For anyone not 'lucky' enough to live in the Granada ITV region, Paul Crone is the guy who does the 'and finally' segment on Granada Reports. You know, every local TV station has them. The one who goes to interview a dog which can do the weekly shop with a blindfold on, or does a bungee jump with a parrot that's just completed its 30th.
But Paul - or Cronie as he likes to be known - has gone one step further (and you'll see why that's an unintentional pun in a minute) by filling airtime at the end of Granda Reports with various charity activites. He raises a lot of money for the North West Air Ambulance, and that has to be commended - although I'd argue that airtime he uses for that would be better used leading a campaign to make the Government fund the air ambulance.
But if he wanted to use his fame to raise money, could he not just use the airtime to show some of the people who have benefitted from the charity he wants to raise money for? And if he really has his heart set on walking around the North West, does he really, really have to do it with a large van following him at around 5mph every step of the way.
Twice this week, at totally different points of my way to work, I've got stuck behind this van. I felt quite sorry for Paul the first time - he was high up in the hills and it was chucking down - there he was in shorts and a t-shirt. Why he needed a van full of people warm, dry, and causing tailbacks, I don't know.
The second time was on a very busy city dual carriageway. All the traffic was forced into one lane to overtake Paul. I'm prepared to hazard a guess that the big van with his picture on it wasn't his idea, more the idea of his sponsor or Granada. Cos corporate types love nowt more than being associated with charidee.
Which is why I dread going shopping on either Red Nose Day or Children In Need night, because work-shy sops in supermarkets take the opportunity to don a) a red nose or b) a Pudsey Bear costume and rattle a can under your nose while the shelves go unstacked, and quite possibly, families across the region go hungry. There's a case of Children In Need living up to its name!
My point is this, charity is supposed to begin at home. It is supposed to involve, in the case of Children In Need, picking up the phone and ringing an 0800 number and pledging, say, a tenner. You've know you've done it, no-one else need to. Like when the brown envelope comes round at work when someone's leaving. You put your money in - generous or as tight as you like - but you know you've done your bit. Then you have to come up with something witty for the card, but I digress.
Anyhow, charity, it appears, is no longer about helping people, but being seen to be helping people. Why else do Asda, Tescos and Sainsburys fight over the charities they want to support. Is it supposed to make us feel good when the queues are stretching back from the tills because the 18-year-old gromits on weekend duty keep botching up because they are more interested in who 'got off with who' down Jumpin' Jak's last night rather than running a checkout? Are we supposed to feel a warm, glowing sensation when the irritating woman on the areoplane tannoy wakes us up (having already done so to announce drinks, then food, then the film, then the £2.50 headphones, then the duty free, then the reminder about duty free) to ask if we have any loose change to help children in Africa? Are we heck - it's all about corporate types feeling good. In the case of the areoplanes - sod the fact their areoplanes are killing the planet, they're helping Variety Club kids have a holiday with our loose change!
What I'm getting at is that charity seems to have gone beyond helping people and for many is more about corporations feeling good about themselves. I think there is an element of attention-seeking among some too - any local newspaper journalist will tell you that. People who sit in bath-tubs of beans or have their legs waxed for charity and then want it in the paper that they've raise £30 for kids in Rwanda aren't doing it to raise the money. They want the attention. And they get it, sadly. Just think how much was spent on the beans to fill the bath tub, or the waxing products to remove Builder Bill's hairs.
At work, this week, I've had 15 emails from a charity organiser telling me about someone who is visiting every football club in England, telling me he has time to do interviews at each stop. So what?
But amid all this is a true hero. A woman who, despite fighting cancer herself, has raised £2million for charity. Not through quick 'look at me stunts.' Far from it. Nor has it been due to being tied up to some big corporation. Stand up, Jane Tomlinson.
She's done remarkable things for charity. She has just ridden across America. You'd be hard-pushed to know that though. Sure, she got some publicity, but she didn't hawk herself round asking for it. She got on with the task of raising the money and going through real pain - no lads, worse than a leg wax - to raise money for the cause. There was no picture-opportunity at every stop en-route. No live link-up to the studio. She got on with money, did a bit of publicity when people sought her out and, I think, Sky News did a one-hour show on her at the end of her race. And even then, her husband said she didn't want to do any more publicity.
That makes her a true hero in my book. A charity star. A woman who shows that charity really is about the giving, not the glory. A woman who gets on and does it - regardless of whether a single person is watching. And for as long as we have people like Jane Tomlinson, there is hope for us all.
No comments:
Post a Comment