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Take a Break – Issue 24

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Botched surgery left me with dying nipples

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I woke up in Turkey and my nipples had turned black... WHAT was going on?

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Keep your cats safe with the best cat trackers on the market

The story begins on a military base and introduces us to Elio, an 11-year-old orphan boy, and his aunt Olga, a young officer who has put her career dreams to one side in order to care for her nephew.

Elio is lonely and feeling he has no place in the world. But, after stumbling into the space-exploration museum, and discovering an exhibit about a space probe launched in 1977 to send a message of peace to any life forms that may exist in outer space, Elio is transfixed.

He sets about on a mission to communicate with aliens, desperate to discover that he is not so alone.

When like-minded aliens from the Communiverse finally respond by beaming him up him and whisking him off into space, Elio is elated.

But he's been mistaken as not only an adult, but as the leader of planet Earth. Keeping up the pretence, he bravely volunteers to go into tough negotiations with evil Lord Grigon, whose wounded ego has set his mind on destroying the Communiverse.

When Elio befriends the adorable Glordon, the story really gets underway.

A Pixar movie is always something to get excited about, but there was a moment early in this animation when things started to lag and I thought 'oh no, maybe it's not going to be as good as I'd hoped.'

It picked up pace and continued to gain momentum, but throughout, and for reasons I can't put my finger on, I couldn't help but feel aware of the mechanics of the storytelling. It was as if the curtain had been pulled back and I was watching the script being written, when I wanted to fully escape into the story.

Great effort was being made to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience, but it felt a little on the nose, which made it hard to allow myself to fully connect.

I attended the screening with my husband and our two sons, Odhran, 9, and Reuben, 7.

Lord Grigon is the kind of villain we love - nasty, but vulnerable and funny.

This is a movie about loneliness and finding your place in the world, but it's also about negotiation in relationships and understanding where other people are coming from.

Sometimes the 'enemy' may just be someone soft and vulnerable, hiding beneath a though exterior.

While we wouldn't say Elio is an out of this world movie, it is well crafted, sweet, and definitely worth a family trip to the cinema from its release on 20th June.

Elio review: Pixar’s space adventure works hard to tug on the heartstrings. Does it succeed?

**_My 11-year-old daughter had a passion for protecting the environment. So, when the unthinkable happened, I knew what I needed to do. By Steve Pritchard, 44_**  
  
A small figure cuddled into me on the sofa and we watched bees on telly hop between flowering plants.

It was Friday evening, and as usual, my 11-year-old daughter Matilda and I were watching Blue Peter.

‘Bees are so important for the world,’ she said.

She was a kind and compassionate little girl.

And being Autistic gave Matilda a focus on many different things, especially nature and Bee's.

She’d spend hours on the computer, researching them.

When she found out bees were in global decline, she was keen to spread the word.

One day, we were on a family walk with her mum Anna and sister Olivia, when Matilda spotted something.

‘What’s that bird doing?’ she asked.

In a tree, a bird was using a piece of plastic to make its nest.

Matilda was horrified by this sign of pollution and wanted to do something about it.

So, back at our home in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, we went online and found a local litter picking group.

The following weekend, our family turned up to help tidy.

‘Let’s go!’ Matilda shouted, as she ran ahead of me in her Hi Vis vest, swinging a litter picking stick.

Hours later, we’d filled several big purple bags with rubbish.

‘Look at how much we’ve collected, that’s amazing!’ she said.

From then on, our Saturdays were spent litter picking.

The litter picking group were all so lovely to Matilda.

One day, she stood surveying the bags of rubbish we’d collected.

‘There’s not as many as last time,’ she said, looking upset.

‘That’s because you and your friends have been doing such a good job,’ I explained.

Matilda’s face lit up as she realised the difference she was making.

‘I dream of a world without litter!’ she said.

‘Maybe one day we’ll get there,’ I said.

I wanted Matilda to know how great she was and how she made me so proud.

Weeks later, a large enveloped arrived in the post.

Matilda tore it open and her eyes widened when she pulled out the small badge with the iconic ship logo.

‘They’ve sent me a Blue Peter badge!’ she shouted.

But it wasn’t an ordinary badge, Matilda had been awarded a green badge for kids who’d done something to help protect the planet.

As time passed, she took up other hobbies to help the environment.

Next morning, it was the school holidays and I waited for Matilda to get up.

But time ticked along and she didn’t appear.

So, Anna and I went upstairs to fetch her.

I stepped closer to the bed and realised something that made my stomach drop.

My hands trembled as Anna phoned the emergency services.

A call handler talked me through CPR, but when I described how Matilda’s body was stiff and her lips blue, the woman on the other end changed her tone and told me it was OK if I didn’t want to carry on.

‘I’ll carry on for as long as it takes,’ I said.

But in my heart, I knew we were too late.

Paramedics arrived quickly and Matilda was rushed to hospital.

There, Anna and I held her hands and told her how much we loved her.

But nothing could be done to save Matilda.

She’d gone to bed and had never woken up.

We felt heartbroken and stunned, there’d been no sign that anything was wrong.

At the chapel of rest, she was dressed in a blue pyjamas – her favourite colour.

Her favourite comfort toy, Bonnie Bunny, who’d been with her from the moment she was born, lay by her side.

Later, a post-mortem revealed that Matilda suffered from arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy – a genetic defect of part of the heart muscles.

The grief came in waves that threatened to pull me under.

I needed a focus, and decided to set up a fundraiser in memory of Matilda, with the money going towards the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy and their Eco-Schools educational programme.

I set a target of £11,213 to symbolise the date of Matilda’s birth – 11 February 2013.

I was amazed when we raised the full amount in just a couple of weeks.

My family went back out with the local litter picking group. But the first time without Matilda, was agonising.

There was just a ghost of her racing ahead to try and pick up more pieces of litter than me, and a distant echo of her little laugh.

Now, we pick litter regularly and we always make sure we go out on special occasions, such as Matilda’s birthday.

We’ve extended the fundraiser and are trying to raise £42,000 to fund five years worth of Eco-Schools projects – marking the five years Matilda would have been learning and growing at secondary school.

I hope that together, we’ll get one step closer to world without litter, just as Matilda dreamed of.

To support Steve, visit: :a[https://www.justgiving.com/page/1712590495429]{href='https://www.justgiving.com/page/1712590495429' }

daughter died but legacy is litter picking

Picking up the pieces: Our little girl went to bed and never woke up

**_Research shows that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds face discrimination in education and in the workforce. Here’s why we need to change the law to drive social mobility…_**

As a high-earner, living in an affluent area of Essex, Saleha Patel has come a long way from free school meals and growing up as part of a family of six, on a council estate in Bolton.

Saleha, 35, has a Masters and PhD and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for years, before moving into bio-technology.  
But as someone who describes herself as ‘lucky to escape’ a disadvantaged background, Saleha is among a swell of professionals shining a light on the challenges of social mobility in the UK.  
Take a Break has teamed up with The British Psychological Society to reignite the #Makeit10 campaign, calling for a renewed focus on making socio-economic background a protected characteristic.  
The Equality Act 2010 enshrines nine protected characteristics – age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.  
This is to ensure that an individual is not disadvantaged on these grounds in the workplace or in wider society.  
But socio-economic background isn’t represented, despite a vast amount of research providing compelling evidence that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds face systemic barriers in many areas of life, including at school, in higher education, and in the workplace – where class discrimination can affect recruitment, promotions, pay, and access to training and development opportunities.

For example, the ‘class pay gap’ sees professionals from working class backgrounds being paid an average of £6287 less per year than their more privileged counterparts in the same occupation, according to research commissioned by the Social Mobility Foundation.  
Dr Bridgette Rickett, who led the #Makeit10 campaign when it first launched, says, ‘A “class ceiling” hinders those from low socio-economic backgrounds from enjoying equivalent career progression and earnings to their upper-middle-class peers.  
‘There are 10 times more senior leaders in UK employment from middle and upper-class backgrounds, than from working-class backgrounds.’

A 2022 study carried out by KPMG, where the career paths of more than 16,500 employees and partners were analysed over a five-year period, revealed that individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds took, on average, 19% longer to progress compared to those from higher socio-economic backgrounds.  
The study also showed that class and socio-economic background had the most significant impact on career progression, compared to any other diversity characteristic.  
Saleha says, ‘Out of all the labels I have – female, non-white, neurodiverse (Saleha has ADHD and autism) – I would say my socio-economic status has had the biggest impact on my education, career and the opportunities I’ve had access to.’  
Saleha is the eldest of four. Her mum worked at home while caring for her and her siblings, and her father worked at a factory, and later, on the forecourt of a petrol station.  
She says, ‘My parents struggled to put food on the table and prioritised feeding us over themselves. I watched them stress about the cost of school uniforms, or finding £20 to send me on the school field trip.’  
Saleha and her siblings were academically gifted.  
But they had no internet at home, and Saleha stayed late after school to use the computer, and studied at the library on weekends.  
When it came to applying to university, she says, ‘I thought, How will I afford it, especially if I go to uni? I feared I’d end up in huge debt and put financial pressure on my parents.’  
A teacher told Saleha about The Sutton Trust, a charity that champions social mobility and runs programmes to support high-attaining students from lower income homes across the UK.

Saleha was accepted on to the charity’s summer school, which allowed her to spend a week at a partner university and experience student life.  
She learnt how to apply for bursaries and realised that while she would incur debt, her chosen career path would prove financially worth it.  
But when she later headed off to university in York, Saleha faced further challenges with coming from a low socio-economic background.  
She says, ‘Lots of my peers had a very different experience to me growing up, and I felt uncomfortable about my background.’  
Everyone kept asking, ‘Which school did you go to?’ and it took her a while to realise this was a way to gauge her background.  
‘My new peer group was not like anything I’d grown up with,’ she says. ‘My experiences were completely different, to the point  where it made people uncomfortable – I’d grown up on a council estate, and my peers were talking about ski trips and ponies.’

She was often picked up on her accent.  
Saleha says, ‘Peers kept asking me to repeat myself and told me, “I can’t understand what you’re saying”. I felt I needed to learn how to speak properly, whatever “properly” might be.’  
Alongside her studies, she worked late into the evenings and on weekends to help fund her time at uni.  
She says, ‘I needed to work and study at the cost of socialising, and it’s that networking that trains you in how to behave, how to dress the same as them, have the same hobbies and talk like them. That’s what will help you move up in your career, or even get your first job.’  
During her Masters, she undertook a six-month research placement in London. A studentship covered the cost of her studies, but she had to take on extra work to help pay her living costs.  
At the end of the course, an external examiner spoke with her about the placement. Saleha mentioned the financial challenges and explained her background. She was shocked by the examiner’s response.  
She says, ‘The feedback he gave me was, “You don’t look like somebody from a low socio-economic background. You dress well and you speak well”. I couldn’t believe he’d said that to me. When I came out, I had a little cry in the corridor. But my peers couldn’t understand why it upset me.’  
Navigating through the system has taught Saleha that the UK is not a meritocracy.

She says of herself and her siblings, ‘We all thought working hard would make us successful – but in reality, it’s working smarter, having networks and knowing how to play the “class game” that actually gets you ahead.’  
Supporting Take a Break and The British Psychological Society’s campaign for class to be made a protected characteristic, Saleha says, ‘It would enable new policy, increase awareness, and allow employers to work together with the Government and the education system in a formalised way to address social economic injustice.  
‘Within my sector, no one is even talking about socio-economic diversity, it’s not even recognised as a barrier.  
‘I’ve seen company goals in relation to gender balance and ethnic representation at leadership levels, and much of this is in response to feeling obliged to address it.  
‘If class was a protected characteristic, it would validate it as something important to be addressed, and create deliberate action.’

The #Makeit10 campaign advocates for the inclusion of social class as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, expanding the current nine protected characteristics to include social class. To get involved, you can contact your local representatives and MP to voice your concerns, or share your stories about class-based discrimination by emailing laura.riddell@bauermedia.co.uk

It’s time to talk about CLASS…

**_When Mary got an unexpected house guest, she begged the police for help — and asked them to make it snappy…_**

I was watching daytime telly on the sofa when I heard the front door rattle.

All the houses on my street looked pretty similar.

It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d had someone try the wrong door since moving to the villa in Venice, Florida, three years earlier.

I wasn’t expecting anyone, so that’s what I assumed must have happened.

‘You’ve got the wrong…’ I started to explain, heading for the front door.

But as soon as I rounded the corner, I stopped dead.

My screen door, which had been held shut by a metal clasp, had clearly been punched open — by an alligator.

A big alligator which had already made it’s way into my house!

Alligators were really common in Florida.

Where I lived, they believed any body of water deeper than a puddle probably had one in it!

And there were a lot of ponds near my place…

Since moving to Florida, I’d occasionally seen gators on other people’s patios, in their gardens and even in their swimming pools.

But I’d never heard of one actually going into a house before.

My heart was banging in my chest and my hands were shaking.

_How do I get rid of this thing?_ I thought.

I could hardly shoo it out, or put a glass over it like you would with a spider!

It quickly dawned on me that I needed to _croco_\-dial for help.

Trouble was, my phone was on the kitchen island about 10ft away — and that meant getting closer to the gator, who was standing stock-still, facing me.

Feeling like I had little choice, I took a deep breath and made a run for it, grabbing my phone before heading out the back and slamming the door shut.

Once safely on my covered patio I dialled the emergency services.

‘There’s an alligator in my house!’ I stammered, barely able to believe what I was saying.

The emergency operator was surprisingly calm as he responded.

‘Are you somewhere safe where it can’t get you?’ he asked first. ‘How big is it?’

That threw me for a moment — I hadn’t exactly stopped to get the measuring tape out.

‘Maybe 6-7ft?’ I replied, hazarding a guess.

‘You made the right call ringing us,’ he said. ‘Anything over 5ft is a public safety issue.’

I gave the operator my address and asked him to please hurry.

Then I had a nervous 20-minute wait, watching through the back window as the alligator moved further into the house .

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