Weekly News: Wondermum and donkeys

My dogs are like children to me. I never eat meat, or fish. I detest hunting and I am proud of the work I did with the RSPCA to help neglected pets. But the dedication of Lucy Fensom to saving animals leaves me speechless.

Lucy was a British teenager working at an Israeli animal sanctuary when she discovered Donk, a two-year-old donkey who was being brutally treated by his nomadic Bedouin master. The Arab tethered him by wrapping wire around his legs, making them bleed, and forced him to walk for miles in blazing 40C heat bearing impossible loads.

Lucy bought Donk from the man and nursed him back to health at the sanctuary before returning to her Sussex home and training to work as cabin crew with an airline. When her parents, Bella and Martin, booked a holiday in Israel, Lucy begged them to go and say hello to Donk.

The news they brought home wasn’t good. Donk was well fed, but he got no exercise and his hooves were unclipped. “He looked like he was wearing clogs,” Lucy told me.

She had rescued him once. Now she was determined to do it again. After six years of fund-raising and fighting regulations, Lucy had Donk flown into Heathrow. He became a TV star, appearing on Richard and Judy, and the mascot of Lucy’s charity, Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land.

Last year my friend Ann Widdecombe made a pilgrimage to Israel herself. She wanted to see Safe Haven’s sanctuary for herself: “I had heard too much about it not to want to see it all with my own eyes,” she said, “and the reality was even more moving than I had expected.
There they were, the donkeys with three legs, with savagely deep cuts from ropes around their noses, emaciated from long periods of starvation, weak from overwork, having the time of their lives with food, veterinary care and, above all, love.”

Ann was so impressed that she immediately signed up as a patron of the charity. As soon as I heard about it, so did I. Lucy brought a couple of her furry friends to have a munch on our lawn yesterday, which certainly got my dogs in a bit of a flap. I think Barney the greyhound thought they were the biggest hares in the world.

Ann and I plan to fly out to Israel later this year, to see the work first hand. Ann says the sanctuary is “a small oasis of humanity in a deeply troubled part of the globe”. I just hope she doesn’t try to bring any donkeys home with us.

Of course I am much too modest ever to say this out loud, but I have often wondered whether my mindpowers were a sign that the Geller brain was a little larger than the average. Now scientists at Harvard, Yale and the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, three of the most prestigious colleges on the planet, have proved it — and they didn’t even have to give me a brain scan.

According to Sara Lazar, a Harvard psychologist, meditation makes the brain grow. The more you meditate, the thicker grows the cortex or ‘thinking cap’, especially in areas dealing with cognition and emotional development. In other words, meditation doesn’t just make you calmer: it also makes you smarter and deeper.

And the best news is, the effects are more pronounced in older people. The most effective meditations appear to be the Buddhist ‘insight’ variety, where you don’t have to chant or say ‘Omm’ — you just focus on your sensations and the sounds that surround you, for a few minutes a day. If you’ve never tried it, give it a go. It’s mind-expanding... literally.

The determination of my friend Barbara Clark to beat breast cancer has been moving and inspiring. I am so happy that she has just been given the one-year clear by doctors, and that I was able to help her in her battle to get Herceptin, her vital medicine, on the NHS.

To join her at the Wondermum awards was an honour, because her nomination was so well deserved: she is the best Mum in the world to her son, Ash. We first met when Ash wanted to say hi to Michael Jackson during our visit to Exeter. He is terminally ill, though he’s fighting back with every ounce of courage, and there is nothing Barbara wouldn’t do for that boy.

I cheered when she walked on stage at the Savoy in London to collect her award from the popera boys of G4. And Barbara and I both yelled and applauded when the main prize, a year’s free shopping at a supermarket chain, was given to foster mum Brenda Benfield, who is 72 and has had seven children of her own and 14 grandchildren as well as devoting her life to more than 300 foster kids.

Sharon Osbourne presented the awrd, and they were both in tears. Her daughter, Kelly, was sitting close to us, and she was choked with emotion too. “My mum’s pretty wonderful herself,” she said. Des Lynam and EastEnders’ Joe Swash were among the guests. My pal from the jungle, Nell McAndrew, was there, and so was model Melinda Messenger, Trinny and Susannah, Julia Howarth from Coronation Street and Emmerdale’s Matthew Bose.

Barbara has already been named Woman of the Year for 2005 by Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour. “You’re a bigger star than anyone here,” I told her seriously. Barbara just grinned. “Would you like my autograph?” she said.