Sunday, April 21, 2002

Ann Widdecombe / This much I know / "We're far too obsessed with sex"





Ann Widdecombe

This much I know
"We're far too obsessed with sex"
"I think television is a thief of time"

Ann Widdecombe MP, on the lessons she has learnt in life

 Geraldine Bedell
Sunday 21 April 2002 01.12 BST

Men are easier to get on with than women. They tend not to make emotional demands on you.
The best advice my father gave me was when I passed my driving test, he said: 'Remember, it's not just your own mistakes you've got to look out for - you've got to drive for the other idiot on the road.' At the time I took it to apply just to driving, but I actually think it's a very good life lesson.
Always carry a handkerchief. Especially in television studios.
Secretaries have told me about jobs in which they've spent half the morning reading a book, until the boss decided to give dictation. My response would be to write a book in that time.
Never judge something by whether it is popular or not. You don't have to follow trends. No one thought William Wilberforce was right at first.
We're far too obsessed with sex. You can't get away from the wretched activity. That's my complaint - that it's overrated and we're obsessed with it, not that it actually takes place. I wouldn't be around if it hadn't.
One of the best things to have happened to me was that I got whooping cough with complications and failed
the 11-plus. If I'd passed, I wouldn't have gone to my convent boarding school.
If I could achieve something at a stroke in Parliament tomorrow, I'd repeal the Abortion Act.
Cats are so wonderful because they're furry, purry and totally independent. And they offer no judgment.

As an adult, I didn't have a television until my mother came to live with me in 1999. I think television is a thief of time, and there is a huge amount of bad stuff in terms of the promotion of irregular living - irregular sexual relationships, drunkenness, crime, violence, bad language. I just didn't want to give house room to it.
Mr Right never came along. And it was never a sufficient priority to go out looking for him.
Keep up your skills. I used to be able to read Latin fluently and play the piano and now I can't do either. And I rode every weekend from the age of 19 to 39, when I got into Parliament. I got on a horse the other day for a TV programme and I had to get off again.
Happiness is not about moments. The test of happiness for me has always been: am I enjoying the period I'm in more than the one that went before?
My greatest triumph as a constituency MP was probably getting someone out of jail in Morocco. As a minister, it was equalising the state pension age for women. And I broke the mould of speaking at party conferences by wandering around like a crazed evangelist.
You can be surprised that you've got a talent for something. I was rotten at French at school and assumed I was no good at modern languages. Then one day I tried to learn German and found that actually it was fairly simple.

Love at first sight is possible, although I wouldn't advocate it as a general rule.
As our language about people with disabilities has become more sensitive, our attitudes to physical perfection mean that we have actually become more dismissive. The war-wounded, who were all around when I was a child - and were responsible for our freedom - helped to make society kinder.
I'm frightened of heights. I can't go on to my office balcony. I don't even like travelling on the top deck of a bus. I have to sit on the inside and look away from the window. And yet I love flying. It's a glorious inconsistency.
Full-time motherhood is one of the most important things a woman could do. What could be a bigger task? If I had become a mother I certainly wouldn't have become an MP while my children were growing up.
When you are with a really holy person, you will feel closer to God just by being in their company.
The 60s were a great time to be young. There was a huge optimism in society and we were extremely silly. People blame the 60s, but the 70s were when the rot set in. If you add the 'I can do what I like' of the 70s to the 'I can have what I like' of the 80s, you have the seeds of destruction.
Always ask to see the headline over anything you've written. I once wrote an article for the Daily Mail about why we've got appearance out of all proportion. The headline over it was 'I don't care what I look like'. I never said it. But it's dogged me ever since.
Faith does not come naturally and never has.
If you asked me whether I'd rather have children than not, then I'd say yes. But if you mean, 'Do I actively regret it?' then the answer is no. For me it's rather like if you asked most people if they'd rather have been a millionaire than not.
The most underrated value is self-restraint. We have no concept of self-sacrifice any more. But no man is a moral island. If you even try to practise self-restraint, you create a much more responsible society.
One should look forward to giving up work. I'd like to retire in my early 60s, while I'm still young enough to write full-time, and to live on Dartmoor with several animals - cats, dogs and maybe a donkey. I'd love a tortoise, if you can still get tortoises in this country by then.
I don't go in much for self-analysis. I'm very sure about who I am. I'm Ann Noreen Widdecombe, and I wouldn't waste time wondering about it.


THIS MUCH I KNOW


2004

2005

2013

2014

Kelly Gallagher: ‘The exhilaration I get from skiing with a guide is incredible’
Kelly Slater: ‘When I’m really tuned in I can mind-surf’


2016

Nadiya Hussain: ‘Mum never cooked in the oven – she used it to store pans’
Dick Van Dyke: 'Someone should have told me to work on my Cockney accent'
Slavoj Žižek: ‘We are all basically evil, egotistical, disgusting’
Jenni Murray: 'I want to see how women run the world'
Moby: 'I was disappointed to be heterosexual'
Lynne Truss: my rescue cats inspired me to write two novels
Tommy Hilfiger: 'I've been buried under an avalanche in Austria'
Carrie-Anne Moss: ‘Being Trinity in The Matrix was a highlight’
Joan Bakewell: I wasn’t insulted by the ‘thinking man’s crumpet’ label


Mary McCartney: ‘My mum sang backing vocals on Let It Be’

David Shrigley: ‘Women should not be having my drawings tattooed on them’

Sadie Frost: ‘If I got the accolades I wanted, I wouldn’t get out of bed’

Petula Clark: 'I have an iron and a bottle of port in my dressing room'

Yuval Noah Harari: ‘We are quickly acquiring powers that were always thought to be divine’


James Anderson: ‘Cricket was better when there were scones’
Kathleen Hanna: ‘I'm a punk rock stripper with sexual abuse counsellor training’


John Cooper Clarke: ‘Impotent rage is my default setting. Specifically when it comes to politics’

Katarina Johnson-Thompson: ‘In school I was a tomboy. Then at the weekend I’d be in ballet clothes’

Tim Burgess: ‘My life before was sky high. These days it’s real and natural’


Susie Wolff / ‘I’ve had it tougher than the guys in some ways’

Sadiq Khan: ‘Only in London would the LGBT community organise a fundraiser for me, a Muslim candidate’
Eileen Myles: ‘I write weird books. The next one’s about a time-travelling dog’
Brian Eno: ‘I don’t get much of a thrill out of spending money’
Gloria Steinem: ‘Do what you love so much you forget what time it is’

 Siân Phillips / ‘In the theatre I’ve never felt insulted by a man’

James Rebanks: ‘Sheep are fast. For 500 you’d need 200 shepherds’

Anne-Marie Slaughter: ‘Care is not a woman’s job any more than breadwinning is a man’s’

Roland Mouret: ‘A good dress can do the same job as seeing a shrink’

Howard Jacobson: ‘The later you get married the better. Sixty is the ideal age’

Jason Donovan: ‘By doing cocaine I was slightly rebelling against standing there in a loincloth’

Louis de Bernières: ‘I don’t play the mandolin much now. I’ve always been more of a guitar player’

Ralph Fiennes: ‘I wish I’d been more of a punk, but it’s not in my DNA to be truly anarchic’

John Goodman: ‘I’ve broken all kinds of laws. You name it, I’ve probably broken it’

James Nesbitt: ‘If you are one age all your life then I’m 17’

Paul McKenna: ‘I made an Excel spreadsheet to find out who I really loved’



2021

Tom Jones / ‘The knicker throwing started in the Copacabana in New York in 1968’


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