Well, good morning all you crazy kids.
Obviously, I didn’t post after the savagery that took place a few weeks ago. To be honest, I had a lot to say, but I was advised to keep my powder dry.
So, now that you all know who I am, I will make a proper introduction. My name is Gillian. As suggested in my pseudonym, I’m Northern (very). I was born to two wonderful parents. I do have an older brother (he’s a knob, so I won’t bother introducing him). I had a lovely childhood. My parents didn’t have a lot, but I was loved very much, taught right from wrong and my father always told me that I had to stand up for myself, and if needs be, others. I think he lost count of the number of needy kids and stray dogs that I brought home. Sadly, I lost my dad twenty years ago and the pain of his death was, without doubt, the worst experience of my life. I honestly did not think I would recover. I ended up having a year of bereavement counselling to get me through.
I have two grown up children who are the best adults in my life by a country mile. Every moment spent with them, makes me whole. Between them they’ve given me five grandchildren and my god, I love those little dinks just as much as if they were mine.
I worked in law for a long time (several law firms, real ones with real lawyers, practising certificates, proper brick offices and everything). I did start a part time law degree back in the 90s - I was working full time, my children were little and it was hard work. In the middle of the second year of the course, I discovered I had MS. That came as a massive shock and I pondered deeply on whether to continue the degree. I was advised by the consultant that stress was not a good thing to add into the mix and I decided not to continue. All I envisaged was me rolling into court in a wheelchair like a female Ironside! So, I continued working in law for many years, but never qualified.
I had the privilege of working with a man who turned out to be one of the best defamation lawyers in the U.K. We are, and always will be, very good friends.
In 2002 a family friend was diagnosed with melanoma. Back then, we had nothing to treat advanced melanoma and following a gruelling few years, he died at 30. What a truly brutal disease.
Before he died, I promised him that I would set up some kind of foundation in his memory. I did. It’s easily found.
During lockdown, working from home, extra time on my hands, I came across some of the truthers. This was unfortunate, because a lot of the stuff that was being bandied about was about vaccines, Covid, a lot of medical inaccuracies and as a result, I became extremely frustrated at some of the absolute shite that I was seeing and hearing. Then I found this thread and a small number of like minded folk - it was like a little room with just a few people who felt exactly like me! I had never even heard of Tattle before. Celebrity gossip is not something I give a shit about, I think I’m probably the only woman on earth who has never read OK or Hello magazine.
I’m the first to admit, I got extremely silly at times, but I think that happened to a lot of us during lockdown - some of the little imaginary scenarios I’d paint : I’d look back on them and laugh (I know, I know!).
On a very serious note, the anger that I felt when I saw some of the disgusting things that were being shared - I didn’t know I was capable of such animosity towards people I didn’t know. Some of the clearly incorrect information was scary, I had conversations and meetings with journalists, some of whom I’m still in touch with: they still have some of these folk on their radar. I have also had correspondence with several MPs. During the silly season of ‘pitching up at hospitals and schools’ and abusing staff etc, I had email exchanges with various police officers. We don’t live in a lawless society, people should be able to get up in the morning and go to work peacefully, no matter what that work is. As many of you know, I have a big problem with the use of sunbeds - I’ve yet to stand outside a salon and abuse staff.
One of the things that really turned my stomach was when the dogs were let loose on the medics. You all know who I’m referring to. For me, that kind of behaviour is pretty disgusting. It is the stuff that can do so much damage to people with meaningful careers.
So, when it became clear that people knew who I was and that my identity was about to be ‘announced’, obviously I kept quiet and waited for the volcano to erupt. Apart from a few things that people sent to me, I have no idea what the dossier on me looks like, (but thank you guys for saving stuff for me. I did have a couple of long meetings with my solicitor and he asked for it all for future reference. Again, I want you all to know that I’m grateful for your help. You don’t know me, you could have distanced yourselves).
It’s fair to say that I had a few sleepless nights and who wouldn’t? Looking back, one of the things I never did, was send in the clowns after any of the members of the ‘movement’ (to be fair, I don’t know any clowns, if I’d have said to my small group of friends “Look at this, go and give them some grief” they would have told me to go f*k myself).
Everything I wrote was in the confines of this thread was seen by a relatively small number of people. So why did I lose sleep? Well, when someone issues a direct threat to ‘end a career’ it’s somewhat disconcerting! The laughable thing is, this was not my ‘career’ per se. It was a situation that was handed to me following a personal tragedy. The charity was formed from a good place - I simply wanted to help other people who found themselves in the same situation as my pal had done. Do I work with pharma? Yes. Because guess what? They hold the key to long term survival in this disease. In 2011 I represented our organisation at a NICE appraisal, and after some hard work, several visits to Westminster, the first immunotherapy treatment in melanoma was approved on the NHS. My god, it was like someone had opened up the floodgates. We now have so much hope, something my friend never had. We have patients who are now surviving. I spoke to a man only this morning who is a stage 4 patient, currently with no evidence of active disease. We’ve held his hand for the last three years. Have I worked with Government and opposition ministers? Yes, of course I have. I’ve had to. I think it’s fair to say that if I had to dance with the devil himself in order to get a patient in a better place, you bet I’d get my tap shoes on. Does that make me a bad person?
So, for someone to try to put an end to this, of course I was disturbed by it. Only this week, I’ve managed to secure a patient an appointment with one of the world’s leading melanoma oncologists. If I wasn’t here, who would have done that? So yes, I was worried - not for me, but for the patients I represent.
What did I receive by way of correspondence then? Well, I had photos of my own grandchildren sent to me on Instagram, photos of one of the girls who died of melanoma and me, on TV together (presumably that was used to demonstrate my affiliation with the BBC!), together with comments as to how it would be when I got to my office, photos of my own dogs
Menacing, yes - but there we are. I don’t know who sent them, I don’t care. I received messages via Facebook and IG, most of them pretty shitty, albeit a few people offering support, which was nice. I also received a few emails, none of them particularly pleasant, but that’s the nature of anonymous emails isn’t it? You can quite easily wish death to someone when your anonymous email is a character from a TV soap! Finally, I haven’t received anything from the police.
Was I bothered about the mental state of some of the people I’d berated? Well, I did share some of my concerns with a few of the people in here who follow me on IG., I am not a bad person and as I say, I’ve never sent in the clowns after any of the people I have taken issue with. For me, that’s a different level of nasty. Did I say some stupid things? Yes, course I did! Including that I’d belt someone over the head with a cricket bat (it’s an expression I’ve used for years): stabbing in the neck with a knife? Straight out of Stepbrothers; dancing on a grave singing Hallelujah? From a Monty Python sketch - so I think that it’s probably fair to say that the ridiculous stuff I posted, if taken out of context, does look pretty shit. But, as the educationalists know only too well, context is everything.
The accusations of racism and use of slang - well, I just have no idea where the idea of racism came from - we have yet to get to the bottom of that. Slang? Well, I’m a northerner, I do use a lot of slang. Whether or not my use of slang is so offensive that it is an offence worth reporting to the police, I don’t know. But in any event, I’ve had no correspondence from the police and once I know the outcome, I’ll let you guys know.
So, in essence - I should have known better than to behave like such a knob and to hurt someone with my words - that was never my intention (albeit I accept that I can be very harsh at times).
My concerns relating to misinformation were genuine : no one should be allowed to glibly dish out information which can lead to the harm of others. However, I accept that at times, some of my shenanigans were unpleasant.
Everyone leave. Its not safe. Deactivate your account.
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