Dame Helen

[Guest azz]

I really don't know how to go about this.Maybe someone could take it on,but i think it is about time Helen Sharman was made a dame.When i see people in the entertainment and sports industry being made dames and knights i think it is a shame that she has never recieved fully the recognition she deserves.She could have jumped on the media merry-go-round,appearing on chat shows and game shows and made herself a lot of money,instead she chose to go into teaching and pass on her knowledge to the next generation.She is a real role model.Sheffield should be proud of her.

[DaveH]

I really don't know how to go about this.Maybe someone could take it on,but i think it is about time Helen Sharman was made a dame.When i see people in the entertainment and sports industry being made dames and knights i think it is a shame that she has never recieved fully the recognition she deserves.She could have jumped on the media merry-go-round,appearing on chat shows and game shows and made herself a lot of money,instead she chose to go into teaching and pass on her knowledge to the next generation.She is a real role model.Sheffield should be proud of her.

To me society has its priorities totally wrong. We can reward and promote endlessly trained monkeys that can kick a ball around a field for 90 minutes on a Saturday afternoon, third rate boozer tap room singers that put themselves forward to go on a TV talent show, endless "celebrities" that can't sing, can't dance, can't act, can't talk intelligibly and so consequently have "gone a long way" and "done well for themselves".

But what about all the "ordinary" people that actually do something useful in society that are never rewarded and remain "unknown". What about the doctors, nurses, surgeons and medical specialists that actually save other peoples lives on a regular, routine, day to day "this my job, this is what I do" sort of basis. What about all the scientists, researchers, developers, inventors, engineers and technicians that actually made the world live in possible.

Seems the wrong way around to me.

Helen is a local hero, a British female astronaut from Sheffield.

How many British astronauts are there?

How many are women?

She is certainly in a good position for some sort of distinction, - and I am not just talking about a star on the floor outside the town hall.

However, in reality, her part in the space missions was relatively small and so it is unlikely she will be rewarded in the way you suggest.

She was not the first woman to go into space (achieved by Valentina Tereschcova as long ago as 1963) or the first western woman (astronaut rather than cosmonaut) which was Sally Ride in 1983 (Sally Ride was the 2nd woman to go into space, - so it took America a full 20 years to equal the Russians on this one).

The space shuttle mission which Helen Sharman flew on was not a high profile one, - she would have been one of a crew of 7 and the Americans probably regarded here as the "token foreigner" as they hosted missions to many non- American astronauts whose countries could not launch space missions of their own. None of the shuttle missions were actually that interesting, - people had lost interest in it by then as all the missions were remarkably similar and "routine". She may have been important to us but her mission did make any life changing breakthroughs did it.

I grew up in the 1960's and astronauts were my childhood heros, Gagarin, Titov, Shepard, Glenn, Grissom, White, Borman, Aldrin, Armstrong were names that every kid knew, knew their achievements, and followed each new mission avidly as each mission did something new that had never been done, or even attempted before.

It wasn't like that in the 1980's. the Shuttle missions did nothing new or groundbreaking, dare I say they were even "a bit boring". Ask people these days to name some famous shuttle astronauts and I bet they can't, - most Americans wouldn't remember Helen Sharman for example, - we do simply because of the local connection, she was "our astronaut".

As much as it would be nice to honour people like Helen, unfortunately society doesn't work like that and it is unlikely that she will be.

Now, if she had a load of silly catchphrases and loathsome unfunny jokes and could sing and dance a bit then she would probably get a knighthood without any problem at all.

[Bayleaf]

There was a programme on the radio a few days ago, and they were talking to a careers adviser. He said it was worrying how many kids he spoke to and the answer he got to the question "What would you like to do/be?" was "Be famous". When he asked what they'd like to be famous for doing they looked puzzled and said "Being me."

[DaveH]

There was a programme on the radio a few days ago, and they were talking to a careers adviser. He said it was worrying how many kids he spoke to and the answer he got to the question "What would you like to do/be?" was "Be famous". When he asked what they'd like to be famous for doing they looked puzzled and said "Being me."

Being a teacher it is noticable that many boys think they are going to be professional footballers and so don't need to have any academic qualifications, all they need to do is play football.

In reality most lads like football but the proportion of them that will ever be good enough or get the chance to play professionally is very small, the ones that will earn a fortune at it is even less.

They also seem to be unaware that football is a "young man's game", - if you don't earn your millions before you are 30 you will certainly need another job to make a living.

Having seen the programme "footballers wives" many girls merely want to be just that, rich spoilt women kept by their rich husbands who only seem to work for 90 minutes a week. Again the reality for most footballers wives is very different from the glamour portrayed on TV. Should their husbands team lose a match then they are much more likely to be subjected to abuse and violence from their drunken thug of a husband when he gets home on Saturday evening.

Who would want "to be famous" just yor the sake of being famous?

Many people who have become famous often find it difficult to deal with, - the constant attention, the newspaper snide comments and "made up" slanderous articles, the spying intrusion, the paparazi, the tapped phone calls, the media attention, the adulation of millions, the vast amount of money, the security threats and the insecure feeling that you have placed on a pedestal from which you are bound to fall. All of these have driven many celebrities to suicide, drug or alcohol abuse, nervous breakdown or just a total withdrawal and becoming reclusive.

Being famous for many may be a case of "When you want it you can't get it, when youv'e got it you don't want it", to quote the longest title of any of George Gershwins compositions.