Women’s REALM A look back at a quarter century of high-flying achievers – every one a leader in her field

ogue has never defined itself as Cressida Dick a women’s magazine and our 2017, by Benjamin McMahon coverage of fashion, arts and It’s been a turbulent few months contemporary style has always for the unflappable new Met been followed by a large number of both men and women – never commissioner, says Susie Rushton more so than now. But it is also he country’s most powerful true that over the years we have , Cressida Dick, is been proud supporters of, and wearing her own clothes when even town criers for, women Tshe arrives in south London who have achieved great things at Vogue’s shoot. If it weren’t in their chosen fields. for the unmarked black BMW now parked From its launch in 1916, ostentatiously outside the flung-open studio British Vogue has always doors – engine running, two security officers photographed the leading models lounging in the sunshine – you could easily and performers of the time. By the middle of the last century, its pages increasingly miss Dick, a petite 57-year-old woman included the creative figures of the age – artists, writers, filmmakers, theatre directors with short black-and-grey hair slightly swept – but during the past 25 years it has broadened its reach to acknowledge the vast to one side, dressed in a grey leopard-print range of areas where women are now leading the field and achieving remarkable cotton top and navy trousers, the brogues on things. Here we have selected a number of portraits of those who have been featured her feet – at a guess – barely a size three. in Vogue during the last quarter century. We show Theresa May photographed in It’s the authoritative manner that gives her 1996 when she was the prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidenhead; while away. Within seconds, she has disarmed each Amanda Levete, architect of the recently opened V&A extension, was picked out of us with a handshake, a direct smile and the in 2009. Two women at the forefront of the current battle against extremism are improbable suggestion: “Call me Cress, or Sara Khan – whose Inspire movement is playing an increasingly pivotal role – and Cressida.” Dick was once a top hostage the impressive first female head of the , Cressida Dick, interviewed negotiator, and you can see why. She chats and photographed only weeks after the recent terrorist attacks on Manchester and easily about her morning spent at Trooping London. The brilliant poet Carol Ann Duffy is the first female poet laureate, and the Colour, at which some soldiers had Ellen MacArthur was photographed fresh from her achievement of sailing around the fainted due to the heat. Then she asks each world solo in 2005. Nothing could better demonstrate the diversity of opportunity person in the room about their job, whether and career paths open now to the generation of today, and the possibility of they enjoy them – and really listens to the reaching the very top. Alexandra Shulman answers. Apparently aiming to please, she >

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09-17WellWomenofInfluence.indd 282 14/07/2017 15:27 “I’ve always led through trying to understand people,” says Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick. Hair and make-up: Emma Williams

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09-17WellWomenofInfluence.indd 283 14/07/2017 15:27 enquires which uniform we’d prefer her to thank you for what you’re doing. All the dons – her father, Marcus, a professor wear for the portrait – ceremonial or patrol? staff say the same.” of philosophy, her mother, Cecilia, a historian – admitting she’d rather be dressed in the Dick had all the qualifications for the – Dick’s ancestors include the trailblazing standard-issue shirt and trousers she wears post (as acting deputy commissioner, she’d Scottish doctor Sophia Jex-Blake and the on the streets of London, “talking to the already been the force’s most senior 19th-century abolitionist MP Thomas officers, to the public, seeing how things woman), with a distinguished career of Fowell Buxton. Her parents divorced when are”. The photographer snaps away, Dick 30 years in the police, leading major Cressida was eight and her father died three preferring to smile because she thinks she operations and departments including years later. Cressida’s mother (“who worked always looks so grim in photographs and counter-terrorism, gun crime and diversity. all her life as a female academic, which was on television – one of her younger The most notorious blot on her CV was reasonably unusual”) was left “getting on colleagues told her admiringly that, in a the 2005 killing of innocent Brazilian Jean with it herself ” – in other words, raising recent media appearance, she looked “as Charles de Menezes, in an operation led Cressida and her two siblings alone. Yet she nails”. She hoots with laughter. by her, and although she was personally describes her childhood as “privileged… It Dick is famous for her sangfroid and it’s exonerated of blame in the court case that was taken for granted in my family that evident even now, in a moment of extreme followed, it could’ve stopped short her anything my brother did, I should be able to turmoil and tension in the capital. Her first career. Instead, in the years that followed, do as well. And I feel very fortunate to have duty as commissioner, in early April, was she continued to rise within the Met, but been given a degree of confidence in that to attend the funeral of PC Keith Palmer, by the time she applied for the top job, way. I hope not arrogance.” She attended the stabbed to death by a terrorist at the she’d actually already left the police entirely and the private Oxford Palace of Westminster. A few weeks later, and was working at the Foreign Office in a High School, and first thought she might terrorists attacked London Bridge, killing secret counter-terrorism role. “I didn’t sit want to join the police when she was 15. “In eight and injuring 48, with police officers there and miss it,” she says of her two years those days, they had a scheme whereby you taking down the killers in eight minutes. out of the Met, yet she’ll admit, “I did could spend a few days alongside the police Days before our meeting, the horrific slightly miss the humour, I missed the very and I did that with the Thames Valley force. fire at Grenfell Tower in north Kensington straightforward, honest approach to things.” I really liked it. My mother was worried that claimed scores of lives – the Met I’d find policing boring and actually tasked with handling the fallout. I found it fantastically interesting.” Two days after we meet, a terrorist “There is something about Nonetheless she went to Oxford attack on the Finsbury Park putting the uniform on. University, as one of the first female mosque adds to the sense of students at Balliol (her father’s old a continuing chain of major You’ve got a role to play, college), in 1979. The fund manager incidents, each one a mammoth Nicola Horlick was in the same year undertaking for the Met. to be calm, to lead” with her at Balliol and remembers Dick as “very sporty, into rowing, central character in each of these She can remember exactly the moment in into the running of the junior common dark episodes has been Cressida February she heard she’d got the job. “I’d been room, which was the major focal point of Dick, visible on our screens interviewed that morning. There was one the college”. Both played in the first-ever Aalongside , Jeremy person after me. And by lunchtime somebody college women’s cricket team – there were Corbyn and Theresa May, or at vigils, press called across the office, ‘Cressida, the home only 23 female students to pick the entire 11 conferences and community meetings. As secretary is on the line.’ So I guessed it would from – in which Cressida was wicket keeper. the new head of the Metropolitan Police, be a yes or no.” Advised by that “Of all the girls at Oxford, she was the most she not only leads the largest force in the the news would leak quickly, Dick had to friendly and the least bitchy,” says Horlick. country (43,000 staff; annual budget of prepare to immediately talk to the press. “But “She was very inclusive, very smiley, a real £3.24bn), but has oversight roles for national it was very, very, very thrilling,” she says now, team player, very enthusiastic.” After a false counter-terrorism and the police protection still sounding happy at the thought. “And start in accountancy, Dick joined the Met as of the royal family and senior members of I do remember thinking – as I think one does a constable in 1983. “When I applied, it was the government. This is “quite a stretched at high moments and low moments – of my very clear to me that [in the police] you have time” for the police, she says, and “to cut to mother, who died many years ago. You know, responsibility really early. I loved the idea of the chase, no, I don’t think the budget is big she’d just be laughing her head off at it. In a that. I’d been working at an accountant’s enough to cope with what we’re now being nice way, but she’d think it was hilarious. Her where you’d be lucky if you got to write a asked to do.” Despite the deepening crisis little girl has done something like that.” letter after you’d been there for 10 years. and the long hours all the Met officers are In the 188-year history of the Met, never That was the main thing for me, and doing working in response (Dick has been on duty before had a woman taken charge. Is she something useful, helping people.” three six-day weeks in a row, with phone comfortable with being a role model? “I like It is hard to imagine sexist attitudes like calls on the seventh day), morale within the the idea that people might be inspired by those satirised by Life on Mars dampening force is high, she says. “People are working the fact that there’s somebody a bit different, Dick’s passion for policing, though undoubt- very hard, they’ve been shocked by what a bit countercultural, a bit surprising [in edly they existed. Until 1973 women were in has happened. There’s potential for them to charge]. And I do accept it. But I don’t an entirely separate police department, even get tired, but they desperately want to stop relish it, if I’m honest. You know, I didn’t issued with shorter truncheons, and stark another terrorist attack. Their resolve is join the police to be a public figure.” inequalities between male and female police high. It’s brought the public supporting the Historic firsts have been a tradition within officers were accepted as the norm. “There police, even more than before. You can’t her family. “I think they always expected weren’t very many of us, and there were walk down the road without people coming some of the women to really do things.” attitudes that seem completely laughable up to you and shaking your hand and saying Born in October 1960, the daughter of two now. Not long before I joined, you had to

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09-17WellWomenofInfluence.indd 284 14/07/2017 15:27 leave if you were pregnant. And there were her typical day is spent in the car “quite a lot, police station. “I rang her, and she said, ‘Oh lots of roles which weren’t really thought to be phone calls and stuff on the road”. Does she God, I’ve got to sit down.’ She was at work. ones that women would do, most obviously do her own emails? She laughs. “Ha, that’s a The good thing was, we knew that if I got it, public-order work, with protests, policing good question. I do do my own emails but it would be fantastic and we’d thought big events and riot training. You couldn’t do I’m having a slight battle with the guys at the through how life would be and it would be that when I joined. And the things you’d moment. People in the office think it might positive. But also, if I hadn’t got it, it wouldn’t think of as being more macho – firearms and be better if they did them and we’ve been be the end of the world. She knew life would dog-handling. But,” she insists, “the attitudes getting in a bit of a muddle about that, but change, and it did.” were no different to either the big firm of I do tend to do my own emails, yes…” She’s For security reasons she can’t comment on accountants, or the fish-and-chip shop where usually in central London somewhere, she her exact living arrangements, but she makes I’d worked. It was no different to the rest of says, but she also likes to “walk a lot. I go on it clear that she has ways to cope with the society at the time. It’s just that when we look patrol a lot, which is one of the lovely things pressure. No presenteeism, no unnecessary back 35 years later, it seems mad.” about this job. I spent 15 years in specialist late-night work calls, only three dinners a Today, she says, women have complete crime and counter-terrorism, so I was less week – at which she won’t drink. “The way I equality to their male counterparts – her own with people in local policing…” Being will relax most quickly, if I’ve come home late appointment being the final proof. “Every humane, showing real understanding – and at night and I have to pretty much go straight opportunity that is open to the guys is open sometimes even emotion – isn’t necessarily to bed, if my brain is still moving around a bit, to the girls, and has been then I either switch on for years and years,” she the Archers catch-up or says. “And quite right, I look at gardening too.” Career breaks, magazines in bed, and flexible working, formal I’ll be gone in about mentoring – the police a minute.” She has a offer it all, she says, social life outside the in recruiter mode now. police – her oldest “When I was head of friend is an artist, she counter-terrorism for the says, and they stalk Met and nationally, both the London galleries my deputies were female. together. She doesn’t You wouldn’t find that in eat meat and although any other police service she says, “I’m not super- in the world, and I know fit!”, she has to pass that to be the case.” There the annual fitness test are still far more male required of all police officers in the Met than (“shuttle runs”) and female. “I don’t suggest adores sport as much it’s all fixed, it’s all fine – as she did at Oxford. look at the percentages,” “I love exercise, I love says Dick. Seventy-two walking, at the drop per cent of constables in of a hat I’m outdoor the Met are male; the swimming…” figure rises to 78 per cent Not that she can of officers at chief inspector rank or above. something one would have listed as an have much time for swimming right now, or “It’s still seen as a male-dominated essential skill for the job 10 years ago but, gardening, her own garden having “rather profession, unfairly mostly. The women as contemporary politicians are discovering, run away a bit” lately, and indeed her who do come generally absolutely love it. there is now a public demand for emotional fingernails are quite long for such a practical, But we still don’t have 50 per cent women authenticity. Dick recognises the need for just-so person. Duty calls, and she jumps coming through the door, let alone in the leaders to show feeling. We need police, she from the sofa, relieved to stop talking about organisation. That’s my measure.” says, “whether they’re the PC on the street or herself, and moves out to her waiting car, its Has she found herself physically in peril? the commissioner, that are going to get on engine still running all this time. It’s only “I haven’t been in a truly, utterly terrifying with the job, not be over-emotional. But once she’s outside that Dick starts patting situation for a protracted period. Like most equally, we’re all human beings, and [need to] the back pockets of her trousers, seemingly police officers, I’ve ended up the wrong way show it when someone’s done something searching for something. “My warrant card, up in the gutter a few times, or come off that makes me proud. Or something’s is it in the back of the car?” she calls out, and worse in a tussle, or been confronted by happened that made us all angry. That strikes luckily one of the security cops has found it somebody with a knife – all those things. But me as a sensible way to be. I’ve always led and hands it to her. She’s laughing, leaning there is something about putting the uniform through trying to understand people.” across the car roof, telling us about her mum on. You’ve got a role to play, to be calm, to Apart from being its highest-ranking again. “She always called it my i-den-tit-y lead other people, to go forward when female, Dick is also the police’s most senior card. She’d say, ‘Cressida, have you everyone else is running away. It gives you a officer in a same-sex relationship. She tells remembered your identity?’” Still laughing sense of… not of courage but, ‘It’s my job.’” me that, after her late mother, the person at the memory, Dick disappears into the Far from being holed up inside New she thought of first when she heard she’d got vehicle and it swings out of the mews, into Scotland Yard, Dick is “out and about. I try the job was her partner, Helen, who is a the city of 8 million people who rely on her not being in the office very much.” Most of response-team leader at a south London to keep them safe.

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