Magazine of the Year 23.01.21

The private side Meena Harris of Katie Price Love, ambition, My son Harvey politics – and and me growing up with Kamala

AT HOME WITH THE CORENS Can life get any worse? OUR MODERN FAMILY Two dads, a baby and a surrogate By Paul Morgan-Bentley

Eat! PIMP YOUR PUMPKIN! DONNA HAY’S DELICIOUS VEGETARIAN RECIPES

23.01.21

27 22

5 Caitlin Moran Harry Styles – what’s not to love? 7 Spinal column My husband is having a meltdown. 9 What I’ve learnt Anna Friel on her heartbreak during a pandemic. 10 How to lose friends and alienate people Shane Watson on the rules for distant socialising. 16 Cover story Meena Harris The niece of on her new book and growing up in a feminist household with America’s new vice-president. 22 Two men and a baby Paul Morgan-Bentley reveals how he found a surrogate mother for his son, Solly. 27 Eat! Donna Hay’s delicious vegetarian recipes. 38 Can the City survive Brexit? Former banker Oliver Kamm on whether the golden days are over for the Square Mile. 42 Katie Price: me and my disabled son The former glamour model opens up about the reality of life with Harvey, now 18. 48 Shop! What to buy to update your look fast. 49 Men’s style Best hoodies, plus new biker gear. 51 Beauty Our beauty editor’s top six lockdown products. 52 At home with the Corens Giles and Esther are not amused. 58 Beta male: Robert Crampton Why I’m prowling the streets.

FIVE WFH NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONES

MARSHALL, £239.99 BEATS, £179 SAMSUNG, £99 BANG & OLUFSEN, £350 BOSE, £250 A stylish pair from the cult Foldable and with two listening Affordable but with rich The luxury option. Made For sound geeks. These have brand. Block ambient sound modes so you can unblock sound. Available in five cool with soft leather and come in 11 noise-cancelling levels and

(marshallheadphones.com) external sound (currys.co.uk) shades (samsung.com) a chic bag (bang-olufsen.com) a built-in mic (johnlewis.com) MONIQUE RIVALLAND CHOSEN BY

EDITOR NICOLA JEAL DEPUTY EDITOR LOUISE FRANCE ART DIRECTOR CHRIS HITCHCOCK ASSOCIATE EDITOR SIMON HILLS ASSISTANT EDITOR TONY TURNBULL FEATURES EDITOR MONIQUE RIVALLAND CHIEF SUB-EDITOR AMANDA LINFOOT DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR JO PLENT DEPUTY CHIEF SUB-EDITOR CHRIS RILEY PICTURE EDITOR ANNA BASSETT ACTING PICTURE EDITORS LUCY DALEY, EITHNE STAUNTON CONTRIBUTING EDITOR BRIDGET HARRISON EDITORIAL ASSISTANT GEORGINA ROBERTS COVER: SOPHIE ELGORT. THIS PAGE: THIS PAGE: SOPHIE ELGORT. COVER: MARK HARRISON CON POULOS,

The Times Magazine 3

CAITLIN MORAN My hot crush on Harry Styles His embrace of all things feminine only makes him more desirable

here do we not behove me to dwell on his attractiveness: invent new kinds I’ve reached an age where you stop fancying of men? And hot young pop stars and start exclaiming, “Oh, how? Over the I bet his mother is so proud of him,” instead. past ten years, the But it’s what Styles has decided to do with current feminist all his power and fame that’s so intriguing. W renaissance – the Last month, he appeared on the cover of femaissance, if Vogue, wearing a dress. This isn’t the first time you will – has Styles has worn “things that only women are served us up dozens of new kinds of women. supposed to wear” – he’s regularly popped up Body-positive, twerking Lizzo in her purple wearing pearl necklaces and see-through blouses leotard; the gleeful hustler-stoner Jewish girls – but it is certainly the most controversial. in Broad City; Michaela Coel’s dazzling, flawed Candace Owens, an American conservative turn in I May Destroy You; the moustache- author and activist, tweeted, “There is no wearing King Princess. Fleabag, Greta Thunberg, society that can survive without strong men… Villanelle, Cardi B, Beyoncé, Michelle Obama, In the west, the steady feminization of our Malala; every week, it seems, there’s a new men at the same time that Marxism is being kind of woman being minted. I can’t lie – as taught to our children is not a coincidence. It the mother of teenage daughters, it’s awesome. is an outright attack. Bring back manly men.” When I was their age, my female role models It certainly kicked off a heated debate came down to a) Margaret Thatcher, or b) about what “being a man” means now. This Courtney Love. Obviously, that’s a potent mix only intensified with the release of the video – but not one with, shall we say, much nuance. for his single Treat People with Kindness. It But men, on the other hand? Who do essentially casts him as Ginger Rogers, and 21st-century teenage boys have to look up to? Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Fred Astaire: Alas, there’s not so much invention here. Pop it’s Waller-Bridge wearing the trousers, smoking culture still tends to offer us superheroes, a cigar and bending the similarly trousered gangsters, detectives, “good, normal blokes”, or Styles over her arm for a kiss at the end. neurotic man-boys. David Tennant’s turn in And Styles clearly believes in the “admiring Doctor Who – a hot, witty, genius pacifist – was female power” signals he’s giving off – his love 15 long years ago. Lil Nas X used Old Town life has not been an endless string of blonde Road to invent “glamorous gay cowboy”; and, models. Instead, his partners are invariably in Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage’s dark, smart, older career women – his current sarcastic Tyrion was, essentially, a dwarf Martin girlfriend, the director Olivia Wilde, is 36. Amis stuck in a Dungeons & Dragons epic. Not since George Clooney married a leading But other than that? The range of heroes human rights lawyer has middle-aged, young men have to be inspired by is bizarrely working womankind felt so… valued. limited. Perhaps this explains the rise of men’s What’s fascinating about Styles’ gleeful Below: Harry Styles, 2019 rights activists and incels. What insecure man embracing of “feminine” things is that, wouldn’t be angered by, and jealous of, women? contrary to what many conservatives believe, Women these days get to do everything it has made him more powerful and desirable. – “woman stuff” like having emotions, nice A straight man After all, you have to have an astonishing dresses and babies; and “man stuff”, like amount of balls to give up every traditional having jobs, talking about sex and wearing appearing signifier of masculine power. trousers. Men feel a pressure to accrue and Harry Styles’ continuing popularity rests display power, money, physical strength, on the cover on him being an outlier: one of the first straight sexual attractiveness and “toughness”. If you men to realise that if women have found fail to have these things, the fear is that of Vogue power and freedom by taking masculine neither men nor women will respect you. things, then men can be equally empowered This is why the rise and rise of Harry wearing a by adopting feminine things. When Alexander Styles, right – former teen heart-throb of One the Great wept because he had no new worlds Direction turned singer-songwriter, model dress? That to conquer, if only he’d realised his next big and icon – is so heartening. Styles is, yes, rich challenge could have been “wearing a lovely – apparently worth £60 million – and sexually takes balls floral suit and talking to women”. Like this

ROBERT WILSON, GETTY IMAGES WILSON, ROBERT attractive. As I am 45 and he is 26, it does new kind of man, Harry Styles. n

The Times Magazine 5

Spinal column Melanie Reid ‘No pub, no gossip, no mates. And just when Dave thought it couldn’t get any worse…’

hen a man is “How about Sarah Beeny’s New deprived of Life in the Country? You like her.” everything he Shortly before I was about W holds dear – his to murder him, the aerial man friends, gossip, phoned. He’d been away. He’d wit, football, come, but his van wouldn’t start. political chat, draft beer and the Dave immediately drove down to familiar embrace of his local pub pick him up. “I’ve not got my – an awful void is left in his life. ladders,” the poor man protested. Anyone who suggests that that To no avail. He was hijacked. He same man should find a hobby arrived, masked, clutching tools. is on dangerous ground. What A decrepit booster was to do they expect him to take up? blame. Everything was fixed. Stamp collecting? Embroidery? Then, heart-sinkingly, last week My husband lives for company, it happened again. Blank screen. men’s company in particular. His “No aerial detected.” We went hobby is socialising. Apart from through the usual routine of anything else, it’s his respite and switching everything off and reward for caring for a disabled restarting. Nothing. wife. In the absence of anyone That night, I resolved to but me to talk to, and I’m usually stay cheerful. “How about a working, his substitute for the Scandi noir on Netflix?” I said. pub has been the TV. “Something we can both watch.” He is like a moth to a flame, My nemesis was this doomy glued to it for entertainment and message: “We’re having trouble escape. I totally understand that playing this title right now. Please sense of losing yourself in bright, try again later or select a different lively otherness, in the stories of title. Error code tvq-pb-101,” strangers. It’s a place of refuge. which translates as spend an hour On January 1, disaster. piddling around re-registering. The telly pixelated. “No aerial You know that point when detected,” said the message on everything keeps breaking down screen. For Dave, this was around you and you implode the perfect storm, because in To get the news in the morning doesn’t even begin to describe it. with rage and helplessness? Scotland, January doesn’t really usually takes two clicks. Using “Well what do you want to I went to bed and cried. start until February. The country’s the internet, it’s ten clicks, with watch?” I’d say, trying to be sweet Anyway, the story has a happy trades go into hibernation. He was pauses, because our broadband and loving, through gritted teeth. ending. The aerial man returned, bereft. No mates, no pub, no TV. takes its time. I explained all “I don’t know. Find me glanced behind the telly and said He started stalking the aerial this. Fruitlessly. something.” the aerial was unplugged. Dave man. By January 2 he was posting These were troubled days for I exhausted the Jack Reacher turned accusingly towards me. notes through his letterbox. the world’s greatest channel- films, Bourne, BBC Dickens It was my moment of revenge. In the meantime, I took a deep hopper, forever butterflying, serials, Newsnight, the top ten lists “I can’t reach anywhere near the breath and started coaching him skipping ads, always flicking on. of thriller movies sourced on my back of the TV,” I said. “But you, in how to access TV from the The king of the remote. Now, with iPhone. Then he wanted football. you had the vacuum cleaner out internet. If that makes me sound internet TV, every time he wanted “Subscribe to Sky,” I said, but he yesterday.” He doesn’t care. His slick, don’t be fooled. I am barely to switch over he had to get me was too mean. Besides, he said, remote is working again. n competent. Dave’s dyslexia with to do it, which emasculated him he’d rather watch footie in the button pressing, on the other and wearied me. It also pinned pub. He holds out hope it won’t @Mel_ReidTimes hand, compounded by acute him down. He had to choose be too long. Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after impatience, means he’s an in advance what to watch and One night nothing suited. breaking her neck and back in

MURDO MACLEOD irritable incompetent. settle with his choice. Grumpy I played my ace. a riding accident in April 2010

The Times Magazine 7

What I’ve learnt Anna Friel

Rochdale-born actress Anna Friel, 44, first gained attention as a teenager with her role as Beth ‘Going through Jordache in Brookside; now she stars in series three of ITV crime drama heartbreak Marcella. She lives in Windsor with her 15-year-old daughter, Gracie, from her relationship with the actor during lockdown David Thewlis. hasn’t been easy’ In my job it’s hard to say you don’t care about ageing. Of course you do. Going through heartbreak during lockdown hasn’t been easy. I am one of those lockdown statistics where the relationship didn’t work. Normally you can busy yourself and go to meet other people, but to actually have a break-up [from her long-term partner, army officer Mark Jaworski] and be on my own during lockdown just with my daughter… But there’s always someone worse off. I’m grateful every morning to have nature around me and to be able to get outside when some people are going through the same thing without any of that. It’s easier to break hearts than to mend them. I’m not actively seeking anyone to mend my broken heart. You don’t go looking for love; it comes to you. Right now, I’m going through a period of healing myself. I don’t get that self-conscious about doing sex scenes. They are like learning a dance. “This arm goes here; that arm goes there.” In Marcella there are a few violent sex scenes and they’re all INTERVIEW Nick McGrath PORTRAIT Rii Schroer choreographed to within an inch of their lives. I don’t think it’s first and foremost in anybody’s mind. barristers. I was in the debating storyline I had some idea of how and I’ll come back and it will be Shaking hands is hard enough, society when I was younger and much viewers had invested in my the same, but it isn’t. Life moves let along doing a sex scene. I borrowed my mum’s salmon character, but I had no idea of on quite easily. Spending time with Gracie in pink two-piece suit and played the impact the first lesbian kiss I’ve become a bit more introverted lockdown has been a gift. She the prime minister, Margaret before the watershed would cause. as I’ve grown older. You think has all of my and David’s positive Thatcher, who wasn’t the I’ve always craved knowledge and that as you age life gets easier, points. She’s full of good grace favourite person in our household. I crave to be taught. I was 16 and but the more you know, the more and gentleness and positivity. I always wanted to do better. I doing my A-levels when the part you see, which can make life I think, “God, Anna, you can’t wanted to see the world and of Beth Jordache came up, so harder. You can’t kid yourself. complain. You have a 15-year-old I didn’t see me living the rest of from that point on, I had to When you’re younger you think just getting on with it and taking my life in Rochdale or Ireland, learn to self-educate from life you can do anything; when you everything in her stride, always where my dad is from. experience. I missed teachers are older it’s about an inner with a smile.” I had no idea there would be very much. confidence, but you understand If acting hadn’t worked out, I’d so much controversy about my In the future I want to try not to your limitations. n like to have been a barrister. They Brookside role. Having seen the repeat my mistakes. I tend to

EYEVINE do say that actors are frustrated impact of the domestic abuse think I can put life on hold Marcella airs on ITV on January 26

The Times Magazine 9 ‘I am WFH – working from holiday. I get all my best ideas’ ‘We are blessed to have our second home. Got last flight out before quarantine rules’

‘My main worry is my mask tan lines in selfies’ HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE IN LOCKDOWN 3

Do you humble-brag in messages? Are you smug-isolating? Shane Watson on the latest pandemic etiquette

ou may already be aware that the 6 They keep asking where you are, as if we 6 They are instagramming (still) pictures big difference between Lockdown 3 all had a choice of several options: Streatham, of homemade, artfully arranged food on and the other lockdowns is how Cornwall or Portofino? colourful plates. Or a “feature” wall they’ve easy it has become to lose friends just painted pink. Or the chair they’ve recently and alienate people. Everyone’s 6 They can’t find the time for a call. “Sorry, upholstered. Really rather not see that stuff. tempers are frayed, we haven’t can we make it Friday? I just have a Zoom been together in a room for and a blah and I need to get to the post 6 They’re passing themselves off as long-term Y months, maybe a year, and now office.” What the hell? We’re not doing Spiral fans, having only just discovered it. it is surprisingly easy to rub each anything, ever. How can they be so busy This has happened with David Bowie too, other up the wrong way – via on a Saturday in lockdown? since the anniversary. Time spent in lockdown Zoom or Whatsapp or just an old-fashioned sucking up TV has encroached on genuine text. Really, anyone who isn’t harbouring dark 6 They’ve just bought a doodle dog. Thought fans’ territory and now everyone thinks thoughts about at least a few of their friends we were all on the same page and agreed that they’re equally fans. Which they are not. deserves a medal. Because there are many ways a dog purchased during lockdown is the mark they can wind you up, including the following: of a not serious and possibly irresponsible 6 They have an idea they may have had person. Note: if you ran over your dog during it – some time last January – which gives 6 They are vague about who exactly is living lockdown and felt that replacing it quickly them superpowers and the unlimited right at home… Who is that girl opening the fridge would steady the buffs (happened to my to roam. in the background if it’s only you and David friend), that’s acceptable. in the house? 6 They are a mask refusenik. On the grounds 6 They think, “We’re a bubble,” is the same that they may not work, but we know the 6 Having jumped the country just before thing as, “All the people we fancy seeing.” mask refusenik considers themselves to be lockdown, they are now living on a hillside See also: ‘It’s hardly breaking the rules”; a free spirit and this is their equivalent of in France or lakeside in Italy and posting “We’ve had it anyway”; “There were only smoking illegally in a hotel bedroom while pictures of views straight out of Casino Royale six of us”. leaning out of the window. from their balcony. Also the friend who says their adult youths “have been isolating”, meaning “going 6 They went skiing in Verbier in December. 6 They’re living slap bang on the sea. Or in between their flats and their girlfriends’ flats (To be fair, we don’t know anyone who went New Zealand. Sending regular pictures of their every other day, but nowhere else”. What they skiing in December and there may be a good empty beach. mean is they’re not having parties. reason for that.)

The Times Magazine 11 6 They say, “Shouldn’t really say this, but… we’re quite enjoying it.” The people who ‘Life would be perfect but feel this way are, naturally, the we had to leave the new ones living in the middle of lockdown puppy behind’ nowhere whose lives are barely any different as a result of lockdown. Their enthusiasm for lockdown is just about bearable (we got used to it last time), but not if they start on the “We do feel very, very lucky” chorus. Certainly not if they use the word “blessed”

6 They are already complaining about their hair. Note, this was a perfectly legitimate Portofino, Italy complaint in Lockdown 1, but now we have no patience with anyone moaning “They should really get a proper grip of them to be normal, not extra positive, upbeat about this stuff, and while we’re on the incoming flights.” and full of optimistic observations, eg “The subject here are some other things you “The thing about the last lockdown days are getting longer!” Otherwise you can might say that are guaranteed to get on your was we had that lovely weather.” feel like you’re talking to your social worker. friends’ nerves: “I could give a jab if they’d let me. It’s “I’ve lost half a stone, I think it’s giving not rocket science.” 6 They are clearly distracted when on a up drink.” video call and spend most of the time in “I go for a run morning and evening.” 6 They have a theory about the pandemic that profile, and the rest of it out of shot checking “We go for a run together, morning is based on a hunch, and not remotely useful on the progress of dinner. Note: we expect this and evening.” treatment from our children who are always “I’m genuinely still not clear what the 6 They indulge in “It’s slightly worse for us”- looking at another screen simultaneously, but rules are.” upmanship. As in, the eldest was about to start not from our friends. Plus, there is the added “I’m starting Dickens from the beginning.” the job of her dreams in Wuhan. I can’t play irritation of them competitive cooking, which “They just descended on us last night from tennis any more and I really miss it. We’re we thought we’d all got over. uni with three friends… What can you do?” not going to be able to get to our (other) “Honestly, this has been great for house and the underfloor heating is playing 6 They are still competitive cooking, as in our marriage.” up. You can hum in your head when this stuff feasts involving purchasing specialist equipment “I’ll just go and find him in his office… starts, but not if it follows hot on the heels of on Amazon. Each to their own but annoying Back in five.” you telling them there was a mains leak and as you start to question your own Saturday “Who wants to see my new Dryrobe?” your basement kitchen has been under a foot night fishcakes and broccoli and the next thing “D’you mind me saying you look of water since Tuesday. you know you’re having a small marital crisis. really tired.” “We’re smoking our own salmon… 6 They use slightly the wrong tone. When 6 They use Family Zoom to show off. As Something to do.” speaking to friends on the phone you want in, “Love to… but we’re talking to the kids then… and then… and then.” Slightly grates 6 On top of these are all the things friends when you can’t get hold of yours and they say that are too obvious to need saying have all refused to join in a general knowledge (we’re all guilty of these), so are irritating 6 They always go on Zoom in quiz. Also, they all made a video together at in a slightly different way, such as: Christmas when yours were locked in their “It’s so much worse for the children.” an idyllic nesty situation. See the bedrooms talking to their friends. “We’re saving a lot on takeaway coffee.” blazing log fire, the creamy polo “It’s the students I feel sorry for.” 6 They recipe overshare. Most unwelcome “It’s the home-schooling mothers I feel necks, the painted fingernails. unless it involves cans only and you can sorry for.” Not very All In This Together is do it all with one hand in front of the “The only person really enjoying this is TV. Lockdown 1 was the foodie lockdown. the dog.” all we’re saying. Dial it down and Lockdown 3 is Whatever. Wake me up n PREVIOUS SPREAD AND THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES PREVIOUS SPREAD AND THIS PAGE: “They should ban wet markets.” put away the visible yoga mats when it’s over.

12 The Times Magazine

WHAT I LEARNT FROM MY AUNT, AMERICA’S NEW VEEP

She was brought up by her mother, grandmother and an aunt who this week became the first female vice-president of the United States. Author and activist Meena Harris tells Jane Mulkerrins about the empowering legacy of her remarkable childhood Meena Harris, 36, photographed by Sophie Elgort. Opposite, clockwise from top left: Harris during the election campaign; Kamala Harris’s victory speech; Meena, left, with Kamala, centre, and her mother, Maya, in 2018

he notion of living in a bubble is Meena, her daughters and Kamala with Joe Biden, 2020 running after it, chasing your dreams and generally viewed as a negative. having confidence in yourself,” she says. But what if, in some instances, “When I got older, I realised that is not what a bubble is actually a positive, society teaches us. Instead, it is something producing impressive, ambitious, used to critique women: ambitious women powerful women unencumbered are ‘power-hungry’ or ‘sharp-elbowed’ by societal expectations or – things we do not say about men. T internalised misogyny? Women, “It’s something that I think women are for example, like the Harrises. taught to hide,” she continues. “I know lots of Meena Harris freely admits that women who have political ambitions and want she has “only come to realise, over the course to run for office, but they feel that they’re of my life, just how unique my upbringing was. not supposed to tell people, that you should A feminist household is all I’ve ever known,” downplay your big dreams. As women, we’re she shrugs. “Even the idea of men in power taught to hide ambition, diminish it or keep it wasn’t something I really learnt about until secret – that it’s something to be ashamed of.” I got out into the world of work. Our little Her first book, Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, family unit was just women, fierce women: published in June last year, was based on her my grandmother, my mum, my aunt and me.” mother and aunt’s childhood, and contained Her grandmother, , who ‘KAMALA WAS lessons about activism and community- died in 2009, was a scientist and civil rights building. It also featured two little girls of activist who graduated from the University of CRITICISED FOR BEING colour, still a rarity, drastically underrepresented Delhi at 19, and, to avoid an arranged marriage, “TOO AMBITIOUS” in children’s books (according to the School went to Berkeley to study endocrinology and Library Journal, in 2018 only 10 per cent nutrition, became a breast cancer researcher AND I FELT, ARE of the characters depicted in US children’s and served on the US President’s Special books were black), while Harris became one Commission on Breast Cancer. She divorced YOU KIDDING ME?’ of the few black authors to have published her Jamaican husband, Donald Harris, when a children’s book this year (in the US in her daughters were seven and five, and raised 2017, only 7 per cent of new children’s books them as a single parent in Oakland, California. published were written by black, Latino Her mother, Maya, is a 53-year-old social and Native American authors). justice lawyer and advocate, and was a senior Ambitious Girl also features a young black policy adviser on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 female protagonist, as well as mantras directly presidential campaign. And her aunt… Well, from Harris’s grandmother, including one of her aunt is Kamala Harris, 56, a lawyer and several that Kamala invoked in her victory former senator who has just been sworn in as speech on November 7: “Don’t let anyone tell the vice-president of the United States – the you who you are; you tell them who you are.” first black person, the first South Asian and Harris’s initial goal for the book was as the first woman ever to hold the office. a manifesto for little girls, “reading this at And when Meena – a Harvard-educated bedtime and then waking up the next morning former lawyer turned entrepreneur and saying, ‘I’m going to go out there and be With her husband, Nikolas Ajagu, January 2020 children’s book author, who also worked on ambitious and pursue my dreams feeling Kamala’s presidential campaign – talks about confident and knowing that I can do being raised by these three formidable women, our house.” She and Ajagu met while working anything.’” Then, she says, she realised it it’s not lip service. Her mother was 17 and still in the tech industry; after they had kids, he was just as important a message for adult in high school when she gave birth to her; decided he wanted to be a full-time dad. women. “We’re conditioned to internalise Shyamala and Kamala looked after Meena in these things, and we need a reminder of the evenings and on weekends. “That was my Harris is speaking to me on Zoom from their unlearning, relearning and reclaiming power, world,” says Harris. “And as we added more home in San Francisco, not far from where space, voice and ambition too.” people to the family, I was still very protective, her mother, aunt and she all grew up, across She includes herself firmly in that. Although and clear who raised me – that’s my family.” the bay in Oakland. Without wanting to be she describes herself as “pretty thick-skinned, Harris, 36, is now a mother herself, to reductive, she is, like all the Harris women, not strong, resilient, not somebody who cries daughters aged 2 and 4. “Thinking about how only fearsomely accomplished but also glossy when I get exhausted”, she also confesses I am raising my kids and how I can pass on and gorgeous. But as she sips on an iced to two moments on the campaign trail for the lessons and value systems that I was raised coffee, the most arresting aspect of all is her Kamala when she broke down in tears. with, I do wonder how I am going to do it. We voluble passion. Words and idea are unleashed Serving as one of her aunt’s senior advisers in let some men in along the way,” she laughs in a torrent of dynamic energy, undimmed by communications and fundraising – first during – including her own partner, Nikolas Ajagu, the 2,500 miles, one entire continent and two the primaries, when Kamala was running for and yet another lawyer, , former screens between us. It’s an energy and a drive president, and then during the Biden/Harris associate attorney-general of the United that, she says, has been deemed by some to be campaign – was, she says “hard and States and now chief legal officer for , “too much”, which is one of the messages of exhausting” (Maya, three years her sister’s who married Maya in 1998. “My kids aren’t her forthcoming book, Ambitious Girl. junior, also served as campaign chairwoman, growing up with an all-female family,” says “Growing up, I was taught that ambition is leading to her being dubbed “Bobby Kennedy”). Harris. However, she also attests, “We do not something to celebrate, that it means purpose But on one occasion, Harris says, “Kamala was

PREVIOUS SPREAD: INSTAGRAM/@MEENA, DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES. THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES, INSTAGRAM/MEENA INSTAGRAM/MEENA GETTY IMAGES, THIS PAGE: IMAGES. DREW ANGERER/GETTY PREVIOUS SPREAD: INSTAGRAM/@MEENA, ascribe to the traditional gender role thing in and determination, having a big idea and being critiqued as ‘too ambitious’ by an old

The Times Magazine 19 white guy and I just felt, are you kidding me? Are we still doing this? Are my kids going to ‘IF YOU’RE TALKING TO ONE OF THOSE THREE have to deal with this same shit? Are they going to have to be told, ‘You’d better tone it WOMEN, YOU’D BETTER BE ON YOUR A-GAME’ down. You can be ambitious, but not too ambitious.’” Harris is now so fired up with You’d better have some shit to say.’” (Emhoff witness history.” They’d even dressed their baby indignation, she is rocking in her seat. also said, “You cannot just roll into a casual daughter in suffragette white for the occasion. “She [Kamala] has experienced this her conversation. You have got to have it together. I was there that night too, and it was historic, whole life – people said, ‘You’re too young. Otherwise you’re going to get trampled.”) just not for the reasons we were expecting. You’re too much of a woman. Frankly, you’re Harris chuckles. “Everything feels like a Harris shakes her head. “No. Then it turned too black. That’s never been done before. cross-examination. It’s a great environment into moral support for my mum, and grief.” We’ve never had a black district attorney; to produce lawyers.” Back in San Francisco, she had an idea. we’ve never had a black female attorney- But, for all the cross-examinations, the Amid all the talk about women “failing to general.’ [Before standing for senator, Kamala Emhoffs have been “added” pretty seamlessly. break the glass ceiling”, she created a simple was district attorney of San Francisco at 39, Two years ago, Kamala and Doug hosted a grey T-shirt bearing the slogan “Phenomenal then attorney-general of California at 46.] She big Thanksgiving at their home in LA. Woman” as a vehicle to raise money and never listened to any of it. And now we’re able “It was all the families coming together, awareness for women’s organisations. Her to show everybody that it’s possible.” as a very modern blended family,” says college friend, the writer and actress Issa Rae, Her aunt’s election to vice-president is, she Harris. “I was sitting next to Doug’s ex-wife and actress America Ferrera, an activism believes, a shot in the arm for every woman and his ex-mother-in-law – I don’t even friend, both wore the $35 T-shirt, posted it who’s ever been told they are “too much”. know the term for that relationship.” to social media and sent demand soaring. “We’ve broken that glass ceiling. Ambition After a degree in American studies and Harris soon launched other slogans, including succeeded. We won.” political science at , Meena Phenomenally Black and Phenomenally Growing up, the Gopalan matriarchal Harris spent three years at , in its user Trans, and left her day job with Slack to focus home was always, Harris says, a place of “love, operations team – “It felt like an extension of on the brand. For Kamala’s campaign, she laughter, food and politics, and giving a damn college, all these 21-year-old graduates produced a T-shirt bearing a childhood photo about what’s going on in the world”. Shyamala working at this random social networking of her aunt and the slogan, another Shyamala also, Maya has said, “didn’t have a lot of company” – before she followed what was favourite: “The First But Not the Last”, patience for mediocrity”. “There was definitely surely her destiny: law school, at Harvard. But Phenomenal Woman is more than just some tough love,” nods Harris. “She always “I think it was the path of least resistance,” a clothing brand: it also has a production arm, taught me, ‘You’re going to have to work twice she laughs. “I even went into it feeling, ‘Well, which makes political adverts, including an as hard. Nothing’s going to be handed to you.’ I’m not going to do this for the rest of my life. online campaign that went viral and mobilised And there was no coddling – we didn’t have I’m not going to take the Bar. I don’t even voters for the critical run-off election for the a kids’ table on big occasions. You sat at the really want to be a traditional lawyer.’ I think two Senate seats in Georgia earlier this month. adults’ table. My mum and aunt were raised I was checking boxes for a while.” She then The Democrats won both seats, splitting the in the same way, with an expectation that a spent four years working at a law firm in Senate 50:50 with the Republicans and child, no matter their age, can understand and Washington. “They were the smartest people handing the Biden administration more power can be a part of adult conversations. Or, at I’ve ever met and getting to work with them, to get legislation through. It’s also a “content the very least, learn and listen.” side by side, was just extraordinary, but the platform” – in October 2018, during the “You were expected to speak and to defend day-to-day was not for me.” So she decamped Supreme Court confirmation hearings for your positions, no matter your age,” Kamala back to San Francisco and the tech world, to Brett Kavanaugh, Phenomenal Woman has said. “You were encouraged to speak, but work first for Uber and then for Slack. mobilised 1,600 men to sign their names to a you would also be challenged. Nobody looked More so even than law, however, politics letter in support of , who at you and said, ‘Isn’t that cute?’ They looked is firmly in her DNA. Her grandmother alleged that Kavanaugh had assaulted her in at you as a serious human being, and they’d was active in the civil rights movement 1982, and raised $100,000 to take out a full- say, ‘OK, tell us what you mean by that.’” and instilled in her daughters the importance page ad in The New York Times pledging Harris laughs as she recounts an evening of action. When they complained about an solidarity with her. Her future plans for the during the painfully slow election count in injustice, her response – oft repeated on the brand are, she says, “ambitious”. November, when all the family – including some campaign trail by Kamala – was, “Well, what On November 7, 2020, Harris stood onstage they “let in along the way” – was gathered are you going to do about it?” Maya took her in Wilmington, Delaware, alongside her family together. “There was a moment where Ella own daughter to marches and rallies from the – add-ons and all – as her aunt was declared [Kamala’s 21-year-old stepdaughter] said, ‘Do time she was tiny. Little wonder then that, in America’s vice-president elect. “Dream with you realise that everyone is yelling right now?’ 2008, Harris threw herself into volunteering ambition, lead with conviction, and see I said, ‘How long have you been in this family? for Barack Obama’s presidential bid, travelling yourselves in a way that others may not,” Have you not now figured out that that’s just the country to help turn out the youth vote. Kamala said in her speech. how people communicate here?’” Kamala’s In 2016, Maya was asked to serve as a “I wasn’t just celebrating a historic win,” husband of six years, lawyer Doug Emhoff, senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential says Harris. “I was also celebrating the reality Ella and her 26-year-old brother, Cole – who campaign, her first foray into presidential that, to my little girls up on stage – and little call Kamala “Momala” – gave an interview to politics. And so, on the night of the election girls all across the country – the ambition that US Glamour a week before the election. “I that year, Meena Harris, Ajagu and their propelled my aunt to the White House will laughed so hard, because Doug and Cole said, eight-month-old daughter flew to New York to finally be seen as normal.” n ‘Yeah, if you get in a conversation with any of join her mother at Clinton’s supposed “victory those three women’ – meaning me, my mum party” in Manhattan. “We were exhausted, Ambitious Girl by Meena Harris is out or Kamala – ‘You’d better be on your A-game. but we figured, let’s just go – we’re going to on March 11 (£14.99, Little, Brown)

20 The Times Magazine

Solly Morgan-Bentley, 10 months. Opposite: Paul Morgan-Bentley, 35 (left), with his husband, Robin, 33, and Solly

IT’S A BOY! The number of babies born to surrogates in the UK has quadrupled in ten years. So what’s it really like to ask a woman to carry your child? From conception to birth, Paul Morgan-Bentley reveals how he and his husband, Robin, welcomed Solly into their lives

PORTRAITS Mark Harrison

TWO MEN, A BABY… AND A SURROGATE shouted Rachel, exploiting women such as Rachel. They Rachel after giving birth to Solly, March 24, 2020 lurching back compare us to commanders in Gilead, forcing onto the hospital our handmaids to give us their babies. After ‘ ’ bed and ripping posting about our family on , we were Stop! the gas and air accused of “erasing motherhood” and denying tube from her Solly his heritage. British surrogates such as mouth. It was Rachel are told that no rational woman could 9.50pm on the “give up” a baby. first day of the March lockdown and she was The truth is that while Robin and I had 10cm dilated and ready to push. Her husband, discussed wanting to have children since we James, clutched her other hand and two started dating seven years ago, we were midwives, now beneath her legs, looked up. initially against surrogacy. Wasn’t surrogacy “Can someone please get my phone?” she something that rich celebrities did in America? asked between quick breaths. “We need a Didn’t it cost hundreds of thousands of photo [breath] of the moment [breath] the pounds? Didn’t it involve picking eggs from a guys meet [breath] their son.” catalogue of women based on crude categories “The guys” were my husband, Robin, and such as academic achievements and eye me, perched on a windowsill at the side of the colour? Then, three years ago, a friend told us delivery room. Robin was holding a water that he and his husband were expecting twins bottle, which he had been told by the through surrogacy. They had developed a ‘SO, WHO’S THE midwives to keep filling, to make sure Rachel close relationship with the woman who was could drink regularly, but also, we suspected, carrying their children and were certain they DADDY?’ ONE FRIEND to make us feel involved. I had just returned would always remain friends. from my third nervous wee in ten minutes. We briefly looked into adoption, but also ASKED. ‘WE BOTH James reached for the phone and in applied to join Surrogacy UK, a not-for-profit ARE,’ I REPLIED moments it was all captured: our son, Solly, organisation that hosts social events and an born; me holding him for the first skin-to-skin internet forum for surrogates and “intended contact; Robin holding him close while Solly parents”, as the surrogacy community sucked his thumb (we later realised he had describes couples like us. Every article on taken this moment to poo black meconium adoption seemed to focus on the negative, all over Robin’s arm and jeans); Rachel and but we lost ourselves listening to podcasts James cuddling the child that their family featuring surrogates talking about the joy had helped to create for ours. of helping to create a family. Like a growing number of gay men, couples The first surrogacy social event we went with fertility problems and single parents, to was in the summer of 2018 at a pub near we have started a family through surrogacy. Stroud. We walked in tentatively, expecting Official records suggest about 450 babies some kind of speed-dating event for wannabe a year are now born through surrogacy in parents and surrogates. It turned out this England and Wales – almost four times the wasn’t some kind of matching event; it was a number recorded a decade ago. loud and lively community, like any other but I am 35 and work at The Times as head with a bit more chat about sperm counts and Meeting up with Rachel and family for a picnic, July 2020 of investigations. Robin is 33 and writes novels uterine lining. and oversees content strategy at Audible, The following week we got the train Amazon’s audiobook company. In Britain, the to Macclesfield for an event in a park. I drunk dads in pubs). This typically means an law doesn’t allow surrogates to be paid. This immediately had one of those moments that intended father masturbating into a pot in a means we couldn’t reward Rachel financially makes you want to jump off a cliff. “She’s only locked toilet upstairs at the surrogate’s home for carrying our son, but we covered her a month old! You look incredible!” I said to a while the surrogate and their partners share expenses, such as train tickets for medical new mum holding her baby. She looked like tea and biscuits downstairs. Then the appointments, loss of earnings if she had to she wanted to punch me. surrogate goes upstairs and does what she miss work, emergency childcare, medication, “Don’t waste your time chatting to me,” needs to do with the pot and a syringe. When maternity clothes and extra food in their another woman said, pointing to her stomach. it works, it means the surrogate is also the weekly shop. Essentially, we had to ensure she “This doesn’t work any more. Hysterectomy.” baby’s genetic mother. Without IVF, it is much wasn’t ever paying for us to have a baby. Early in the process we learnt that there more affordable. In either case, surrogates’ Rachel and James were initially Solly’s legal are two types of surrogacy: gestational and expenses are usually about £10-15,000. parents, even though he was in our care from traditional. Gestational surrogacy involves We decided to try gestational surrogacy birth and neither of them is genetically related two women, a man and expensive fertility because it made more sense to us that a to him. There was a six-month process treatment. The first woman’s egg is fertilised gestational surrogate could be pregnant through the courts and social services for with the man’s sperm and the embryo is without feeling a maternal connection them to pass over their official rights to us transferred to the surrogate. This means (although we have since made friends who are as parents. the surrogate is carrying a baby that is not traditional surrogates and they say they see it For the most part, we have been welcomed genetically related to her. Creating embryos as egg donation and feel no parental bond). as a family with the same joy and excitement and transfer, if successful, cost about £15,000. We signed up to a fertility clinic in London as everyone else. But a small and vocal group Traditional surrogacy involves artificial and an organisation that finds women who

OPENING SPREAD: PAUL WEARS BLAZER AND TROUSERS, REISS.COM; SHIRT, TEDBAKER.COM; SHOES, TEDBAKER.COM; SHIRT, WEARS BLAZER AND TROUSERS, REISS.COM; OPENING SPREAD: PAUL TEDBAKER.COM; SHIRT, ROBIN WEARS BLAZER AND TROUSERS, REISS.COM; DUNELONDON.COM. USING SHAKEUP COSMETICS TERRI MANDUCA AT BROWN GROOMING: CAROL SHOES, DUNELONDON.COM. of activists accuse couples such as us of insemination (we learnt about this from want to donate eggs. Crucially for us, the egg

24 The Times Magazine We carried on going to events and then, a few months later, went back to one at the same pub in Derbyshire. Rachel, who is 30 and a teaching assistant, was there, this time with her sons, Charlie and Jack, then seven and five. Jack has autism and can feel anxious with new people, but saw me and inexplicably jumped up to give me a hug. Charlie was colouring and Robin got involved, helping him out and giving him drawing challenges. A few weeks later, we heard that Rachel was keen to get to know us better. At Surrogacy UK, intended parents are not allowed to ask surrogates if they want to carry a child for them; it’s the surrogates who are in control. The message we received is known in the community as “The Call” and starts an official period of at least three months, during which time the surrogate and intended parents are encouraged to spend lots of time together. You also receive paperwork outlining different awful decisions you might have to make during a surrogate pregnancy. Would you all want to abort if you were told the baby was so disabled he would have no quality of life? How do you feel about home birth? How often do you want to be in contact? The surrogate or intended parents can choose not to continue at any time. We spent the next few months travelling up and down the M1 to Rachel’s home. We bonded over Chinese takeaways, true crime documentaries and country walks. They came to London and slept on sofas in our two-bed flat. We also went through the dreaded paperwork and were relieved that we agreed on every discussion point. After the three months we had counselling, which the fertility clinics insist upon, although its usefulness is questionable given Rachel and James were asked why Robin and I couldn’t have children naturally. “They are both men,” James reminded the counsellor. And then in donation organisation didn’t have lists of that made it were created with Robin’s sperm July 2019 our first frozen embryo was thawed donors to choose from. We were interviewed, and two with mine. (Robin was praised by the and transferred to Rachel’s uterus, while her our details were sent to potential donors and nurses for his sperm quality. “The best count legs were in stirrups and she reached out then we were chosen three months later by a and quality we’ve seen in ages.” He has behind her to hold both of our hands. woman who liked the sound of us. We were cerebral palsy and said, “This is the first time Robin and I were at a friend’s wedding sent some non-identifying details about her, I’ve ever been praised for a physical exam. in Cornwall five days after Rachel’s embryo a passage she had written on why she wanted I feel so sporty!”) transfer when she did the pregnancy test to help us and two pictures of her as a child. After about six months of going to surrogacy and sent us a video with the result. She was We could have said no, but we knew we would events, we met Rachel and James at a pub pregnant. We called her and all screamed in say yes before we read her profile. near Matlock in Derbyshire. They were excitement down the phone like teenagers. In This woman chose to remain anonymous, nervously chatting to each other by the bar the weeks that followed, Rachel was exhausted but it is Solly’s legal right to discover her and we went over to say hello. We spoke for and hungry a lot of the time, a combination details when he is 18 (and, if he agrees, we most of the day. James, a 31-year-old butcher, of normal early-pregnancy symptoms and would love to meet her too and thank her told Robin he looked like Tom Hardy, which fertility drugs. We felt awful. We called and in person). She was paid only expenses went down very well. We found ourselves texted, probably driving her mad. because egg donation must be altruistic, but going into detail about our fertility clinic We also started to get our first glimpses we bought her a small inexpensive present visits, mimicking the awkward man with a of the variety of ways people respond to gay and wrote her a card for when she went to clipboard who led us to the deposit rooms parents. At our three-month hospital scan, we the clinic for her procedure. and describing the awful leather chaise were told one of us should hide on a bench We ended up with six good-quality longue and the picture of a female glamour embryos, which were frozen. Four of the six model on the wall. “Not much use to us!” Continues on page 37

The Times Magazine 25

PULL OUT AND KEEP Eat!

Pumpkin, sage and feta rolls, page 34

SAUSAGE ROLL?

NO! IT’S PUMPKIN DONNA HAY’S REALLY EASY VEGETARIAN RECIPES

DONNA HAY

PIZZA WITH ARTICHOKE, MOZZARELLA AND OLIVES Serves 2 Eat!

No need to order a takeaway when shop-bought flatbreads are all that’s required. Crisp deliciousness awaits.

• 2 Lebanese flatbreads • 80ml tomato passata • 5 artichoke hearts, halved • 12 cherry tomatoes, torn and seeds removed • 150g pitted green olives • 2 tbsp oregano leaves • 10 thin slices fresh mozzarella, dried using kitchen roll • 25g parmesan, finely grated • Basil leaves and balsamic vinegar or thick balsamic glaze (optional), to serve

1 Preheat the oven to 220C/ Gas 7. Place the flatbreads on 2 large baking trays lined with nonstick baking paper. Top each flatbread with half of the passata, artichokes, tomatoes, olives and oregano. Bake for 8 minutes. 2 To serve, top each pizza with mozzarella, parmesan and basil, and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

PHOTOGRAPHS Con Poulos

The Times Magazine 29

BAKED KALE GNOCCHI WITH BALSAMIC TOMATOES Serves 4-6 I love to add kale to my gnocchi to maximise the goodness. As they cook in the sauce, they soak DONNA HAY up that lovely tomato flavour.

• 3 x 400g cans cherry tomatoes • 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar • 4 cloves garlic, sliced Eat! • 2 basil stalks • 500ml vegetable stock (or chicken stock for non-vegetarians) • Sea salt and black pepper • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil • Parmesan, finely grated, and basil leaves, to serve

For the kale gnocchi • 120g kale leaves, finely shredded, blanched and well drained • 2 tsp lemon rind, finely grated • 80g parmesan, finely grated • 480g fresh ricotta • 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped • 100g brown rice flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting • Sea salt and cracked black pepper

1 Preheat the oven to 220C/Gas 7. Place the tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, garlic, basil stalks, stock, salt and pepper in a large, deep- sided roasting tray. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes or until the sauce is simmering. 2 To make the gnocchi, place the kale, lemon rind, parmesan, ricotta, parsley, flour, salt and pepper in a large bowl and mix to combine (this mixture should be a little sticky). 3 Divide the gnocchi mixture into 4 pieces and press out each on a lightly floured board into a 30cm log. Cut each log into 4cm pieces, gently pressing into shape and set aside. 4 Add the gnocchi to the simmering balsamic tomatoes, drizzle with the oil and bake, uncovered, for a further 15 minutes or until the gnocchi are cooked through. 5 To serve, ladle gnocchi and tomatoes into bowls and sprinkle with parmesan and basil leaves.

The Times Magazine 31

SPINACH SOUFFLÉ OMELETTE Serves 2

Enjoy a bit of delicious puff without much effort with this DONNA HAY super-easy one-pan omelette.

• 200g baby spinach leaves, blanched and finely chopped Eat! • 2 tbsp dill leaves, chopped • 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped • 4 eggs, separated • 60ml milk • 40g parmesan, finely grated, plus extra to serve • Sea salt and cracked black pepper • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil • Wholegrain bread, toasted, to serve

1 Place the spinach, dill, parsley, egg yolks, milk, parmesan, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix to combine. 2 Place the egg whites into a clean bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites through the spinach mixture. 3 Heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the oil and omelette mixture and cook for 4-5 minutes or until just set. Fold over and cook for a further 2 minutes. 4 Sprinkle with extra parmesan and serve with wholegrain toast.

The Times Magazine 33 COURGETTE THREE-CHEESE RAVIOLI WITH BAKED TOMATO SAUCE Serves 4 I’ve replaced the pasta with thin DONNA HAY slices of courgette for a super- healthy take on ravioli. If you don’t have a mandoline, use a vegetable peeler instead.

Eat! Eat! • Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing • Basil leaves, to serve

For the baked tomato sauce • 750g cherry tomatoes • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil • 6 small sprigs of thyme • 125ml vegetable stock (or chicken stock for non-vegetarians) • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar • 1 tbsp pure maple syrup • Sea salt and cracked black pepper

For the courgette three-cheese ravioli • 360g fresh ricotta • 40g parmesan, finely grated, plus extra to serve • 150g soft goat’s cheese • 2 tbsp chives, chopped • Sea salt and cracked black pepper • 6 courgettes, thinly sliced on a mandoline 3 Place the courgette ravioli • 120g feta place on the tray. Divide the on top of the hot tomato sauce. • Sea salt and cracked pumpkin mixture between the 1 Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Brush with oil and bake for black pepper pastry pieces, arranging it in logs To make the baked tomato sauce, 20 minutes or until the edges of • 1 x 375g sheet frozen along the long edges. Brush the make a small cut in each tomato the courgettes are lightly golden. puff pastry, thawed other long edges with egg and and squeeze out and discard the Serve scattered with a little extra • 1 egg, lightly whisked roll to enclose the filling. Cut seeds. Place the tomatoes in a parmesan and basil leaves. • Black sesame seeds, each roll in half to make 4 in large baking dish with the oil, for sprinkling total. Turn the rolls seam-side thyme, stock, vinegar, maple PUMPKIN, SAGE • Shop-bought tomato chutney, down on the trays. Score the tops syrup, salt and pepper and bake AND FETA ROLLS to serve (optional) with a sharp knife, brush with the for 20 minutes or until soft. remaining egg and sprinkle with 2 To make the courgette three- Makes 4 (page 27) 1 Place a large, deep nonstick the sesame seeds. cheese ravioli, place the ricotta, frying pan over a medium-high 4 Bake for 20 minutes or until parmesan, goat’s cheese, chives, Pumpkin and sage is a classic heat. Add the oil and leek and the pastry is puffed and golden salt and pepper in a bowl and combination with pasta. I’ve cook, stirring, for 4 minutes or brown. Allow the rolls to cool mix to combine. On a board, given it a twist by adding feta until soft. on the tray for 10 minutes lay 4 slices of courgette and wrapping it in puff pastry. 2 Add the pumpkin and sage and before serving with tomato overlapping each other in the cook for 4 minutes or until soft. chutney, if you like. n centre (it will look like a star). • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Transfer to a large bowl and add Place a heaped tablespoon of • 1 leek, thinly sliced the chia, parsley, ricotta, feta, salt Extracted from cheese mixture in the centre, • 300g firmly packed and pepper. Mix to combine and Everyday Fresh: then fold over the courgettes pumpkin, grated refrigerate until cool. Meals in Minutes to enclose the filling. Turn over • 2 tbsp sage, finely chopped 3 Preheat the oven to 200C/ by Donna Hay the ravioli so the courgette ends • 2 tbsp white chia seeds Gas 6. Line a large baking tray (HarperCollins, are underneath. Repeat with • 6g flat-leaf parsley with nonstick baking paper. Cut £20). For more the remaining courgette and leaves, chopped the pastry sheet in half to make ideas, go to cheese mixture. • 160g fresh ricotta two 13.5cm x 18cm rectangles and donnahay.com.au

34 The Times Magazine

Surrogacy Continued from page 25

and sneak in so others in the waiting room On a day out in Derbyshire during Rachel’s pregnancy, 2019 when the parental order was granted, which wouldn’t know they had let three of us in was sweet). Surrogates and their partners (these were the days before Covid stopped having legal status as parents at birth doesn’t partners coming to appointments). The reflect the reality of the early lives of the subterfuge didn’t stop us staring at the screen babies they have carried and can leave them in amazement, experiencing a moment that, with parental responsibility for children who as gay men, we never imagined we would. are not in their care. A week or so later I went to the pub with We were never questioned about Solly’s friends and told them our news. “So, who’s the legal status as our son during the first six daddy?” one asked. We had practised for this months, despite him having the usual GP moment. “We are both the dads,” I replied. appointments and vaccinations. But had there “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “But who is the real been a medical emergency, we could have dad?” And then another joined in. “Yeah, who been barred from making decisions about his won?” It started to grate. Who won? Really? care and crucial time could have been lost We knew – and Solly will always know trying to get consent from Rachel and James. – that he was created with Robin’s sperm. We The Law Commission, the independent simply asked the clinic to try with the embryo body that advises the government on reform that was the highest quality so was most likely in England and Wales, has proposed changes to implant. We chatted to other gay dads and to ensure parents can have legal status from they all said the same thing: it seems like a birth while maintaining surrogates’ rights to big deal until the baby is here and then it is object to this in the very rare cases where this irrelevant. We decided to tell people when is needed. For this to happen, pre-conception they asked. As Covid-19 began, Rachel hit her due date, and then kept going. We rented a cottage INITIALLY, WE THOUGHT SURROGACY WAS nearby and helped her with the school run JUST FOR RICH CELEBRITIES IN AMERICA and looking after her boys. We had the crib ready by our rented bed. The hospital, Chesterfield Royal, had made arrangements our culture. His middle names are Bertie, safeguards would have to have been fulfilled, for me and Robin to be at the birth. But after my great aunt Betty, and Ezra, which such as having independent legal advice, then, as Rachel went a week overdue, the is Hebrew for “help”, to honour Rachel. counselling and checks on health, criminal management panicked about the pandemic In the days after Solly’s birth we kept records and screening, which focus on the and said we could no longer come. During checking in to make sure Rachel was feeling welfare of the child. lengthy discussions with the heads of OK and she insisted she was fine. We spent The surrogacy community also midwifery, we argued that it was in our son’s the first five days in the cottage before overwhelmingly favours surrogacy in Britain best interests for us to care for him that first heading back to London. We still text each remaining altruistic, with no payments for night. We reminded them that Rachel also felt other throughout the week, send pictures, carrying a baby, to protect the principle of strongly about this and wanted to be able to catch up on video calls and also found ways surrogacy through friendship and to prevent rest after labour and not be left to look after to meet up a couple of times during the coercion. a baby she didn’t view as her own. summer in parks and back gardens. There In developing countries surrogacy can be They spoke to Rachel and agreed that we is no question that we will remain close for appalling, with husbands forcing wives to could join once she was in established labour. the rest of our lives. They and their sons carry babies for money. Our experience of We were lucky. Restrictions would prevent feel like family now. altruistic surrogacy in Britain has been joyous, many fathers from being at births in the We’re fine with people making comments but independent surrogacy arrangements weeks that followed. – the chemist on the high street who calls me without the involvement of an organisation Rachel went nine days overdue, but it “mummy daddy” or the woman who tells me such as Surrogacy UK also happen in Britain was relatively quick in the end – less than Solly has my mouth and Robin’s eyes – but we and can lack proper oversight. Legal changes three hours after she got to hospital. The have found it impossible not to be sensitive to are needed to ensure exploitation is never a contractions were relentless. I remember some people, particularly during medical possibility. With delays caused by Brexit and thinking what she was doing for us was appointments. NHS staff ask about Solly’s Covid-19, it will probably now take another utterly inexplicable. I could just about get my mother and struggle to understand that he has two years until the changes to surrogacy law head around her enduring morning sickness an egg donor and surrogate and then can’t are implemented. and exhaustion for us to have a family. But work out which they want to know about. Now that we are Solly’s parents legally as this much pain? As more people become parents through well as in practice, have we really denied him And then Solly was born. The hospital kept surrogacy every year, trained paediatric staff his heritage? With both our names on his new a room for me, Robin and Solly away from the should be taught how surrogacy works. They parental order certificate as his two parents, main maternity ward and he slept well should also be encouraged to treat fathers like have we erased motherhood? We believe that through that first night, but we stayed up proper parents, rather than as occasional sex shouldn’t be relevant to how good a parent watching him and manically putting our babysitters. The law also needs to change. you are and hope Solly agrees when he’s older. hands on his chest to make sure it was still Rachel and James were Solly’s legal parents Solly will always know he has two loving male rising and falling. from birth, even though they didn’t want to parents and a wider family who adore him. Robin and I are both Jewish. We named be, and the court process to change this was He will also know that in a world that can him Solly, a shortened version of Solomon, surely a waste of public time and money often be rough, he exists because of the help just because we like the name and its nod to (although a court official sent Solly a teddy we had from two extraordinary women. n

The Times Magazine 37 IS THIS THE END OF THE CITY?

The BBC’s banking drama, Industry

Can the City of London survive the economic shock of Brexit? Former banker Oliver Kamm recalls the hedonism and allure of the Square Mile, and asks what next for the suits – and their six-figure bonuses The deserted Leadenhall area of the City of London he City will thrive as it adapts in the post-Brexit age. That is the prediction proffered this week by I COULD IMMEDIATELY TELL IF SOMEONE HAD Rishi Sunak, the chancellor. His message is only slightly more subdued than the prime minister’s A DRUG HABIT TO HELP MAINTAIN ALERTNESS assurance on Christmas Eve that T the trade deal with the EU will shareholders. Mark Carney, the former banned from the City for attempting to enable the City to “get on and governor of the Bank of England, envisaged manipulate prices in the Swedish stock market. prosper as never before”. Are that this restriction on the City could be lifted One of them was James Archer, the son of they right? Well, up to a point. The City is after Brexit. He saw it as an advantage. Many Lord Archer. I got to know another of them disadvantaged by the Brexit deal, but it has will not – especially those who have watched quite well when he did consulting work for my inherent strengths that mean it will remain a the recent BBC drama Industry, about a group institution. I liked him: he was intelligent and global centre of finance. The wider question is of millennial City bankers in the 2010s. sharp, and would have been successful (and how far this will benefit the rest of us. And on The programme’s popularity has already probably is) in any other career. that point, there are grounds for scepticism. secured it a second series. It’s compelling I miss that world not at all. I had the good The activities conducted in the square mile viewing but not a pretty sight. The storyline fortune to be able to take up another career known as the City of London are one part depicts sundry ritualistic humiliations for in midlife and jumped at it. A few weeks after of a thriving financial services industry that its aspiring masters of the universe, amid a I joined The Times, in my first and only job in contributes some £132 billion to the British culture of late nights, sex, drugs, misogyny journalism, the entire western banking system economy and employs well over one million and the prospect of huge financial rewards. collapsed. The hubris, cupidity and recklessness people. Nor is the sector just a London affair. City bankers will dispute its accuracy. As to of top bankers became a subject of fierce There are important regional concentrations that question – well, it depends where you are. controversy and near-universal condemnation, in asset management in Edinburgh and in I spent more than 20 years in the City before in which it may seem self-serving of me to insurance in the southwest of England, and giving it all up to become a writer and join join – for I got out before the deluge. But big cities such as Cardiff and Leeds also have The Times. I started my career at the Bank of I think it gives me a perspective on what went substantial financial services activity. England and then worked on both sides of the wrong and what can be put right. And it won’t There is no doubt in my mind that the securities industry: asset management and be put right by restoring the status quo ante sector overall, like the wider economy, will investment banking. My experience is remote just because, post-Brexit, it becomes possible. be damaged by Brexit. The agreement with from what appear to me the agonies of life as I can honestly say that I enjoyed almost all the EU doesn’t make provision for financial depicted in the programme. I prefer a more my City career, though the relish palled in the services firms. British providers of financial discriminate hedonism, which in lockdown final years, and the subject retains intellectual services have lost automatic “passporting” amounts to a good book and a glass of malbec. fascination for me. Yet one of the oddities of rights to sell their products throughout the But I can’t dispute that I saw people who finance as a field of study is that Nobel prizes EU. That’s just a fact. There will be additional led stormier lives of excess. I never worked have been awarded for this specialised branch regulatory hurdles that didn’t apply while on a trading floor, as my functions were of economics, yet its body of research raises Britain was part of the single market. investment strategy and business management, big questions about the usefulness of much At the same time, I accept the judgment but I could immediately tell from their of the work that goes on in high finance. of supporters of Brexit that the City will manner and behaviour whether someone It’s not just a problem in the City of ethical retain certain inherent advantages as a global had a drugs habit to help them (so they saw standards that are, to various degrees, financial centre, in the specialised services it it) maintain the alertness to follow market elastic. A great deal of effort is devoted to offers. It will lose some business at the margin, movements. And the conspicuous consumption, activities of marginal usefulness, or outright such as settlement of euro-denominated both of possessions (especially fast cars) and destructiveness, including ceaseless efforts to trades, but will remain significant and perhaps of food and drink (especially drink), was devise complex financial products that enable dominant in activities such as foreign exchange obvious around the City. Everything came investors to circumvent the tax regime (or, to and securities trading, asset management, law, down, ultimately, to the annual bonus round. use a euphemism, are “tax efficient”). accountancy and other fields. And there are It was standard for senior employees to have It’s a common accusation that the City lots of ancillary businesses that depend on a basic salary that by any normal standards has an excessive focus on short-term financial the City remaining strong. was huge (commonly £100,000), but for total returns at the expense of creating long-term Is that a good thing? If you answer yes compensation to depend on bonuses that were value, and that the financial services industry – and I would – then you need to accept some several multiples of this. That’s what inevitably is “bloated”. There’s a reasonable reply, which dispiriting consequences. The segment of the will reoccur in the City now that Britain has is that the evidence of “short-termism” is hard financial services industry that will emerge left the EU, and it has a social cost. to pin down and that policymakers shouldn’t relatively stronger from the economic shock of The prevailing culture of the investment attempt to pick and choose the sectors in Brexit will be concentrated in the City, rather banks from my experience would be something which an economy specialises. If a sector than outside it, and the beneficiaries will be along these lines: enjoy the fruits of your is successful and profitable, and especially if those who already reap substantial financial industry but don’t do so in such a way to it generates overseas earnings, then (so the rewards. If City institutions want to flourish draw attention, let alone scandal. In the late argument goes) this is all to the good. But outside the EU, the obvious recourse will be to Nineties, a group of young traders at one I’m doubtful, in the end, that this is true. bid up the price of a global workforce. A few investment bank attracted notoriety by calling I can’t shake off the suspicion that the years ago, in response to the financial crash of themselves “the Flaming Ferraris”, after a City is a net drain rather than a net gain, in 2007-09, the EU introduced a cap on bankers’ cocktail they were partial to – a mix of rum, a way that isn’t really measurable in national bonuses, limiting these to 100 per cent of Grand Marnier and green Chartreuse. They accounts data. Part of this is cultural and

PREVIOUS SPREAD: BAD WOLF PRODUCTIONS/BBC, ANDY HALL/@ANDYXHALL/ HALL/@ANDYXHALL/ ANDY PRODUCTIONS/BBC, WOLF PREVIOUS SPREAD: BAD PRODUCTIONS/BBC WOLF BAD EYEVINE. THIS SPREAD: GETTY IMAGES, salary or 200 per cent with the approval of were sacked by their bank and eventually hence remediable. The City has, to be fair,

40 The Times Magazine been working on it. A couple of years ago, anywhere else, lots of people want to work energy, or some other goal. It’s no criticism I chaired an event where one of the speakers there. Firms can take their pick and will, of them; I didn’t go down that route either. was Bob Diamond, the former Barclays boss, unsurprisingly, select a high proportion of But they would have been really good at it. who was forced out of his post in 2012 amid a impressive candidates. Lots of people in The gravitational pull of the City is not scandal over fixing a market interest rate. He the City are intelligent, and most of them only an opportunity cost, in which talent that was candid and expansive about the failings of gravitate towards highly paid roles that are might be invested in other areas never comes his tenure and of the City generally. While in hard to fill. Not all of them fit this stereotype, to fruition. It’s worse than that. Some segments his post, he’d warned that “our culture, and admittedly. In my first job, as a graduate of the industry are a monumental waste, that of the industry overall, needs to evolve”. trainee at the Bank of England, I was of which the preeminent one is in asset Well, he was right. And a vignette of that mentored by Andrew Bailey, who has management. Among the findings of academic time illustrates it because it affected a unique remained a close friend. He has one of the finance – those Nobel laureates I referred to institution. Perhaps the most famous banker finest minds I’ve come across, yet he never – is just how hard it is to outguess the market of recent times, after the disgraced Fred and beat it. The analysts and fund managers Goodwin of Royal Bank of Scotland, is The Bank of England, in the City who try to pick stocks that will outperform Paul Flowers, who served as non-executive may know plenty of things, and be fluent chairman of the Co-operative Bank from in reading financial statements, but they 2009-13. He resigned as the bank stood on genuinely don’t know how to do that. The the brink of financial collapse, and he was implosion of the fund management operations banned from the industry a few years later of Neil Woodford in 2019 is a cautionary tale. for having used company equipment to send Once hailed absurdly by the BBC as “the man sexually explicit messages and organise his who can’t stop making money”, Woodford drug habit, and to access premium-rate turned out to justify this description only in pornographic phone lines. In testimony to the sense that he took huge sums from the MPs, I thought that he showed an almost business, paid for by investors, even while his total lack of financial knowledge. funds were dramatically underperforming. According to a book by financial journalist It takes a certain mindset to do that – an Alex Brummer (and I have had it confirmed invincible self-regard that will not countenance since), Flowers and his senior management A scene from Industry the possibility of error. At its extreme, it will team held an event at a country house hotel see the world as an obstacle to be trampled in the northwest where Bank of England on. In my own City career I got to know one officials grilled them on the financial accounts. of the captains of industry, a household name Afterwards, they all had dinner, and the Bank who is abrasive and litigious (not Sir Philip of England attendees noted that Flowers Green), who was abusive not only to his own ordered the most expensive bottles of wine, lieutenants (who could, I suppose, have walked then sent them away as not of a quality that he away) but to secretaries and waiters. Even for demanded. The Co-op Bank is an institution decent people, a working life of commercial with a declared commitment to ethical policies calculation can be corrosive. Getting and and roots in the co-operative movement, yet spending, we lay waste our powers, wrote even this institution had become infected with Wordsworth – and there is some truth to the ethos of conspicuous consumption. this when we become inured to the type of Even so, the City has cleaned up its getting and spending that almost nobody act, and in my work I became practised at else, in other walks of life, enjoys. THE MINDSET SEES THE WORLD AS AN OBSTACLE TO TRAMPLE ON explaining the value of high finance in an went into the private sector where he could For many years, my commute would efficient economy, and the social as well as have earned fabulous sums, and is now involve walking between the City and my private benefits of the sort of work I did. governor of the Bank. Although biased, home in east London. The route encompassed Where scarce resources are allocated to I consider it exceptionally fortunate for this an area of immense wealth and, along businesses that can make most profitable use country that it was him, and not one of the Whitechapel Road in Tower Hamlets, an area of it, society as a whole can take on more risk more “political” but less qualified candidates, of deprivation and a home through generations and become wealthier. Deep and liquid capital who took office in Threadneedle Street just for immigrant communities. The contrast is markets connect companies that need capital as the coronavirus crisis broke. vast. Hampering the City, let alone driving with investors who want a return on it. A It’s other brilliant people, whose names its activities from these shores through sophisticated securities industry can help both are unknown to the public, that I’m more isolationism or bad policy, won’t help improve these types of client meet their objectives. concerned about. I worked with many who the economic position of poor communities That’s what I did for a living, in investment held doctorates in physics or maths and whose in London or any other part of Britain. Yet its research, asset management and business working lives were devoted to devising complex prominence in our economy, which I’m certain planning. I got great satisfaction out of it, financial products that would slightly reduce will be reinforced by Brexit, is not an unalloyed and met some brilliant people. the cost, or diversify the risk, of borrowing gain and the tax revenues it provides come Indeed, the talent in the City is one reason or investing in the capital markets. It was a at a cost. For those fictional young bankers for my scepticism now. Because the structure commitment of ingenuity that might have been portrayed in Industry, it causes attenuation of rewards in the Square Mile is unlike expended instead on biotech, or renewable of the soul. I suspect it did for me too. n

The Times Magazine 41 ‘I won’t lie. Caring for Harvey is constant and draining. Not many people could cope like I can’

From business empire to bankruptcy via some very public break-ups, six autobiographies and a spell in the Priory, it’s been 25 years since Katie Price first made headlines. Now she’s revealed a private side – her life with her disabled son, Harvey, as he turns 18. Interview by Louise Carpenter Katie Price, 42. Opposite: with her son Harvey in 2019 Clockwise from this image: from the documentary Katie Price: Harvey and Me; with baby Harvey in 2003; a 2005 lingerie shoot; with Dwight Yorke, Harvey’s father, in 2001

atie Price, the former glamour model and reality TV star, once built an empire worth £40 million. Shouldn’t she step back a bit? ‘Are you joking? There’s Her complicated love life, detailed no stepping back for me. This is the next chapter’ in six autobiographies, has amply fed the salacious appetite of an industry that made her and deficiency, and Prader-Willi syndrome, a genetic cards read. “This is his condition… Look up K then seemed to relish her recent disorder, as well as ADHD and autism. At 18, what’s wrong with him and if you want to downfall. She is currently in he is unable to control his appetite, eats to donate to a charity that supports children like bankruptcy proceedings. But after excess without the mechanism of self-control this, then do it.” a very difficult period last year, she says, and and now weighs 29st. He is on medication, half Often, the people who stared most were in now aged 42, she is mentally back to where to keep him alive, half to control his behaviour. upmarket stores. Now, when he accompanies she was 10 years ago, which is to say, “On Katie Price’s unconditional commitment to her to the supermarket as a very large adult, fire… Ready to get my empire back.” his happiness has been beyond doubt over the if he wets himself and people stare, she thinks, Today, when we meet virtually, it is not to years. At the height of her fame, she refused “Well, yes, what do you want me to do? talk about her empire but a documentary she to hide him away, as seemed to be expected Stop shopping and take him home? has made for BBC One, Katie Price: Harvey of her during a spell in the US, she says. You just have to continue the day. and Me, to mark the milestone of her disabled Nor would she apologise for how others It’s just the way it is, you know?” son’s 18th birthday, celebrated with a Peppa might feel around his lack of sight, his She has also fought online trolls, Pig cake and balloons. Only the biggest cynic size or his challenging behaviour. and anybody who has cruelly picked and Price hater, of which there are so many, When Harvey was much younger, on him, whether about his eyes or could link the film with the comeback. Price publicly kissed and cuddled his size. “When it comes to Harvey, If much of Price’s public life – not least the him and made cards to hand out to he can’t defend himself. Why would state of her finances – seems complicated and members of the public who stared you want to pick on him? It’s not just unclear, one thing is irrefutable: her love for at him. “You’re obviously looking Harvey. Everyone gets it. Why can’t and commitment to her eldest son, and the because you’re interested,” the the rules on online abuse be stricter?” other children too. She has two by husband Katie Price on Zoom is full-on. Her number one, the pop star Peter Andre, whom face fills the screen in close-up, her she met on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of balayage hair extensions as long as Here! (Junior, 15, and Princess, 13), and two ever, her skin tanned, her lips and with husband number three, Kieran Hayler eyelashes oversized. (Jett, 7, and Bunny, 6). Harvey was fathered There are many surreal by Dwight Yorke, at the time a Manchester moments, which include, United player, who demanded a paternity test but are not confined to, and then abandoned them. She was 24. her farting dog, unseen As an infant, Harvey was diagnosed with but beside her on the sofa complex disabilities: septo-optic dysplasia, – “Phoooooar,” she shouts suddenly

PREVIOUS SPREAD: PETER PEDONOMOU/CAMERA PRESS, GETTY IMAGES. PRESS, GETTY IMAGES. PREVIOUS SPREAD: PETER PEDONOMOU/CAMERA PRICE/INSTAGRAM KATIE REUTERS, GETTY IMAGES, PA, THIS SPREAD: BBC, which causes blindness and growth hormone mid-conversation; a puppy about to poo

44 The Times Magazine stage left, possibly the same hound, possibly Price with her children, clockwise from bottom right: on the treadmill and then one minute on the not; another creature out of its cage in the Harvey, Princess, Bunny, Jett and Junior rowing machine. And then I’ll motivate him room somewhere; Bunny coming into view by playing music he likes. So I’ll play a song wearing a matching balayage wig and doused and say, ‘Why don’t you dance, Harve?’ ” in body cream. She has left her old home in Sussex, known Home schooling has been a challenge. She in the tabloids as the “mucky mansion”, for can’t get the wifi to connect to the printer and good. It was the scene of so much emotional has phoned the school to say she will just have and relationship trauma over the years. She to go over to pick up printouts of the day’s also briefly lived in Surrey, near Andre, and work. Harvey, unable to go to his residential drones still fly over the gardens of both houses school, is in a little house opposite where she almost every day, sent into the sky by agencies now lives in Essex, either cared for by Price looking to sell pictures to the tabloids. She is or an established carer, in order to help the phoning the police later this afternoon, she transition to adult college that awaits him in tells me, to make another complaint. September, and to ease lockdown cabin fever. Price has been in the public eye for 25 years The decision to make the film about Harvey since she began posing aged 17. Even by the becoming an adult required thought, but she standards of somebody accustomed to dramatic felt she had something important to say about lows – a vital ingredient in the autobiographies, the challenges that face all parents of offspring but always framed by resilience – last year was who are both adult and dependent. really bad. She checked herself into the Priory “I have to be so careful with Harvey [and for five weeks after she began to self-medicate the media],” she says, “because he doesn’t with cocaine. She’d broken a promise to understand things, but I just felt like he’s herself, one she’d hitherto kept, that she turned 18 and we have come a long way. – the family has recently moved – showing would never touch drugs, rife in her industry. I wanted to show all the stuff about him punch marks in the plaster. “The media wouldn’t leave me alone. having grown up to the transition now, trying “If a door bangs, nobody knows how to calm People around me were doing stories that just to find a new college for him, what he has to him,” says Price. “I am always trying angles weren’t true, and I’m trying to get up for air go through. I suppose I felt the time was right with him, trying to make things OK. It’s what and then I’m being knocked down. It does get for a serious, stripped-back documentary it’s like with him, all the time. He’s like a baby. to you in the end. about a mother and son. Take away from it Like an adult baby. He’s a man but he’s still a “And because I’ve got five kids, I thought, who I am, because it makes no difference baby. Does that make sense?” ‘Oh my God, I can’t do this.’ I didn’t know how what my job is. This is literally me and In July last year – a terrible year for Price, to deal with everything. I just wanted to sleep. Harvey, mother and son, in this situation.” who also broke her feet while on holiday I wanted to shut things out. I went to the Turning 18 has enormous consequences for – Harvey was rushed into intensive care on the doctor – I don’t know how I found the strength Harvey’s future. It means his medical care at brink of a heart attack. “His weight is killing – and said, ‘I’m doing this [cocaine]. It’s taking Great Ormond Street and his Monday-Friday him more than anything else,” she explains. over. I can’t cope with it.’ He’s known me a long residential education come to an end and “He gets in all the cupboards and finds where time. He looked at me as if to say, ‘What?’ ” move elsewhere. This means saying goodbye I hide the food and he comes down quietly in She was not treated for addiction at the to hospital staff and teachers who have grown the night while we’re asleep. It’s hard because Priory but for “severe traumatic rehabilitation”, to know and love him, people he trusts. His I have the other children who want snacks. which is to do with events buried in her medical care will transition slowly to University “He will live a long life but he has to lose past, some of them in the “mucky mansion”, College Hospital and Price is tasked with weight. He has always been big – that is just but also being carjacked in South Africa. As trying to find a new college, possibly miles part of his condition. But he’s getting bigger a precaution, she has also since written a away. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she and bigger and he is so out of breath, even goodbye letter to cocaine saying, “You’ll never tells the camera. “I have a lot to think about.” after walking for two or three minutes.” get the better of me again.” In the film, she is just like any other parent Since lockdown, she has created a home So much of Katie Price’s public persona is worrying about how to steer a child into the gym for him in her new boyfriend’s garage. built on artifice, both in terms of her appearance next phase of their life. We see her on her Carl Woods is a 31-year-old car dealer who and the confusing TV trend of controlled laptop combing through residential home lives across the road from her. Price shares the “reality”, a version of a life that is meant to be specifications, notepad on her thigh, trying four other children 50:50 with their respective authentic in all its drama and pain, and yet is to locate the best one for him. dads; it’s “chaos” when all five are home packaged and spat out to certain specifications. “The thing is,” she explains to me, “some of together. “I had to find gym equipment that It is her home life that is real, however, the ones that might be right are miles away. would take his weight,” Price explains of especially the genuine and very real demands I’d move there for Harvey – I’d love to live in Harvey’s weight-loss programme. “Obviously, of parenting a disabled child. It is rare she ever Cheltenham or Exeter. But I have the other I am going to start him slowly, two minutes gets any credit for this, which is the case, she children with their schools and seeing their says, for many families like hers. Perhaps her dads. I have to factor in everybody.” YouTube channel will capture this more. One of the particular challenges of Harvey’s ‘I’d move for Harvey, but “Not many people would be able to cope care is that any emotional distress he feels with it mentally, because it is draining. I’m not manifests itself in violence. What do you do I have to factor in the going to lie. It is very draining and constant. when that happens, the documentary-maker You don’t get a break from it.” asks Price’s youngest daughter, Bunny. “Run other children with their She wishes feelings of fear and prejudice away upstairs,” she says. The BBC camera around disability would be replaced if not by pans the walls of their home at the time schools, seeing their dads’ praise for carers, then at least by society’s

The Times Magazine 45

respect and some basic common decency. Often, she says, when she sees other parents ‘I’ve got trust for a guy again, which was a big issue for with children who are autistic or disabled, she wants to go up to them and say, “ ‘You are me because I’d cling on to anyone, I was that insecure’ doing a really good job! And I bet you don’t get enough credit for it,’ because I know how hard it is to get them up, get them dressed, I want the college to see what he is like because get them out of the door even to a shop.” I need to know they can cope with him.” One of the many lovely moments of the film It is clear that Deborah Rix, Harvey’s is when Price meets the various other mums outgoing headmistress, has deep respect for who have shared the journey with her over the Katie Price. When Price thanks her for the years and who also have sons with disabilities. school’s support over the years, its faith in Their bond and common experience is moving. Harvey and the huge progress he has made, Price has a wonderful way with Harvey, both she reciprocates by praising Price as a mother. no-nonsense when he kicks off (“Come on “I’m not used to hearing that,” Price tells Harvey!”), a learnt skill, but also unpatronising. me matter-of-factly. “I’m used to it,” she says. “I thought, Rix tells her too that there is no reason ‘Should they have showed what he is like why Harvey will not be able to secure some kicking off even more?’ But I have to protect kind of employment in the future. Price has him and I think the film does a really good her own plans, characteristically ambitious. job at showing how quickly he can switch “Luckily for Harvey, he’s got a mum like me. and where I learn how to control him. Other He drew his own little logo with an ‘H’ and a people I know have seen it and said, ‘God, frog, so I’m bringing out a clothing range for I don’t know how you deal with him. He’s him for bigger guys because it is difficult to hard work.’ But I don’t see that. I’m used to it. find clothes for him. I’m doing that with two “You heard him in the shower,” she says of companies… And he likes his illustrating and a clip when a carer is unsuccessfully trying to loves painting, so I might see what happens deal with his distress. “He might lash out if he’s this year and do a gallery of his pictures.” in a mood, but never with me. Never. Never She is buzzing with ideas for him. And then me. But I always say to people, ‘If he’s kicking there are her own plans, of course. “I don’t off and goes on the ground, don’t go up to him. even know what my job is. I suppose I always Just leave him or he will kick you.’ Talking to ask myself, ‘So how am I still here? What is it Heading to the Maldives with Carl Woods, October 2020 him like I do doesn’t work for other people. I do?’ ” It is a good question. I have my connection with him. You have to She is bringing back KP Equestrian, her work out your own way with Harve. He’s not nanny for a challenging disabled child is not riding line, developing more content for her stupid. He’s cleverer than people think.” easy. And stepping back is not easy either. established YouTube channel, doing make-up, Laced into the decision about the Amy gave up her job as a payroll clerk in swimwear, loungewear, bath bombs. “And I’ve next, adult phase of Harvey’s life is Price’s the City to help with Harvey’s care. “I couldn’t got trust for a guy again,” she says of Woods, contemplation of what will happen to him ask anybody else,” Price remembers, “and so “which was a big issue for me because I’d cling after she dies. She has to get this decision I said, ‘Mum, if I match your salary?’ But even on to anyone who would give me attention, right. The film contains a troubling story then, if I was at a job she’d be there with me because I was that insecure.” of another boy who ended up in the wrong and Harvey. It’s not like I left her. I was always She phones her Priory doctor once a week college and was sectioned as a result of staff quite possessive of Harvey.” Price’s mother is to maintain a connection. How about, I ask, being unable to restrain him. The family found now terminally ill. She will not discuss it except stepping back a bit too? She is 42 and would it extremely hard to regain control of his care. to say, without any note of self-congratulation, love to train as a paramedic. When Katie and Harvey visit one college “I’ve ended up being the one who cares for “Are you joking?” she says. “There’s no together, he becomes visibly distressed. “I just her because that is just built in me.” stepping back for me. This is the next chapter.” had to get him out of there before he smashed Since the film was made, she has applied for Good luck, I tell her. a window or something,” she tells me. a place for Harvey at a college in Cheltenham “Thank you,” she says. “I wish he would go before me. Not because – one that made him happy, and which they visit “Do you think people will see a different I want him to die, but you talk to any mother in the film. She will find out if he has a place in side of me when they watch the documentary? and they worry about who will look after their March. Full-time residential care can cost up Like, ‘Actually, she’s all right!’?” disabled child when they are gone. He wouldn’t to £350,000 a year. An application for funding is Yes, definitely. understand why I wasn’t there and it would made by the college to Price’s local authority. “Do I look calm with him?” break his heart. No one would cuddle him like It can be rejected for different reasons, such Yes, of course you do, I tell her, because me. No one would kiss him. The thought of him as if suitable care is deemed available nearby. you are calm with him. dying of a little broken heart would be awful.” She wants full disclosure on how challenging Katie Price may have elements of her life yet Harvey can be, because the match has to be to be ironed out, but motherhood is not one of In the early years of Katie Price’s career, two-way. The college has to know what awaits them. She leaves our Zoom call for a meeting when she was riding the wave of her notoriety, it too. “The more you restrain someone like with her accountant. She should probably lock attending obligatory parties, press calls dressed Harve, the more they kick off because they the pets away for that one though. n in absurd outfits, interviews and photoshoots, are frightened and don’t understand what is she was helped by her mother, Amy, both happening. Then they seem more dangerous. Katie Price: Harvey and Me is on BBC One at 8.30pm on Monday, and on BBC iPlayer SPLASH NEWS practically and emotionally. Finding a carer/ It’s about knowing Harvey’s trigger points.

The Times Magazine 47 Shop!Chosen by Hannah Rogers

update your look

Vogue’s Donna Wallace Kamala Harris Converse is having a moment again – and Kamala is on trend BRIGHT NAILS PRETTY The shade to wear 12 3EARRINGS 4 is by Chanel The only jewellery Polish you need in Anthurium, £22, 1. £85, missoma.com. 2. £59, Sif Jakobs (fenwick.co.uk). chanel.com 3. £125, monicavinader.com. 4. £125, dinnyhall.com.

IF YOU’RE A Model COMMITTED Carolyn SKINNIES Murphy PANGAIA: WEARER… THE FASHION Swap them SET’S for the new TRACKSUIT straight- BRAND legged jeans

Jeans, £75, hush-uk.com £94, thepangaia.com CELINE IS THE LOOK OF SPRING Jeans, Cap + blazer + jeans £35.99,

Chiarra Ferragni/ instagram mango.com Influencer Chiara Ferragni GETTY IMAGES, CHIARA FERRAGNI/INSTAGRAM GETTY IMAGES, Style

For men SIMON HILLS

MAKE IT PERSONAL Victorinox has launched a customisation service for its I.N.O.X. watch range. Choose from stainless steel, titanium or carbon cases, 7 colours for the dial and 15 for the straps, which can be leather or rubber. From £399 (victorinox.com).

COOL CASHMERE Bellemere New York is a new brand specialising in cashmere. Its coats, scarves, jumpers and loungewear are not exactly cheap, but the quality is excellent. Its stripe crewneck WRAP UP WARM sweater, above, is £282 The Three Forks Black Dot (bellemerenewyork.com). jacket, £189, from Columbia Sportswear uses Omni-Heat Black Dot technology, which Biker gear from Down Under BUY THIS claims to be the first external Aussie brand Sa1nt CC (yes, Wanson thermal shield to protect with a digit) makes tough organic cotton you from the cold. Black overshirt, £135 dots on the jacket gear for bikers and boasts (finisterre.com) capture solar heat and a USP that has apparently stop warmth escaping attracted, from far left, (columbiasportswear.co.uk). Tom Hardy and Brad Pitt. The jeans especially seem to do the business, mixing industrial and military application threads 5 reasons with merino and cotton. Unbreakable jeans, above, we love… will set you back £340. Audio Pro G10 Tees are £35 (eu.saint.cc). loudspeaker 1. For such a tiny speaker, it FIVE LOCKDOWN HOODIES chucks out a mighty sound with a 52W class D amplifier… By Hannah Skelley 2. … driving a 3in long-throw woofer, dual 4.5in radiators and 2 x 1.25in tweeters. 3. It’s a neat Scandi design so you can put it anywhere. 4. It’s compatible with AirPlay 2 and Google Cast, so you get Google Assistant and can link it to other Google Cast speakers. 5. Controls on top mean no scrabbling £70, Nike £25, Uniqlo £150, Cos £69, Arket £85, Adidas round for a remote (£225; audiopro.com). MEGA, GETTY IMAGES. STOCKISTS: NIKE, MRPORTER.COM; UNIQLO.COM; UNIQLO.COM; NIKE, MRPORTER.COM; STOCKISTS: GETTY IMAGES. MEGA, MRPORTER.COM ADIDAS, ARKET.COM; COSSTORES.COM;

The Times Magazine 49

Beauty Lesley Thomas

My six lockdown essentials How to look and feel your best right now? Start with mascara

o you think you’ll ever have a bikini go to your own bathroom to reapply. That wax again? Or even a leg wax? I’ve said, Marc Jacobs At Lash’d Lengthening and been for one depilation appointment Curling Mascara (£25; harveynichols.com) since last March. It was a few weeks does what it promises and lasts all day. D ago and I don’t think it was even for Applying moisturiser to your whole body grooming/aesthetic reasons. It was partly every day has got to count as exercise. Weleda some “getting ready for Christmas” ritual Skin Food Body Butter (£19.75; cultbeauty.co. that made no sense and partly in support of uk) is helping to attack dry patches caused by my local salon. A festive pity wax: oh dear. cold weather and full-blast central heating. Standards are certainly slipping in The heavier the restrictions, the finer the Lockdown 3 – although not completely. I may fragrance I think we should use. Handily, have allowed the red Shellac to self-remove Chanel launched a punchy new juice called chip by chip after the nail bars closed, but Le Lion (£155; chanel.com) at the start of this there are a handful of non-negotiables, even lockdown. It’s a musky, woody oriental with when I am going nowhere, seeing no one and hint of vanilla that I am wearing al desko. overcome with existential ennui. Why have the laughter lines doubled First, lipstick. I’m not saying I wear this in depth in the past nine months? I haven’t every day, but it is a beauty priority. Wearing watched that many funny TikToks. I’ve been lippie makes me feel everything is going to be trying a new treatment balm for eyes from OK. Maybe I have that Liz Taylor quote about Hourglass, and it has made a difference to putting on lipstick and pulling yourself together the shadows as well as the crepeyness. The in the back of my mind, but it is the most balm is part of the brand’s new skincare range “Yes, we can” thing in our make-up bags. Red called Equilibrium. Truly brilliant, but not the lipstick, in particular, adds determination to cheapest (£94; spacenk.com from next week). the day. Anyone who thinks red lipstick is I am late to the concealer party, especially anything to do with seduction is misguided. for someone deep in middle age, but months Fenty’s Stunna Lip Paint in the Uncensored of crappy sleep and squinting at the laptop shade (£20; boots.com) will make you look, or have changed that. Trinny London’s BFF Eye more importantly feel, like you mean business. Wearing mascara is part of Serum Concealer (£26; trinnylondon.com) Everyone knows you can’t not wear really is one of my new best friends – part mascara. It’s part of being awake. Even if there being awake. Even if there are treatment product, part dark circle eraser, it are no video calls that day, you still have to no video calls that day, you is a Facetime essential. n put mascara on. Right now, I don’t think it instagram.com/lesleyjthomas NICK HADDOW matters which one you use – it’s not hard to still have to put some on What Lesley loves

Matte Bergamot, Rich Lengthening and Night treatment lipstick in lemon and intensive Conceals dark long-lasting for tired eyes the perfect vanilla treatment circles and red scent for dry hydrates skin

Marc Jacobs At Lash’d Hourglass Equilibrium Fenty Stunna Lip Paint Le Lion de Chanel eau Weleda Skin Food Trinny London BFF Eye Mascara, £25 Intensive Hydrating Eye in Uncensored, £20 de parfum, £155 Body Butter, £19.75 Serum Concealer, £26 (harveynichols.com) Balm, £94 (spacenk.com) (boots.com) (chanel.com) (cultbeauty.co.uk) (trinnylondon.com)

The Times Magazine 51 STAYING IN WITH THE CORENS GILES & ESTHER’S LOCKDOWN 3 LIFE

‘Summer lockdown was a breeze. This winter reboot is sheer hell’

Giles the three bottles of champagne I had drunk to public school and was incredibly handsome at the wedding to anaesthetise what I foolishly and clever. But that wasn’t it at all. I was thought was the worst emotional pain I would enjoying it because of the sunshine. The Yes, we’re in lockdown. But it could be worse. ever know, I tried to process the realisation golden glow that makes everything look like And probably will be. So please try, really try, that my mother would now be in hospital Kodachrome, lets you play garden cricket after to be thankful for what you’ve got. Because and/or bedridden, or at best on crutches, for supper until long after bedtime, gives you warm things can always, always be worse. I learnt the rest of my father’s life and thus unable to squares of sunbeam all over the house to sleep that during my father’s final illness, in the look after him, now or ever again, and nor in and makes your skin smell like biscuits. autumn of 2007. would he, as his condition deteriorated, be And so whatever else happened last summer, In July of that year, my wonderful, able to look after her… while at the same time I kept telling myself, “At least it isn’t raining.” supportive, admiring, brilliant, complicated telling him all the way to the hospital that Except now it’s raining. And it’s marrow- father, the best company a man or woman everything was going to be okay, which it freezingly cold. The permitted daily exercise could ask for and the only genuinely funny blatantly wasn’t, nor would ever be again. hour is a hell to be dreaded, not a release to person I have ever met, was diagnosed with Worst night of my life, absolutely no question. be looked forward to. We are properly trapped terminal cancer at 69 and would be dead, said Except that… Actually, no, that remains the inside and there is no joy or comfort anywhere. the doctors, in 6 months (they overestimated worst night of my life. So far. But that night I was right to be upbeat last time because this, by 3). Worst day of my life, unquestionably. was when I realised that things are never, now, is as bad as it could possibly get. Except that, six days later, my fiancée ever as bad as they could be. Whatever is Or is it? chucked me. Probably for the best, but it happening to you, there are always ways that didn’t feel like that at the time. I was 38, things could be worse. I should have been glad single once more, still childless and likely back in July, I told myself, when the worst of Esther to be so now for ever, tasked with supporting it was that someone I loved was dying. And a soon-to-be-widowed mother and say my I resolved to try to take future apparently It was the sunny weather in the first lockdown goodbyes to a beloved father all now from catastrophic setbacks in that spirit. that made the whole thing really bad for me. within the emotional wreckage of a collapsed And I did manage it in the first lockdown. When there is sunshine I want to travel miles relationship and encumbered with a hysterical When everyone was doing their nut about all to famous beauty spots, browse boutiques for ex given to screaming abuse at me from the the deaths (meh, we’ve all got to go sometime) clothes designed for women half my age, natter street outside my house at all hours of the day and the restrictions on movement (pah, my endlessly to mum mates at school drop-off and and night. How simple and easy life had been relatives were sent to death camps in cattle stand at buzzy Soho bars, one margarita down, only days before, I remember thinking, when trucks) and the potential for food shortages another in my hand and a third on the way. all I had to worry about was the imminent (well, we are getting a bit tubby), I was Being confined to my house and small premature death of my father. Worst week constantly delighted by the glorious weather garden when it was sunny was terrible because of my life, no question. that made everything marvellous. For when I couldn’t do any of these things. It was Except that, a couple of weeks later, at the sun shines, everything is fine. To me, the thwarting and depressing with a tinge of a family wedding in the countryside where first lockdown was a holiday: I had my kids all something else… Something that feels like nobody had been told my father was dying day, much less work, no commuting, plenty of a violation of my rights in some way. because we didn’t want to put a bummer on time to read and sleep, and I lived outdoors in Like most British people, I learnt young to proceedings, my mother, his primary carer and my shorts and flip-flops. I was brown as a nut, distrust our sun. Sure, it will be blazing at 9am the sole companion of his adult life, fell and relaxed, happy and fulfilled. but it might be chilly by teatime. Some years it broke her hip. But whenever I said so in print, people yelled, might – and has – rained from the last week In the cab to Stoke Mandeville with my “Privilege!” and “Tone-deaf!” What about the in July to the last day in August. distraught, weeping, furious father (my sister hardship and the pain and the inequality? They The lesson? On sunny days you’d better get having gone ahead in the ambulance with my said I was only enjoying lockdown because I yourself down to a riverbank and have a picnic

TOM JACKSON TOM bone-smashed mother), suddenly sober despite was rich and able-bodied and white and went because tomorrow it will almost certainly hail.

52 The Times Magazine We only truly relax into good weather and sure, I stood on my doorstep with my face to because there is nothing out there that I want take it for granted on about day 15 of a heatwave the sun and said, “This is nice.” But it wasn’t maximally to enjoy. and, even then, in the back of our minds we possible to enjoy it to the maximum amount I even mind the remote learning less this know that this is not going to last. It might be as stipulated by our national psyche while also time, because the winter school run is a bit tomorrow, it might be next week, but clouds will being a good and responsible citizen. Lockdown like marching to Ypres in 1914, with more gather and a sudden stiff breeze will scream in stole my summer and I’m still annoyed about it. shouting and mud. My children are happy from the east to give us goose bumps. You Winter weather, on the other hand, comes because I’m less likely to drag them across the must enjoy every second while you can. with its own, unspoken “Stay at home” heath in the rain, and what they most want is Making the most of sunshine has become directive. Lockdown cannot thwart me much to not go for a walk – whatever the weather. a basic patriotic duty, along with taking an in overcast, cold, rainy, snowy or blustery But there’s more: there’s a pathetic fallacy interest in Wimbledon despite never having weather; there is no seasonal imperative that to the whole thing. Back in April, May and held a tennis racket, and being fond of the I am failing to fulfil, because the seasonal June the blazing sun was grossly at odds Queen even if you are a republican. imperative of winter is precisely to stay at with the sadness and panic in our hearts. But how could I patriotically enjoy that home eating Marmite on toast and going This time, the weather matches the good weather of the last lockdown? I mean, to bed early. There’s not much to miss, national mood precisely. n

The Times Magazine 53 LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE Or maybe apanther.Or maybe like a caged leopard. like leopard. acaged TOM JACKSON ‘At the nightIpatrol They’re way sexier’ lockdown streets lockdown streets © TimesNewspapers Ltd, 2021. Publishedandlicensedby TimesNewspapers Ltd, 1London BridgeStreet, London SE19GF(020 7782 Robert Crampton Robert Beta male Beta politics while also recalling herdaddy’s whilealsorecalling politics high for awhile,given thatshe’s studying British items heldherinterest ofinformation twin Ronnie O’Sullivan lived asachild.Which Hollylong-since levelled Street estate where up Lavender towards notorious, theformerly to liveused Back intheearlyEighties. west up Mapledene, whereTony andCherieBlair account ofhaving nothing better to do. out to be quite tiring.” buggers inonego withoutstopping itturns oneofthe and updown each andevery theHateful“But why aretheycalled Eight?” muchwhere weareright now.”from pretty ofourpark.Thefirst onestarts edge western fromeach the otherinanorderly direction streets, eight innumber, parallelto running Hateful Eight refers to thelengthy residential Be thatasitmay, the purposes for present Wyoming.magnificent scenicvistas ofwintry reviving theuseof70mm, thebetter to shoot either. about his best, allthatguff Despite film?” she replied. Hateful Eight you everheard,” Iasked my daughter, “of why, inspirationandmotivation strike. “Have air to alleviate thetedium. offresh and20minutes than aquickcatch-up park, neitherofusinsearchanything more to joinus.Rachel the across andImeandered exercise earlieronandthusunable allocation son having theirlockdown alreadyexpended aday after working indoors, mycrazy wife and to leopards. leopards. No disrespect “panther”. Panthers being way sexierthan the tallyoncellwall. anotherday onlyto scratch off concerned population hunkering down inthewarm, fallen,streets alreadyempty,darkness 5pmfeels like circumstances midnight, current 5pm, butatthistimeofyear andinthese pacing hisenclosure.It’s night. whatIdo every Zoo, leopardatLondon endlessly as thatcaged nothingsomuch resembling neighbourhood, I was outfor the awalk, patrolling Off wewent.WestOff upGayhurst, back east “OK,” Rachel Largely, agreed. on Isuspect, “So, shall weattempt it?”Iasked. “I imagineitmight,” saidRachel. back ifyou andforth “Because trudge you mean,”“I knowtheones saidRachel. itis,”“Indeed Isaid.“And notoneof Once inawhile,however, andwhoknows I was withmy daughter, ofusstir thetwo And whenIsay “leopard”, Imeantto say Although whenIsay “night”, itwas actually ?” “Isn’t itaQuentinTarantino

The 5000). Printed by Prinovis UKLtd, Liverpool. Not to besoldseparately. in mid-January. eveningnot badfor ineast London acrappy March,distance. but theLong Not exactly ofthe just 3.2miles it)comprised to call of us,who’ve completed thecourseareallowed (asthoseofus,andonly that “theEight” door to door, althoughpurists willpointout explicitly forbidding thetowpath. Let’s do it.” it seems there’slaugh, “but nothing here “My isabitrusty,” Latin Isaid,making her like accrete practice law over thecenturies. case ofHatefulthe precedents Eight custom and andregulations,apretend tome inwhich rules volume consulting adusty I mimed ofancient back along thecanal?” down.”236 comes notskipitandcome “Why Brownlow and Pownall left.” she said.“So aremine.Come on,just away thepark.“My across arehurting,” knees toand two go, ourownstreet just 100yards and back down atany Shrubland, rate. Amazing enoughto AlbionDrive usto seeoff for 2blinking hours,andisn’t thatamazing? 13mph, whichisfast ifyou do itfor 2minutes, of maintainaspeed elite marathonrunners Could Michael Johnson itin43seconds?” run 400matschool –isitmorethanthat? to run each ofamile?You street is?Quarter used Rachel. “Not sure.How long do you reckon Eight was easy. Clue’s inthename.” Foursome’, buthey, noonesaidtheHateful ittheAwesomeand call Foursome?” she asked. halfway done,” Isaid.“Can’t wejust go home in,withastoveplumbed Ithink…” a studio attheendofamassive walled garden, looking throughwithout actually thekeyhole, shutters, tell apparentatriumasfarIcan originalof terrace, late basement, Georgian on show.and landscapes theilluminated interiors, arrangements envy simply oronoccasion to revile,orcritique, slowing, thebetter for fatheranddaughter regard for theRocket’s genius. baize-based [email protected] And so we did. Three point seven miles, And sowedid.Threepointsevenmiles, Sensing thisvariation would spurheron, one’s“Which Pownall?” onethe “The Rachel sixdown hadanothergo that, after followed, andhow ofrunning A discussion “How fardo you thinkitisintotal?” asked “No,” Isaid.“Well done for ‘theAwesome “How Rachel muchfurther?” asked. “We’re “Yeah, allright,” Isaid.“Igetthepicture.” atthisone,”“Look Rachel “End whispered. Back east along Middleton, thepace n