From The Times
December 15, 2009

Sophie Dahl backs The Times Christmas charity Place2Be

Sophie Dahl did not have a normal childhood. The granddaughter of the children’s author Roald Dahl has described her exit from school as “unceremonious” and has acknowledged that her mother suffered from manic depression.

It does not, therefore, come as a surprise, that the writer and former model is a passionate supporter of Place2Be, The Times Christmas charity, which provides a school-based counselling service for children who are under 14.

“I wish I’d had a place to be when I was little. It probably would have saved an awful lot of money on therapy later on,” said Dahl. “When I was at school, you didn’t really talk about problems. One was expected to get on with it.”

Dahl described her situation at home as “that classic English thing of don’t talk about it in front of the children”.

“[But] as children you’re aware of every tiny, tiny thing that goes on around you. You hear through closed doors, pick up something from the tone of a voice.

“In terms of my own feelings attached to this charity, I know the difference therapy makes; I know the difference that just talking about things makes. I couldn’t support it in a more wholehearted way.”

If Dahl has taken anything from her maternal grandfather’s popular and often macabre stories where children frequently find themselves in strange and frightening situations, it is that the world is not black and white.

“He didn’t patronise children,” she said. “It’s all very well to say that it’s all lashings of ginger beer and nothing awful ever happens to children, but it does.”

Dahl thinks that the English are too dismissive of mental health and well-being.

“But in the same breath those people are tutting and saying ‘feral children, awful crime’ when some of these problems could have been addressed much, much earlier on.”

Dahl urged Times readers to donate to Place2Be. She said: “I don’t believe that any child is, by their nature, impossible. It’s very important for children to feel heard and to feel like they have a voice and that’s what the Place2Be offers.”

Source - Watch Sophie speak about the issue in a video here.