Not all men are from Mars

You know how sometimes you look up at the clouds and clearly there's shape, not necessarily of things to come but maybe of a dog and at the same moment, somewhere a dog barks, so just now I was musing about the positive way James Cameron has portrayed women in his rollercoaster epic, when a message popped into my inbox from a male friend in New Zealand, where a lot of Avatar was filmed and made into visual magic, sending me a pictorial slide show to women. Some of the sentiments at the end are a bit intense for our British preference for understatement , Vangelis isn't everyone's cup of tea and like a lot of these slide shows it's a bit too long,

but the colours and the faces of these women, young and old are wonderful. So I am passing it onto you with the thought that not all men are our enemies, it is just some of the people who make the decisions, who decide to revamp a programme or refresh a brand or update their image, without ever considering what the public might want and I suspect there are quite a few younger women who are involved in that process, because they have the power to do it, they want to make their mark and they lack the imagination to realise the consequences of their actions.

Please send me your comments and most importantly we want to hear your stories, to build up our own montage of fabulous Not Old Not Young Women. Vive NYDC

24 hours from first posting

Last night I posted the first message from the NYDC and here we are less than 24 hours later reading about "veteran" presenter Miriam O'Reilly suing for unfair dismissal, accusing her employers of age discrimination. Of course the press don't help the situation one bit, by using the term veteran, which immediately puts Miriam into the old people's home category even though they would argue the word means seasoned, experienced. been at it along time. Janet Jackson has been singing since she was a child, but nobody would call her a veteran. The English language is more subtle than almost any other language and therefore needs to be used more carefully than most. That's a deiscussion for another day. We'll see what happens to Miriam. We salute her courage and offer her our NYDC solidarity.

VH Founding member of NYDC

This is the NYDC!

Lu Thomas : Ageless, former Radio 4 and Channel Four announcer. Now living in South West France. Founder member of the NYDC

Diane Mercer, anglo- greek actress, living in LA. A honey voiced beauty. Founder member of the NYDC

Veronika Hyks, multi lingual broadcaster and audio describer in London. Founder member of the NYDC

Hello!

Recently, it was announced that 90% of all the blogs out there in the ether, are stagnant and moribund, so I have long and hard about starting this, but every day in some small way I feel a bit crosser about a situation that I know I am not alone in railing against.

It started with a phone conversation I had at the end of last year, with a theatrical agent who had called me up about some small royalty payment. I had not met her personally, as she had taken over the agency at a time when I was busy working in other areas of the media, mostly broadcasting. My voice and my pen more than anything, have been my living. During the course of our chat, I suggested that I come and visit her to discuss exploring other avenues, perhaps to do some acting, which I have neglected, but which I still hanker after. She said, "May I stop you right there. Unless you are famous or young, there is absolutely no point in our having this conversation. Nobody is prepared to take a risk on a relative unknown unless he or she is young. You have to be Judi Dench or a Celebrity. I could find no suitable answer. I thanked her and hung up, then slumped down in my chair.

Suddenly, without noticing I appear to have turned a corner, not a corner I was deliberately heading for, though of course, we are none of us Benjamin Button. No, I am quite realistic about that, but life was bowling along, I was busy working in a field that chose me, one job more or less leading to another with a reasonable reputation developing , One Take Hyks I am known as, not exactly sexy but it does what it says on the tin, and then all of a sudden, it's gone quiet.

The credit crunch has had an effect of course, but programmes are still being narrated, ads are being voiced, just not by me. And if that agent is anything to go by, I have to confront the fact that I have stumbled into that hazy Twilight Zone of the NONY, Neither Old, Nor Young; still at the height of my powers, a size 12, with all my own teeth, wiser than I was, amenable, with a proven track record, award winning even and still eager to do more, but there is the rub. Although the government is suggesting we women might well go on working till we are 70, it obviously doesn't apply to people like me, or even to several stars of the media who suddenly find their faces a bit too lined to fit the stereo type. Whose stereotype is this exactly?

I' m talking about professional women in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's who look and sound great, but who are obviously no longer 20 or 30. Nobody can stop the clock and yet our silver haired male counterparts become more and more interesting as they mature. Only last month, 86 year old Franco Zeffirelli told a 52 year old raven haired soprano she was too old to be singing Violetta. It was ever thus, , but since attitudes have moved on in so many other areas, isn’t 50 supposed to be the new 30, something is not quite right. Harriet Harman MP has expressed her solidarity with the "welderly" and in the wake of the Arlene Phillips debacle, the BBC are hastily looking around for a few NONY faces to put back on their screens, but from a pool of familiar ones I would suggest.

What is the point of living longer if so many of us are being put out to grass before our time, when we have so much more to offer. It may not apply to all walks of life: if you teach for long enough, you might become a professor; in government, keep your nose clean and you may well ascend to the lap of the Lords; civil servants can go on working till retirement age, but generally it seems to me, society’s attitude to NONY women is that they become invisible as Germaine Greer astutely observed, some years ago and I didn't believe her, then.

And in a desperate attempt to stall the clock, women offer themselves up to the surgeon's knife emerging with fish lips, Dr. Spock like cheeks, that bizarrly permanent expression of surprise and a wierd sort of lockjaw that makes them look pathetic and desperate but certainly not young.

These matters need to be discussed, which is why we are launching the Not Yet Dead Club. The NYDC. Founder members and sisters in steam are Anglo Greek actress Diane Mercer who lives in the centre of Lala Land where the Twilight Zone seems to start even earlier than here, Lu Thomas, former BBC and Channel Four broadcaster, now living in France and myself. We want to create a forum where women can voice their grievances and offer solutions, to show the world of men and the younger female opinion makers (you just wait ladies!) that we have had enough of this prejudice against us. We want to build up a membership of fabulous women who still have a lot to offer, not just in show biz or the media, but in the public and private sectors as well. We want to hear your stories if you feel you are you being overlooked, side-lined, not being considered, how you cope, how you would go about changing attitudes towards us NONY girls.

This is just the beginning. We want to look at the cult of celebrity that has smothered a whole generation of women; if you aren't famous, you don't exist; at the print media and fashion which seem more and more skewed in favour of or aimed solely at 17 year olds with money, otherwise how else could they afford D and G and Prada. Designers who can't trust their designs on women older than 20. Where does that leave the rest of us and what can we do about it? Is mail order really all we are left with?

I would like the NYDC will become at the very least, a commiseration forum, where we can have a good laugh, but maybe,, if we put our minds to it, with a coherent strategy, we might be able to halt or even start to reverse the tide, making the nony sisters in the Twilight Zone, sought after and still earning! At this initial stage we are a women- only membership, but will of course welcome comments from men, as long as they agree with us or are helpfully constructive. We look forward to hearing from you.

Vive the NYDC ! VH