears to be wearing an umbrella. The atmosphere becomes wet and expectant.

Now it’s 7 pm. The great signor, the wow-ee vocal artist, The Voice with the massive midriff is about to appear. This is the loudest man in London, the maestro, a natural phenomenon and the best tenor in the world . . . and to herald his arrival, the heavens open.

I’m as close to the stage as I can get, about a quarter of a mile away, I fancy. And there I am, waiting in the drenching rain looking at shoulders and umbrellas, corporate and otherwise. It’s like standing under an overflowing drainpipe while people start to look as if they’ve been in a communal carwash.

There are claps and cheers – so apparently He’s arrived. ‘I’m not sure the acoustics are very good,’ says Jackie Rennie, who types for Kenneth Baker and wears a PVC mac, standing in the al fresco crush bar. Something to do with the ceiling, perhaps? ‘He’s lost his voice,’ says somebody else. And it’s true, you can hardly hear him.

Ten people sit under a home-made plastic tent, occasionally coming up for air. Now the rain has let up. ‘Down, down, down,’ howls the crowd – talking about the view-obstructing brollies. Now I push forwards, up closer to the place where they say things like ‘Shhh’ – and don’t talk while he sings. Ahhhh, Puccini.

The big voice fills the big space marvellously. Here, I hear the tenor of the century – unique, strong and honeyed – issuing through speakers at the back that don’t synchronise with those at the front.

Then Pavarotti says: ‘I ‘ave never seen a woman like that. I would like to dedicate this to Lady Diana.’ At least, that’s what it sounded like. The teenagers around me are drinking Pils and saying ‘Go on Placido’ and ‘In’t he fat?’

The park is starting to smell of damp jumpers but there’s excitement in the air. A cry goes up with O Sole Mio, the ice-cream cornetto song – one feels the raspberry ripple of enjoyment in the crowd.

It gets the biggest cheer and a few bravos. Then there’s a whirl of approval and clapping when we move into Nessun Dorma, the World Cup song – and huge applause before he finishes.

At 9.50 pm, people begin pushing under the plastic cordons. Then they start leap-frogging the metal barrier. The orchestra goes off. One assumes Pav has too. And a big boo goes around the park. ‘Not the best thing in the world, but good fun,’ says a soaked lady.

Kindly but firm columnist and author with the caring manner who is leaving LBC after 15 years. Pioneer of broadcast therapy with the unshockable ear. Clear, patient and concise Agony Uncle who has written books both on sex and Wagner.

Counsellor who has lived with another counsellor for 18 years and claims to be happily unmarried despite press reports about his love triangle. Man who won an open scholarship to Oxford and then had a drop-out phase cultivating snowdrops and selling apples in Devon.

On the couch today is Phillip Hodson, the unmarried marriage counsellor turned sex therapist turned psychotherapist. HOD-IN, as the registration number on his grey Mercedes estate declares.

He wasn’t specifically dressed for the part, wearing brick-coloured shirt, jeans, jokey yellow-framed specs and metal girly stuff around his neck and finger (a gold chain and turquoise and silver enamel ring).

‘I like jewellery and body adornment – but I worry it’s a bit wimpish.’ He is soft and markedly feminine in his manner. ‘I make a point of it,’ he says. ‘In my work I have to use a lot of the intuitive side of the mind and get away from straightforwardly male, competitive categories.’ And what do his clothes reveal about him? ‘That I ride a bicycle.’ He reckons it wrong to turn up at counselling sessions in tennis gear – so he dons a three-piece suit – but he likes to dress casually.

‘I have to question which I prefer and which is the real me. And I have to say the jeans.’

As a child, he got his parents to write a note to school saying that he suffered from ‘constriction around the neck’. ‘A load of baloney – but I was 11 before I deigned to wear the school tie.’

He sits back in his chair, in front of a feast he has generously provided. He suffered from obesity and then near-anorexia as a child – and he eats noticeably little for lunch.

He’s tall, brown-eyed and reasonably athletic-looking with a glowing complexion and receding hairline. ‘I carried the hang-ups of being a fat child for a very long time’ – he presses his fingertips against each other, and looks in the air to talk. ‘I went from nearly 15 stone aged 15, to 11 stone at 16: from feeling almost totally unacceptable to the opposite sex to being told I was fairly good looking. I didn’t believe that for years.’ He then goes on about his thighs and waist and the proportions of his body – talking without stopping, and answering questions more extensively than anyone I’ve ever interviewed.

He is an interesting man who fancies himself. He’s also truthful, very intense about his inner world – more than in touch with his feelings – and with a rather awkward sense of humour. He is also noticeably keen and leans forward enthusiastically.

Listeners have a fantasy of him. ‘They think I’m a dreadful corrupting fool who only talks about sex on the radio. Most people seem to think I have limitless sympathy, understanding and the patience of a saint. In my personal life, I’m often the complete opposite of the way I am in public, being impatient and quick to react, sometimes without thinking.’ He say he’s feeling a bit rough from the weekend. And that he’s not performing ‘much’ now. ‘But there’s that bit in me that says ‘you don’t want to screw anything up. What I say may be taken down and used in evidence both for and against.’ ‘

He gets more comfortable, and starts to look me in the eyes, when the male photographer arrives. They’re probably (he jokes) doing a bit of bonding, as they say in those circles.

So how would he describe himself? ‘I think fast and like a lot of stimulation and excitement, but I’m capable of backtracking and apologising. I have an enormous amount of energy which is almost a problem – I’ll work at something obsessionally until it’s done and then notice I haven’t slept for two nights. But I am able to relax.

‘I don’t really like change very much – I’m agreeable when someone says ‘do you want to come to the theatre in a month’, but the night before I’ll want to get out of it.’ (There’s a Sixties bit in him that wants life to go with mood.) ‘And I’ve worked very hard to have a unique job – and I like to have a lot of balls in the air at the same time.’

Is he as self-confident as he appears? ‘I find that difficult to answer, in the same way as I’m both extrovert and introvert. I can actually do anything. I can face almost any social situation. But the kind of work I do costs me. I still have a fear of failure.’ And does he think he’s intense? ‘I’m aware of it. It’s almost impossible in this sort of work not to be.’ So how would he describe his condition if he went to a shrink tomorrow? ‘I’d say that my mid-life crisis is defeating me. It isn’t actually – but it’s a struggle, and that’s why I’d be going.’ He’s 45 and says his crisis is not so much a physical thing as a feeling that he’s achieved certain goals that he was working towards. ‘And now I want time off. I’d like time for me.’

He speaks as if he’s broadcasting – a voice that is pleased with itself, slightly hypnotic and with a steadiness of pace. He talks articulately and quickly – and puts on voices, acts and does little role-plays. ‘My speech is leavened with bits of ‘sarf’ London or Oxford English as an ease-making thing.’ But which one’s him? ‘My mother always told me to speak properly. But it’s unfashionable to speak correctly – so I have to bend a bit.’

The former sex therapist had a reputation as a champion lover in his youth. ‘Malicious untruths were written about me. I never said ‘I can’t remember how many affairs I’ve had. You might as well ask me how many restaurants I’ve been to’.’ And, as he points out, even James Bond found himself impotent at Casino Royale.

Has this man, who was one of the first single marriage guidance counsellors, always had an ‘open relationship’? ‘No.’ He and his common-law wife are going to write a book on it. And what are his sexual signals? ‘At the moment, zero . . . But if I see someone I really like, I make it fundamentally and blatantly clear. I might even say ‘come away with me . . . ‘

‘I’m surprised to find that a lot of women like my very bigness.’ How big is he? ‘Ha ha 6ft 1in and very solid. Some people would say thick, ha ha . . . Sexuality for me is very much to do with moods, boldness, daring and imagination – not just appearance. I’ve never been conventionally attractive and people who’re attracted to me aren’t just looking for Mr Beefcake. ‘They like me because I’m very unpredictable and very funny. Humour’s high on the list of what’s sexually attractive. And some people like my big bottom.’

Why did he never marry? ‘The silly answer is because my father told me never to wed. I’m not someone who is over social. I don’t care too much for endorsement by other people. The marriage I have – though not legal – is the sort of relationship I want.’

He looks relaxed. ‘I like myself emotionally and psychologically. I’m on my side.’

JESSICA is pummel pummel pummelling Lucia’s bare feet, her face creased with concentration. She reaches over for a bottle and, splosh, pours orange and cinnamon oil onto her hands and returns to her massaging.

Jessica is two-and-a-half years old. And Lucia – who was wearing Ninja Turtle slippers before they began – is much, much older. She’s three and a half. Jessica is giving Lucia a reflexology massage in the sunny garden, touching points in her feet to get a balance in the body’s energy, but not quite understanding this yet. Some of them laugh when they’re having their feet done, learning to do it two pairs at a time.

These are little people at Little People, London’s first – and only – holistic nursery school, where they have daily massage from a grown-up and reflexology and organic lunches, along with a combination of Montessori and traditional education. Where touch is allocated as much time as pre-reading, pre-writing and play.

Downstairs, through The Messy Room and past four knee-high loos in a room with no door, is The Quiet Room. Alexander, just two and wearing nappies, is listening to taped dolphin and whale sounds mixed with wind instruments and getting an all-over body massage from a big person called Molly Molloy Madigan. (She’s Irish.) He’s being gently stroked with orange oil to aid his digestion and lies there sucking his thumb and occasionally giving a mini grunt of satisfaction. It lasts 20 minutes and he falls asleep.

If a child is finding it difficult to settle into a project, Molly picks him up for a massage. One didn’t like it initially, but soon got into it. ‘Sometimes another watches. Teaching them to do it is very important, so they can care for each other,’ says Molly.

She had the idea for her school four years ago, and opened it last September. We’re now sitting talking on wooden chairs that stand probably eight inches off the ground, made by a religious community in Surrey who dedicate their lives to making furniture for children.

Little People was formerly the ground floor of Molly’s home – light, spacious and jolly – in her Victorian house in Archway. The nursery smells of essential oils which she burns every morning, rosewood and bergamot today. They are summer smells which help to lift the spirits and keep us happy, she says. Certainly the atmosphere is calm and cheery, no tears even as the children are dropped off. (They don’t have a pick-up service.) Molly’s wearing Japanese massage sandals – you know, those funny things that have rubber spikes that stick up into the soles to do good works on your feet – and tartan-pattern cotton trousers. She is telling me about her brainchild.

‘I needed to go back to work after having my daughter Sarah. I wasn’t happy with what was available in the line of full day care, so I decided to set up what I would have liked to have found.’ Sarah is four now and has another year there.

Instead of running the short hours of nine until four, Little People suits big working people and is open from eight until six, five days a week. It costs £125 a week – which Molly swears is standard – but she negotiated a reduction for the twins and says she has helped parents with financial difficulties.

‘I didn’t go into the project with views on whether it would be a good business deal, but rather just wanting to give other children what I hoped to give my own daughter.’ There are currently 14 children and capacity for 25; half are male and the rest wee girls, aged from two to five. The infants are called names like Sasha, Jacob, Romilly and Zachary. All English and local to the area, they’re the sort of kiddies, she explains, who go to osteopaths and use herbal and homeopathic remedies. (Molly herself uses Bach Flower Rescue Remedy if they have a little bump or bang.) And their mummies and daddies are things like graphic designers, journalists and teachers.

And the staff? Well, there’s Molly herself, 35, from Galway and a state registered nurse; and Kris, a man with long blond hair, batik shirt and Montessori and early-years training; and Ann, a traditional junior and primary school-trained teacher; then Maria, who’s an artist, and then Patsy, the Jamaican cook who is also wearing Japanese massage sandals and does cooking projects and things like tie-dye too. The whole place is Right On, in the nicest possible way.

Molly came to England when she was 17. A non-practising Catholic and the eldest of 10 children – a fact she reveals with evident pride – she’s used to looking after little ones. She worked for 12 years in nursing, ending up at the Royal Free Hospital.

‘I was unhappy with nursing because I felt it was losing a lot of the care and healing, which is what I like to do now.’

She went to work in her husband’s architectural practice, got pregnant, started having massage herself, learned baby massage, thought about starting up a natural health clinic for children . . . and ended up opening Little People. ‘It’s hard work. But with nursing I was used to that.’ An average day at the Little People involves breakfast, then singing, games and noise followed by creative work, toilet visit and handwashing; then lunch, teeth cleaning, free play, rest and massage. Depending on the day, there will also be messy activities or rhythm and dance or something. Which brings us to their food. It contains neither colourings, preservatives nor any other gunk. Take Monday: ‘Vegetarian moussaka with roasted pumpkin seed and wheat salad followed by silk tofu and strawberry whip.’

Or Wednesday: ‘Mixed-bean casserole with wine, mashed potato with ground almond, black olives with avocado salad, stewed apple with soya sauce.’ If it sounds like a baby boom parody of the health boom (the minor Mung Bean Set?) the children apparently adore it. And they cheerfully set the tables, acting as two and three-year-old waitresses and carrying the food from the kitchen. Then they serve each other.

They don’t have a discipline problem. ‘Parents tend to ask how we handle children expressing their positive and negative feelings. Basically I let the child express what he needs to. To deal with a temper tantrum, you need just see where it’s coming from.’

If its origin is a dispute with another child, Molly – who’s done something called Parent Link, which helps in these matters of major litigation – shows them the best way of handling the problem among themselves.

She did a lot of research when formulating her ideas for Little People. She found many nurseries ‘disgusting, with appalling food and a poor quality of care’. But her philosophy is to develop the whole character of the child, so he leaves with his trust and self-esteem not just intact, but enhanced, and an inner confidence.

Are there any disadvantages to her new approach to childcare? ‘The only thing parents worry about is the atmosphere being too cosy and too cuddly and too loving.’ This sounds like a great problem. ‘But they wonder what’s going to happen to their child when he goes to his next school . . .’

Forty-seven years and 19,500 parties after Betty Kenward began writing Jennifer’s Diary in Harpers & Queen, she has handed it over to Sue Crewe, who admits to loving society gossip but, in the column’s tradition, will keep it to herself. She talks to CAROLINE PHILLIPS

SUE Crewe, unattached and the former shopping editor of Harpers & Queen, is taking over from Betty Kenward as ‘Jennifer’ of Jennifer’s Diary in the same magazine. Mrs Kenward, 84 and always ready with a withering semi-colon, has had 47 thrilling years of marvellous chronicling of charming partygoers, dear dear friends, looking radiant and living in a world of silk organza. It is said that the redoubtable Kenward went to 19,500 parties during her tenure and every Royal Wedding since 1944 except that of Princess Margaret. (A palatial oversight.) It was she who covered two consecutive days at the Royal Windsor Horse Show interrupted by a dinner party in Venezuela by Concorde. And there was that incident on the operating table when, minutes before the surgeon drew his knife, she insisted on reading her galley proofs.

As Crewe and I enjoyed a pre-luncheon drink (Nescafe), we looked out at the delightful grounds on the other side of the house which included no ornamental lakes but a few parking meters. Her W11 sitting-room is decorated in shabby Good Taste with a bit of exotic bohemia and brown wrapping paper on the walls. Henrietta, a charming old Kensington High School friend of mine, was staying there, between houses. Crewe also has a ‘tummy-turningly beautiful’ little grey rented cottage in Cumbria.

The relations-in-oil of her first husband, author and foodie Quentin Crewe, glower down from the wall. ‘They’re called the Spoonbills. That’s the Cavendishes’ generic name for other people’s gloomy relations,’ laughs Crewe, 41, nee Cavendish, and granddaughter of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire and second cousin to the present incumbent of Chatsworth. She says things like ‘oh heahverns’, ‘goooodness’ and ‘oh golleh’.

The regal Kenward would have presented the most glorious sight in black pleated dress, court shoes, immaculate coiffure neatly pinned with a large velvet bow and three-strand pearl choker. ‘Do I look all right? I’m very insecure,’ says Crewe, who is resplendent in unstructured gold Nicole Farhi cardigan, flowing burnished almond T-shirt and acorn-kernel trousers plus drop gold earrings.

If one works for H&Q, she reckons, golly, it’s rude not to be brushed and combed. ‘I’m naturally untidy. Some children are born with their nappies round their left ear . . . and I was. The Cavendishes are famously badly dressed. People go into print talking about their awful clothes.’ Her ‘wonderful cleavage’, on which H&Q editor Vicki Woods has gone into print, is not on show. But she is pretty, with lovely eyes, although she thinks she is ordinary. ‘In the first year, I expect I’ll go to absolutely everything I’m invited to. With any luck, I’ll lose a lot of weight. I used to be thin and nervous. Now I’m just nervous.’

She was chosen from 17 applicants for the job. She was approached; it didn’t occur to her to apply. She will take up her post on 5 August, editing her first diary for the December issue.

So how does she feel about taking over from the legendary Kenward? ‘A mixture of excitement, ebullience and trepidation.’ The indomitable Kenward got up at 6am and went to bed at 2am daily. And Crewe? ‘I’m hopeless in the morning. I can’t do anything useful until 11.’ She reckons it a hard act of stamina to follow. ‘She was like Mrs Thatcher.’

But, above all, she feels tickled. ‘I was so proud of myself for getting a career – and now a job!’ She was freelance before. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been employed since I was 19. It’s amazing! I get a pension!’ In addition, and this she finds the astonishing thing, she is going to have a secretary. She won’t have Kenward’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes or maid – she drives a four-year-old Citroen.

It all reminds her rather of that benchmark seven years ago when she got her first mortgage. ‘I thought it was such a grown-up thing to have. I wound down my window by some unknown passerby in Kensington High Street and said, ‘I’ve got a mortgage’.’

Kenward never committed the social faux pas of taking a pencil or notebook to a party – when one was a guest, one behaved like a guest, holding only sherry in one’s perfectly formed hand. ‘I think I’m going to do a lot of muttering into a small tape recorder. I’m very bad at remembering people’s names,’ says Crewe, endearingly.

In front of people? ‘Oh yes. I’m going to say, ‘I’ve got concussion, could you tell me your name?’ ‘ She laughs. ‘The more nervous I get, the more the memory completely evaporates, don’t you find?’

And will Crewe be writing nice things? ‘I see no point in being gratuitously unpleasant. I think it’s much stronger to be enthusiastic. It’s so easy to knock people,’ says Crewe. So she won’t change the style? ‘I’m not saying. I want it to be a lovely surprise when it comes out!’ She giggles.

She grew up at Holker Hall in Cumbria and went to St Marys, Wantage, before having a couple of marriages (the second to now chairman of TV-am news Nigel Ryan) and a couple of children (Nathaniel and Charity), and doing a variety of jobs which included selling sofa covers to the Army and microlights to Turkey.

She also studied dairy (not diary) management at agricultural college. ‘I got a cup for trying hard. But it was awful when I forgot to test the brakes on this bloody great tractor and, of course, we went sailing into the side of a barn.’

She’s a special person, deliciously nice. She’s funny, imaginative and kindly yet assertive. One imagines her easily wounded. She’s straightforward and the remark attributed to her (‘I know I’m getting old because all my friends who were marquesses have become dukes’) was actually said by a friend of hers, tongue firmly in chic.

She’s unsure of herself. ‘I have a very low opinion of myself. Don’t we all? I think English women particularly are not encouraged to look at their talents and gifts. And I was one of the last of a generation of girls not to be educated or trained.’

She is currently romantically uninvolved. And what of her marriages to famous men? ‘It’s a huge privilege to be married to interesting people who achieve a great deal in their lives. It wasn’t only a rare delight, it also made up for my paucity of education. It was 50 times more instructive than going to university.’

And did she prefer one marriage to the other? Quentin Crewe or Nigel Ryan? She snorts with laughter. ‘Both of them told me only to say ‘f*** off’ when you’re asked an impossible question and then nobody prints it. But nowadays they do.’ She hoots again. ‘Of course not is the real answer.’ She says she doesn’t know why either of the relationships broke up. ‘I really don’t know. I think about it a lot. But I don’t think there are any absolutes in love, marriage or divorce. No two-sentence answers to those sort of questions.’

But back to the job. She doesn’t think ‘social connections are the most important thing for the diarist. Connections are like multiple joints that plumbers use. They are no use unless you are a good plumber and you have the pipes’. She considers herself a good plumber, so presumably the parties must be the pipes.

So is she a great party gel? ‘I don’t think the person taking over the diary necessarily has to be a society person or party person. I’m not a mad partygoer.’

She’s interested in the sports or politics, or mating rituals that generates parties. One wonders if she’ll be writing about such Important Sociological Undercurrents. ‘Not necessarily. But I will be aware of them.’ Does she love gossip? ‘Love it.’ And will she write about her friends? ‘Yes.’ She has a huge range of acquaintances and a small group of intimates.

Is Crewe as discreet as her predecessor? ‘I have old-fashioned notions of integrity. And I’m also old enough not to be bullied or coerced.’ So she won’t reveal even the teeniest gaff? ‘Certainly not. I’m a repository for gossip, not a conduit!’

She doesn’t think there’s something a touch anachronistic about writing a compendium of high society’s race meetings and garden parties. ‘High society living it up is an endangered species,’ she smiles. No one works harder than the aristocracy.

Environmentally friendly and forthright presenter of Bellamy Rides Again who would like to be a graceful but tough birch tree. Big cuddly green and adventurous giant who has broken nearly every bone in his body and has a ballet company.

Clever and funny honorary Maori-cum-conservationist who spent 24 days at home last year with a menagerie, his child, four adopted ethnic ones and a wife. Affable and ebullient millionaire naturalist who once went to jail in Tasmania and has written 44 books.

Enter David Bellamy.

He’s foregone his habitual T-shirt and shorts in favour of casual mountaineering gear suitable for the Piccadilly clime. ‘I have 27 pairs of these trousers,’ he says, waving his arms at the garb he’s worn from the North Pole to the tropics. He wears Cornish pastie shoes on his feet. ‘I suppose my clothes show that I’m a pretty sloppy person really,’ he booms, in the voice of a nasal East Ender crossed with an animated cave man. ‘I don’t like wearing suits. I turned up like this at a lunch at the Park Lane Hotel at which I was the guest of honour – and they wouldn’t let me in!’ He laughs. ‘I wanted all girl children so that I could buy them wonderful dresses. So perhaps,’ – hopeful tone – ‘I should’ve been a girl.’ He talks as if he’s imitating himself – and doesn’t, he says, do it as well as Lenny Henry. He speaks to plants in the same way. ‘Just as I talk to people. I say things like, ‘You’re a hairy one for your sort of species’.’ The model for the caricature laughs.

And how would the bewhiskered botanist with the famous broken nose describe himself physically? ‘A moderate wreck,’ says the buffoon who doesn’t have one undamaged vertebrae in his neck.

Does he think he’s intimidating? He’s 6ft 2in with a rugby-toughened frame. ‘Not verbally – but physically, perhaps. Imagine, I have to look at it every morning – that’s why I don’t shave!’ He’s expressive with his body, using it (he later says) as an instrument of music.

And does he think he’s good looking? ‘Sorry!’ (surprised tone). ‘No. But recently I’ve found myself combing my hair before speaking to camera – which is awful. I never used to carry a comb. I’m getting vain in my old age.’ He later alludes to himself as the ‘ugly face other people use to save the world’. Does he think he’s ugly? He looks taken aback. ‘What is ugly? A wart hog is the most beautiful thing to a lady wart hog. And I really don’t think what somebody looks like is important.’

So ask him how he would change his looks. ‘I’d use all my muscles. I went to Pineapple Dance Studio and did a cardiac funk which almost killed me. I wanted to be a ballet dancer until I grew this big.’

I say, jovially, I can’t quite imagine this beefy bloke in a tutu, ho ho. David Bellamy as you’ve never seen him before, ha ha. ‘Males don’t wear tutus – though I have worn them many times at college dances. Do not mock – if there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s mocking. Mock me as much as you like – but don’t mock ballet, it’s far too important.’

He says he’s ‘58 heading for 60′. And what does age mean to him? ‘Desperate. I hate being old. I don’t want my end to be tranquil and wonderful – I want to go out with a bloody great bang. If ever I get to the stage when I cannot do all the things I want to do, I’m going to chuck myself off the Himalayas. I know exactly the place.’

He comes over, however, with an infectious enthusiasm, charm and immense energy. He is excitable, with a dry wit and greatly likeable. He is also clearly a sensitive, shy man who suffers from self doubt.

So how would he describe himself? ‘Oooh, I don’t know. What a terrible question! Bloody minded,’ he says, in a thudding way. He then talks slowly, with lengthy pauses. ‘Abrasive but not misguided. I think I’m 99.99 per cent honest. I try too hard sometimes – because the world’s in a bloody mess. Also I’m a baby sometimes, ‘cos I don’t like being kicked by my own side . . . I’m a big softie. I’m the Andrex toilet paper that isn’t really made from sustainable sources!’

And what does he particularly like about himself? ‘Nothing very much’ (long hesitation) ‘but I’m like a little terrier who stays in with his teeth as long as he can – that’s why I’m not retiring.’ And is he happy? ‘Yes, I enjoy everything I do – and if I didn’t, I’d stop doing it.’ He has one helluva impact. What sort of effect does he think he has on people? ‘I’m overpowering if I’m talking about environmental matters or ballet. If they’re talking about anything else, I simply opt out. I can just go to sleep and wake up in five minutes.’

He’s doing live television in front of me – without the cameras. But what’s the difference between his public and private persona? I don’t imagine he talks to his children in this way. ‘I do. I was told ‘when you’re at home be Dad and not David Bellamy’ – unfortunately it’s one and the same thing. I can’t switch it off.’ He says he first turned it on aged 21. So who were you before that? ‘A dispossessed ballet dancer.’

He’s also a workaholic who puts in an 18-hour day. ‘I really find doing nothing very boring.’ He feels such a sense of urgency because he reckoned he was a drop-out at school and that he let his parents down badly. ‘So when I finally got switched on, I’ve been working ever since.’

Such behaviour might indicate a low self-esteem. Certainly there’s a sense that he doesn’t feel he measures up. ‘Yes, it’s very low. I don’t think I’ve lived the sort of ethical life my parents did . . . I’m a worm. But worms are useful – they make soil.’

He talks loudly and blames it on genes. Is he actually shy? ‘Yuh. I still hate using the telephone and I won’t go into shops. The media has done a lot of good for me because I can step out of my shyness and Be David Bellamy, the telly personality. But sometimes I just want to crawl away and disappear.’

Is he intrepid? ‘Yes. I will go anywhere in the world as long as it’s not with nasty people. I’d rather go swimming with Jaws than come up against people.’

So how does he see himself sexually? How does he rate himself as a man? ‘I was immensely lucky. I met someone who could put up with me – with my workaholism, overt shouting and bigoted self opinionism. I found a really beautiful person who wanted to marry me. So I didn’t have to wave myself about all that much.

‘When I was a youngster, the only time you were going to get it was when you got married. Whatever anybody says, sex within a marriage – and I don’t know anything about it outside married life – gets better and better. Not as often – but by God it gets better.’

So what makes him tick? ‘Mars bars.’

Redundancy, recession – the everyday words strike a menacing note as the meaning of unemployment strikes home on a personal basis for more and more of London’s white-collar middle-classes. Alistair Delves plunged from earnings of more than £100,000 a year to unemployment benefit of £50 a week. Jane Hill felt emotionally shattered and then filled with rage after being told she was no longer wanted. Bert Casey offered to go in the hope of saving a younger man. How did these three victims cope? And are there lessons in it for those still threatened by the recession?

ONE day senior ad man Alistair Treves was earning more than £100,000 – and the next he was on the dole. ‘I get paid £50 a week from social security because I have a wife and children.’ He had worked for leading London advertising agency Young and Rubicon for 21 years.

He used to have a chauffeur-driven car, his own fancy motor and holidays in Florida. Now he’s recognised on the number three bus where he sits on the top deck and practises Chinese breathing techniques and relaxation exercises.

He’s a rare breed: a senior professional who has been made redundant and will talk about it. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of. These things occur in modern life.’

We’re sitting in the garden of his four-bedroom Victorian house in Dulwich – a better class of sun streaming onto our faces, mugs of Lapsang Souchong in our hands.

Alistair, 44, has a boyish haircut atop a long oval face with expansive pink cheeks and facial expressions that look as if he is mimicking himself. And he’s wearing Saturday-lunch-in-Bibendum kind of garb: pink polo shirt, grey cords and navy blazer.

Until he left his job on 10 January, he wore three hats: assistant managing director; director of client services, running a department of 80 people; and group director, handling £35 million worth of business. In the Eighties the agency had been making money, money, money. But then the recession hit and by 1989 it was biting with rottweiler teeth. Costs and overheads were out of control, they had too many senior people, and the budget for 1991 was looking dire.

‘I was called back from a day’s leave at 5.30 one Friday (30 November). I didn’t realise I was the third senior person to go in there. I was like a marked man.’

A white collar redundancy! The Gaultier fabric of his life threatened! Would he not lose his status and everything he had worked for? Would he have to reschedule his mortgage? Lose the respect of his wife? Tell the kids they couldn’t have mountain bikes?

He looks at his light and spacious residence: freshly painted, immaculately tidy, with a guinea pig in a pen in the kitchen, a wife planting in the garden and the sort of vehicles that a three and six-year-old leave strewn around the place. Owing to management upheavals, he no longer felt he fitted in at Y and R; and he’d long wanted to get the hell out but couldn’t think of a way.

His pay-off after 21 years was hardly guinea-pig feed. (He won’t reveal the sum. ‘There’s loyalty among thieves,’ he says. But it would be enough to keep the show on the road for about a year if he didn’t earn a penny. He can’t or won’t imagine the show coming to an end.) He had neither savings nor credit card debts. He has a pension. Y and R is still paying for his private health care. And homes like his £300,000ish one weren’t selling. So he worried, briefly, whether he might end up on a caravan site in North Wales or have to move to New Zealand.

Instead he went to Peckham Social Security and queued for three hours. Then he was told he had been misdirected and should really be at the Department of Employment. So he queued there – and was then told he was meant to be in Peckham. ‘It was a real eye-opener. I realised for the first time how lucky I am.’

Now he’s not exactly sitting around at home. He still gets up at 6.45. ‘No reason to stay in bed, there’s too much going on,’ says the man who has decided he wants to do ‘anything and everything’ in the communications business. He’s approached 90 headhunters and spends his time ‘meeting terribly interesting people’. He’s been doing a little consultancy work too.

But what of his ‘over £100,000’ mortgage? He howls with defensive laughter on being asked whether he will manage to pay it. It’s a forced laugh and his fists tense up noticeably. But he hasn’t reduced it. And will he keep his children at private school? ‘I’d clean the bloody streets to make sure they stayed.’ A lot of streets, I say; ha, ha, he says.

They’ve slashed their outgoings by a third. ‘We went into siege mentality.’ They’ve stopped buying spirits, reduced their wine intake and cut out new clothes and eating out. ‘It was strange coming from an industry of largesse – where I was eating out breakfast three days a week, lunch four days and dinner a couple of times. Now if anybody kindly buys me lunch, for a change I appreciate it.’

He’s become less arrogant. And he’s realised the fragility of life. ‘When you’re made redundant, it’s a bit like a death. You wake up to life and think if there are things you want to do, just get on and do them.’ But what of the chance that he might never be in full-term employment again? Pause. ‘Good question. I don’t know. I’ve got another 30 years of working (he’s 44). If I’m not in full-time employment again, it’ll be out of choice.’

So what of his loss of status? ‘I’ve never been hung up on that. I didn’t make advertising my life. I have a supportive wife, a young family, other interests.

‘My wife told the children that Daddy hasn’t got a job at the moment. Andrew occasionally worries about Daddy getting a job.’ And are his kid’s worries justified? Daddy hoots with laughter. ‘I’m laid-back. I know we’ll make it.’

Morose and hunky photographer who is compulsively attracted to gun battles and death and was once hit with a shell in both legs. Non-violent, courageous and honourable man who has worked from war-torn Africa to Vietnam armed only with a camera.

Dyslexic, tanned and sinewy co-author of Unreasonable Behaviour. Complex and contradictory character who is exhibiting at the Royal Photographic Society in Bath from 29 June.

Such is the image of Don McCullin, 56 – the John Wayne of Somerset. He’s wearing Docksiders, a lumberjack-style flannel shirt and hair that hits his collar. ‘I wear clothes that are convenient,’ he says, in a hesitant way. ‘I like rolling my sleeves up.’

The strange thing is that he has too many of certain items. ‘Like upstairs I have 60 pairs of new socks. I can’t bring myself to wear them, to take them out of their pristine wrappers.’ As a child, he wore secondhand clothes.

He’s also very neat and tidy – curiously, one of the things he’d like to be remembered for is his presentation – and as we talk, it feels as if he organises things in an attempt to order his inner chaos. (‘Yes,’ he says later, ‘I’m in permanent turmoil.’) ‘It’s to do with lack of confidence, I suppose. And I’m just trying to make up for things I didn’t have when I was a boy. We didn’t have a bath and we shared a loo.’ He is soft, unassuming and modestly spoken. He has the face of a rugged model, kindly with shaggy eyebrows and piercing blue eyes that are sad. ‘Mournful eyes?’ He laughs, and crosses his arms that end in workmanlike hands. ‘They’re what God gave me.’ His is a face that often has trouble at Customs; and in Africa they accused him of being a mercenary. ‘I often think I’m punished for other people’s misdemeanours,’ he has said.

‘I’m not what you’d call good-looking, not the kind of person to attract a second glance in the street. But I do suffer from vanity – and I’m always checking myself out.’

He’s not, he says, any kind of sexual thing. ‘Obviously, one knows one isn’t a sex symbol. I’m sure my appeal as a man is because of my occupation. It’s nothing to do with the way I look. I’ve known lots of beautiful girls – and they’ve all been interested in my work, not me. That’s what I think, anyway.’

He is, he says, yer average 5ft 10 man. ‘But people often think I look surly and don’t want to argue the toss with me . . . I have this strong feeling of confrontation in my make-up. I won’t run away from an argument and I won’t run away from fear.’

Why? His was a savage and underprivileged childhood – his father, an invalid, died when he was young; he was evacuated to violent homes; and he was tormented and bullied by schoolmasters and boys tougher than he. Fear, he says, has been his companion over the last 25 years, and there is a tremendous strain of adventure in him.

He’s overwhelmingly nice: accommodating, sensitive, telepathic perhaps, full of pain and sometimes martyrdom. He says he buttons up his emotions, but he’s actually very emotional. Apparently confused and depressed, he tends to be (in protective manner) self-deprecatory. And one also feels a sense of disillusionment: that his pictures didn’t change the world, partly. ‘A burnt-out and tense old bugger,’ is the way he puts it.

So how else would he describe himself? ‘People think I’m a misery. But I’m not.’ Certainly, he can be heavy-going. He says he’d like to be known for his photos and his fairness. And he then says he’d like people to consider him fun. ‘I bet that surprises you.’ He laughs. But it’s true that there are occasional bursts of humour and happiness.

‘I’m just motivated by intense thought and emotion. I can’t let anything past me without analysing it,’ says the man who compares his eyes to a combine harvester, taking in everything in the field. ‘I’m constantly thinking, like a 24-hour-a-day machine. I’m a kind of captive of my own eyes, mind and body.’

In bed last night, he was counting people. ‘A dozen really nice people I knew who’ve been killed in the last 20 years. And I thought, why them?’ His delivery is placid and there’s something in him that makes you want to mother him.

‘I know this sounds sinister, but the ghosts of those dead people are in those filing cabinets here at night with me. I really believe those pictures in there have some kind of effect on this atmosphere.’

He spends a lot of time alone, here in the house he dubs a private factory of emotion. ‘Yes, I am lonely,’ he flinches at the question. ‘I suppose that’s why I over-clobber this place and spend so much time polishing up. I am burning myself up all the time, I’m on fire. But let’s hope the fire engines don’t get me.’ Vrrrzzzzzooom-the Royal Naval plane from the nearby base screams overhead.

His guilt and conscience weigh heavy. ‘It’s like having two vests on a hot summer’s day.’ He looks bleak. ‘Obviously something nasty is going to happen to me for getting away with all these things’ – like escaping being murdered, photographing dying people and starving children. ‘That’s probably why I look worried all the time.’

That’s also why he works so hard, working to divert himself. ‘As a human being, I’m worn out,’ he says later. ‘I feel as if all my nerve endings are hanging out. I’ve almost been skinned alive, really.’

He’s passionate about his work – ‘I inject a pound of flesh into each picture’ – and inspirational. ‘I love it. And thank God I do, because I haven’t anything else to do.’

Central to his character is a desire to prove and overcome things. ‘I can’t overcome not being able to read the written word properly. But I try to overcome my photography: every night I go to bed and fear my darkroom.’ He’s racked by guilt at leaving his wife, Christine, for former model Laraine Ashton. His wife then died of cancer, ‘and the other person (he doesn’t name her) somehow went off me’. Christine died on the morning of his son’s wedding. ‘If you think I haven’t picked up the bill for this feast of misery over the last 20 years, you’re wrong. I have.’

Does he let people close to him? ‘They don’t get much chance, really.’ He later explains: ‘I’m a social outcast in some respects. People get bored with my downer conversations at dinner parties.’ He also says he’s so emotionally wound-up that he used to drink a lot. ‘And that broke up all kinds of relationships.’

Is he potty? He starts laughing and looks down. ‘I’ve walked a very fine line between madness, hypocrisy and contradiction. I’ve probably crawled through it all and come out reasonably balanced.’

And does he consider himself brave? ‘I’m certainly prepared to go a lot further than most people. But in some ways that’s just folly.’ He holds with destiny and fate. ‘I have looked at myself as some sort of Dalek that is controlled, although I don’t know who’s controlling me.’

And does he believe in God? ‘That’s your most important question. I behave like an atheist. But deep down, I find it hard to believe that this was not all created. Yet when I see people being murdered and men crying in front of me . . .’

The soviet space chief last night launched an extraordinary attack on women astronauts-including orbiting Briton Helen Sharman, whom he described as a loner who ‘works like an iron lady’. CAROLINE PHILIPS talked to the parents of the down-to-earth girl.

WHEN Helen Sharman arrived in the world 27 years ago, she weighed 6lb 12oz more than she does now. Currently weightless, Helen is the first British astronaut in space-aboard the Russian Soyuz TM12 rocket for a journey to MIR space station.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Helen the toddler didn’t let on she might one day be an astronaut. Instead, she said she was keen to become a nurse-like mummy- before she decided to be a doctor and then, of course, a ballet dancer when she took dance lessons aged eight.

What is striking about her childhood is its ordinariness. ‘She was a very normal girl,’ emphasises her mother, Lyndis. ‘It’s just that she’s gone and done this rather extraordinary thing.’

If there was a hint of individualism and unconventionality beneath her stable and composed exterior, it manifested itself in her early teens. When she wanted peace and quiet, she’d climb to the top of the tree in the garden to sit and read a book.

She loved Waltzers and white-knuckle fairground rides. And the signs that she wouldn’t suffer space sickness were good. ‘We could drive 500 miles without a problem,’ says her father, John, ‘while her sister Andrea (now 25) would be sick before we left Sheffield.’

We are sitting in the family home in Sheffield, a detached house in a leafy suburb, to which Helen was taken aged eight. In the sitting-room there are swirly carpets, flowered sofas, patterned walls and a chair which bears a plastic sign which reads ‘recliner’.

We’re drinking tea granules ready-mixed with dehydrated milk. On the mantelpiece stand congratulations cards and photos of Helen in the space capsule. On the table is a magazine cover reading ‘Don’t Dream It, Be It’-a diet magazine.

There are dogs in the kitchen. Helen was interested in animal welfare from an early age. The family kept dogs, cats and hamsters and she became a vegetarian at the age of 15.

Helen, who moved into her own flat when she went to study chemistry at Sheffield University, no longer has a bedroom here. But until she was 18 she shared the large room overlooking the street-now occupied by her brother James, 15, and with multi-earrings in his lobes-with her sister Andrea. Helen had the tidy half, and Andrea the messy one. She didn’t have posters of pop stars, she wasn’t keen on them. Instead she had pictures of animals-particularly elephants.

When she was six, her parents started fostering pre-adoption children, mostly babies: 24 infants who stayed up to four months, including two West Indians. They discussed the idea first with Helen. ‘She thought it tremendous and behaved like an older sister to them.’

There was sibling rivalry. But sensible Helen never competed with the sartorially interested Andrea. ‘She was always the trousers sort, not in the least interested in fashion,’ remarks her father. ‘Whatever was practical and no-nonsense, she wanted to wear it.’ So temperate Helen saved her pocket money and bought only music scores, books and occasional sweets. The news comes on the television-and suddenly there’s her daughter in a space capsule. Live! Lyndis watches it with one finger in her mouth. ‘Oh heavens! Look at Helen’s hair.’ (Appalled tone) ‘She’s got nothing to hold it down.’

If she’s anxious about the safe return of the mission, this mother-who has brought her daughter up emotionally secure and stable-doesn’t vocalise it. As soon as the broadcast finishes, she apologises for having turned away from the interview and recommences talking.

At Jordanthorpe comprehensive school, Helen’s former physics teacher noted that her looks hadn’t changed since schooldays. ‘She still wears her hair in the same style. She’s still physically slight and about 5ft 3in. She was always pale and you wouldn’t have looked at her and said, ‘Ooh, there’s a physical powerhouse’.’

So how do you raise an astronaut? ‘Children need security to know they are loved and the freedom to think for themselves. We’ve always given them the opportunity to do what they want,’ says Lyndis.

‘There was no great discipline-she went to bed when she was tired.’ Helen wasn’t raised particularly to believe in God-but she was confirmed when she was 13, at her own request.

She learned the piano, saxophone and played in the recorder consort; joined the Brownies and Girl Guides; represented the school at hockey; played tennis and badminton and cycled.

She never worried her parents. She never did anything wrong. She was never even naughty enough to have a midnight feast or go somewhere and not tell her parents where she was.

She rarely even got ill as a child-and never once went to hospital. ‘We didn’t,’ concludes John, ‘bring her up. She brought herself up.’ Helen has said: ‘I don’t get upset easily. I don’t get scared. I don’t get depressed, and I fit a lot into my life.’ Recently she has coped with solitude and social isolation in Star City near Moscow. She has displayed an unusual steeliness of character and a streak of emotional toughness. Were there early indications?

‘I always say she got her father’s brains and my insanity,’ says Lyndis. Helen’s father is a college lecturer. ‘Her calm, placid personality and the fact that she doesn’t get easily upset by things developed early. She very rarely flew off the handle. Instead she’d talk it out-she was very grown-up.’

‘She showed,’ says her father, ‘a scientific interest, a logical, enquiring mind and a preparedness to stand her own ground.’

Her grandfather once jokingly asked if Helen, aged two, would like to join him for the weekend. She went. It was just such a streak that manifested itself when she went off cycling in Norfolk with a girlfriend for two weeks when she was 15.

When she was at university, she dug-in her stubborn heels against parental opposition to her having a motorbike. ‘My mother expressed displeasure. But that didn’t stop me,’ she has said. She graduated to a 750cc Suzuki-and did her own repairs.

But the Soviet space commander, Anatoly Artsebarski, has said women do not belong in space; that more work can be done by men; that Helen is a loner who does not fit in well with the crew; and one who has no inhibitions about changing clothes in the presence of the male crew.

‘He’s sexist,’ says John. ‘He once insisted he drive Helen’s car when she was giving him a lift back to Moscow. She refused. And she wouldn’t have been chosen if she were a loner. Part of the selection was to ensure that she could get on with crew members. As for clothes, part of the training involves being taught to make a full change of garments in the capsule.’ Helen is used to an all-male environment. In some A-level classes, she was the only girl. Her former headmaster, Ken Cook-who knew her for seven years-remembers her as a high achiever. ‘But what stood out was her strong sense of justice. She was very respected.’

She would sit at the front of class, always handing in her homework on time. Nine O-levels and four A-levels at grade B-she was bright. She also got a 2.1 at university and has a grasp of six languages. And she got a thrill from watching crystals on her window sill.

Her physics teacher, Paul Pollard, remembers her determination. ‘People were in awe of her. The lads knew she wasn’t to be meddled with . . . she wouldn’t be the prime mover in social outings-but she’d join in.’ Another teacher, Geoff Wilson, recalls that she didn’t have a wide circle of friends. ‘And I was surprised that she opted for Sheffield University when she could have gone anywhere. I think she wanted the cosiness of her family nearby.’ Her best friend was-and is-Philippa Keeling. They stuck together from her first day at school.

And what of her boyfriends? She didn’t dally with those at school. ‘Her last relationship finished 18 months before she even started the selection process for the space mission,’ says Lyndis. ‘She had steady boyfriends-ordinary, likeable, young bank-clerk types.’ A child who grew into a woman of the Right Stuff, really.