The great Arizona road trip - 2

Green fingers in the desert
Scottsdale is a charming suburb of Phoenix, full of wide boulevards and smart houses sitting in large plots shaded by palo verde and acacia trees. The temperature is still in the 80s when we check into the Best Western Sundial Hotel around 8 pm. As we step into the lift a little boy of six or seven scuttles in beside us, bare-foot, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping water into his eyes and over our suitcase. "How's the pool?" we ask. "Cool, " comes the reply.

We resist the temptation to head for a swim too, opting instead for a shower before going online to find somewhere nearby for dinner. We discover that in Arizona nearby means a short car journey rather than a leisurely stroll, but eventually find ourselves in a southwestern steak house enjoying local beer and a tasty meal served by a tall slim young woman in Stetson and beautifully tooled cowboy boots.

We meet the little boy again over muffins and juice at breakfast. He is the fourth child of five, visiting Arizona from Vancouver with his parents in a Winnebago. His mother tells us that today’s treat is a visit to Phoenix Zoo, which reminds me of a chance encounter some 10 years ago on a boat taking us to the Great Barrier Reef from Port Douglas, Queensland. A group of charming American women engaged us in conversation.  Hearing we were looking for somewhere interesting to stay, they waxed lyrical about an eco resort further up the coast, describing cabins on stilts nestling in the rain forest, turtles swimming under the glass floor of the dining room and night excursions to spot tree climbing kangaroos. We found the resort after a long drive on a dirt road, and they were right, it was magical.

Green as glass and no need to water: Chihully's Desert Towers

However our destination today is to see the flora, rather than fauna, of Arizona, by visiting the city’s Desert Botanical Garden in Papago Park. Considering that we have been travelling through desert for the past 120 or so miles, surrounded by cactus, palms, mesquite and palo verde trees, it, one might wonder what surprises await but as the place gets rave reviews on Tripadvisor and other websites, we set off to make the most of the relatively cool morning.

The reviews are right. From the moment we enter the 145 acre site, there is something to feast the eyes. By the ticket office, shimmering in the sunlight,  are three tall, brilliant green, spiky plants.  Closer inspection reveals that they are made of glass, by the extraordinary craftsman Dale Chihuly, and are called Desert Towers. They are as eye-catching, albeit not as tall, as his 30 foot high red glass Olympic Tower admired 18 months ago in the foyer of the Concert Hall in Salt Lake City.

A tall man, wearing a sunhat and stylish jerkin with Desert Botanical Garden logo, comes up to greet us as soon as we walk through the gate. A landscape gardener by profession, he is one of the 1,140 volunteers who help keep the garden open every day of the year except 4 July, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. He tells us that there is a tour beginning in 20 minutes, and suggests that in the meantime we could take one of the shorter trails to see the spring desert flowers area. 

Glorious colour amongst the spines

Although it is early in the morning, there is already quite a crowd gathering, and on our walk we find a number of photographers armed with tripods and very impressive cameras setting up with great concentration close to some of the more spectacular blooming cactus and succulents.

We return to the tour point, to meet our docent Charles, who tells us that he has chosen three variations on a theme: desert plants that get nourishment through their roots,  through their bark and through their leaves. We learn that the beautiful palo verde tree, the state tree of Arizona that marks the arrival of spring with its abundant yellow blossoms, has adapted to desert life by photosynthesizing through its bark, which remains soft and green. This allows the leaves to reduce almost to needles, decreasing water loss through evaporation and transpiration, which means that these trees flourish with minimal water and provide welcome shade in high temperatures.

Charles is a great guide, not only sharing his personal knowledge but also patiently answering our questions. No, you cannot get water by cutting a piece from a saguaro cactus  (not even if you are John Wayne).  The best tequila is made from the heart of the Blue Agave, which is pollinated by bats and takes 12 years to reach maturity. 

Day of the Triffids

Spotting a strange plant that looks like the inspiration for the Triffids in the seminal John Wyndham sci-fi novel, Charles tells us that this was a cactus that was bent over in the unusual frost that hit Arizona earlier in the year. The plant will never recover its normal position, despite the significant rise in temperature during the summer months.

Medusa's hatbox

We spot other strange plants too, including cactus that look like a slither of snakes crawling over an acacia tree, which we nickname Medusa's hatbox.  

Small tables are set up in shady corners along the trails, where volunteers demonstrate other interesting botanical facts.We see how native American Indians make use of every part of the strange succulent plants that survive in the harsh desert environment. For example stripping the fibres from agaves, aloes, yucca, devil's claw and bear grass to weave shoes, baskets and other utensils. 

Every now and then, as we walk through the trails cleverly laid out to reflect the variety of terrain in this vast State, quail scurry across the paths in front of us, and a pair of tame roadrunner birds sprint  along in the hope of picnic food. We sit in the shade near the lecture theatre, sip prickly pear iced tea and read some of the literature we collected on arrival. We discover that the Desert Botanical Garden was founded in 1939 by a woman, Gertrude Divine Webster. 

An environmentalist ahead of her time, Gertrude Webster gathered a small group of fellow citizens to create a botanical garden whose precepts would encourage an understanding, appreciation and promotion of the uniqueness of the world's deserts, particularly the Sonoran Desert in South Arizona.  Today the Desert Botanical Garden is an internationally recognised centre, running a school, educational and conservation programmes, gardening information resource and plant nursery, and a series of music, exhibitions and and other events throughout the year.

Just like a silken pincushion

The involvement of women continues too. Nina Mason Pulliam was a business leader, journalist and humanitarian who left her substantial assets in a charitable trust to support causes in her home states of Arizona and Indiana.  In 2002 the trust contributed to a $17m expansion at the Desert Botanical Garden including the construction of a Research and Horticulture Center in her name.

In 2008, another $17m expansion project was undertaken, including the construction of new cactus and succulent galleries funded (and named after) the trust set up by  Sybil B Harrington. She was not only an ambassador of the arts nationally and in her native West Texas, but she also had a keen interest in preservation, particularly in the southwestern states.

Prickly pear in full bloom

We resolve to return, to explore more trails, visit the butterfly enclosure, the research centre, talk to the knowledgeable volunteers and perhaps take in a concert. The Desert Botanical Garden confounds the view that the desert is a barren place, thanks to a determined plantswoman and the dedication of those sustaining her legacy.

 

All photographs by Sandi Rhys Jones

Must women leave home to become powerful?

You can tell by the pitch of the voices as you pass through the imposing doors of the Royal Institute of British Architects, that homage to Art Deco in Portland Place, that the capacity crowd for the evening  is rather different to the usual RIBA event. The hallowed halls are thronged with women, of all ages, gathering to hear about Female Power in Architecture: who has it, who wants it, and how to earn it.

The attraction of the topic is hardly surprising, as a recent survey by the Architect’s Journal (AJ)revealed that despite the proportion of female architecture students staying at roughly 50%,  the proportion of female architectural staff has fallen from 28% to 21%  since 2009.  More shockingly, the majority are earning significantly less than their male colleagues.

Chairing the event is the editor of AJ, Christine Murray, who decided to carry out the survey earlier this year,  just a couple of months after taking up her post. She was shocked by the low numbers of women working in architecture and also by the issues around pay. We need to identify believable role models, build confidence and address pay structures, she tells us.

Angela Brady: president,
champion, role model

Christine is introduced, together with the five women architects on the panel,  by the redoubtable Angela Brady, who is only the second female President of the RIBA since it was founded in 1834 (she succeeded the first President Ruth Reed last year, see Angela for President).

As I listen to the stories, and admire the professionalism, tenacity and humour of the speakers, I am struck by two characteristics:

* Five of the seven speakers run their own businesses (confirming my theory that most women in construction get to the top by being independent rather than employed, see Women rulers).
 

* Six out of the seven women on the platform came to Britain, rather than come from Britain.

Let's take a look at these powerful women in architecture.

Angela Brady was born in Dublin, graduated from Dublin School of Architecture and set up in private practice in London with Robin Mallalieu in 1987 to form Brady Mallalieu, an award-winning practice specialising in contemporary sustainable design. She is not only a successful architect but also an artist, jewellery designer and TV broadcaster.

Kathryn Firth, Chief of Design at the Olympic Park Legacy Company

Kathryn Firth, grew up in the first planned suburb in North America, where  women were simply not expected to work. She studied in Toronto and at Harvard, and practised as an architect before coming to the UK to become Chief of Design, Olympic Park Legacy Company.  Her tip for success:  don't accept the macho culture fostered in architecture school that good design can only be attained by putting in long hours.

Christine Murray is Canadian and took on the post of AJ editor with plenty of journalistic experience but little knowledge of architecture. She engagingly tells us that after reading the results of the workplace survey, she learned a personal lesson and decided to ask for a payrise herself. Her tip: realise your worth and put forward a good argument to be rewarded for it.  

Deborah Saunt: striving for new beauty in building

Deborah Saunt was born in Australia, studied in Scotland and set up award-winning DSDHA with partner David Hills in 1989.  Her tips for success: Never apologise, size dooesn't matter and think of success as counterpoint, not a crescendo. 

Alison Brooks came here from Canada, made her name as an emerging architect and now runs her own practice ABA. She believes that more women should be included in master planning and that large practices should offer opportunities for smaller practices. Her tip for success: keep a sense of humour and play music in the office.

Liza Fior: creating art and architecture in the public realm

Liza Fior, London born and the only speaker to come from the UK, set up all woman practice muf in 1996 because she saw herself bolshie, idealistic and thus utterly unemployable. Her tip: don't assume you can simply schedule in having children at 38. 

Anna Gagliano, is a Brazilian who studied architecture and town planning in Sao Paulo, where women were in the significant majority. She came to the UK in 2000 and is now Head of Global Knowledge at AEDAS. Her tip: exploit the power of information technology and networks.
 
As I mingle with the crowd later, I recall a conversation a couple of years ago with Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas (born in New Zealand) who amongst other things is Chairman of the New West End Company, which represents 600 businesses on Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street and which is currently engaged in major construction works.  We were joined by Patricia Hewitt (born in Australia) who was building a non executive director career after retiring from the Cabinet where she had been Secretary of State for Health and for  Trade and Industry. The two women talked about how the decision to move to a different continent had given them a particular determination. As Dame Judith said, "I think it was somehow easier for me as an outsider," she says, "I wasn't constrained by attitudes."

So do you have to be a real pioneer to build a successful career?  Comments welcome.  



 

The great Arizona road trip -1

On the road to Phoenix: the Saguaro cactus of southern Arizona

The thermometer registers 82 degrees Fahrenheit, as we set off from Tucson on the first leg of our road trip north to the Grand Canyon. As a stay in Arizona would not be complete without visiting Taliesin West, the winter home, studio and school of the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, our first stop is Scottsdale near Phoenix.

It is four in the afternoon by the time we reach our destination. The road curving through the Saguaro cactus, mesquite and scrub shimmers in the heat and the temperature has risen to 94 degrees Fahrenheit. We walk into the cool, air conditioned visitor reception to discover that we are just in time for the last guided tour of the day.

Taliesin West: desert home of rock, wood and canvas

Equipped with bottles of chilled water and sunhats, we set off to explore the extraordinary buildings that were created from rock, redwood and canvas, on land bought for virtually nothing in the arid Sonoran desert during the Great Depression. The project evolved from a series of tent like structures to become the inter-connected buildings that stand today. The camping principle remains - every architectural student who gains a place at the school run by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation learns through building, is required to build his or her own shelter for the first year, with a budget of no more than $1000 plus donated materials.

Greening the desert?

We are a small party, Mother and Father of two Precocious Children, an Italian Student,  plus me and husband Rod. As we pass by lush, irrigated lawns, non-indigenous flowering plants and formal pools, Father of Precocious Children comments on the incongruity of this formal landscaping on a desert site designed by a man obsessed with creating buildings that mould into their natural surroundings. Our docent (as such guides are termed in the US) struggles a little with this question but eventually assures us that it was all on account of Frank Lloyd Wright wanting to recreate the feel of his native Wisconsin. We exchange raised eyebrows and wonder when the turf was laid.

We pass through an oddly shaped door to the first room on the site, which was Wright's office. Our docent's audience participation technique works best with the Precocious Children, whose arms are almost permanently raised to answer or ask questions. He finds it tougher going with us grown-ups. Describing how canvas was used for roofing, apparently for economy, our docent asks us why this is such a bad idea. Before we have time to gather a response, he tells us that canvas clearly won't withstand a tough climate. What about all those covered wagons that carried pioneers across this vast country, I muse. A Prairie Schooner in good repair was said to offer almost as good a shelter as a house, according to Oregon Trail historians.

What about Levi Strauss and his original miner's trousers, mutters Rod. Not to mention the pleasure Wright took in the soft diffused light created by canvas roofing, which he had first experienced living in tents near Phoenix when working on a resort project in 1929. (The project, like many others, was abandoned because of the Great Depression.)

The man himself (right)

Father of the Precocious Children notices that a photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright shows him sitting in front of a model of his iconic structure for the Guggenheim Museum.  "Did he work on that design in the studio whilst living here?" he asks. The response is that the Guggenheim is in New York, and this studio is in Phoenix. Ummm.....

More is to come. Our docent is keen to emphasise that Wright could do anything he wanted at Taliesin West (provided he had the money, presumably) because he didn't have to pander to a client's wishes. This becomes something of a recurring theme on the tour. Father of the Precocious Children looks thoughtful. It transpires later that his uncle commissioned a Frank Lloyd Wright house. 

The docent points to the windows above the photographs, and tells us that for several years, there was no glazing at Taliesin West because Wright so enjoyed the desert elements blowing free through the cabins. However, whilst he might not have had a client to pander to at Taliesin West, he did have a wife to satisfy. And this wife, his third, proved to be more than a match for this charismatic and determined man. Whilst as enthusiastic as Wright about living in the desert, Olgivanna drew the line at sharing her home with snakes, scorpions and sand. So glazed windows were duly installed.

Indian petroglyphs found  at Taliesin West

Olgivanna Ivanovna Lazovich was a Montenegran ballerina married to a Russian architect when Wright first saw her in 1924, seated near him at the Chicago Opera. Wright was also married, to his second wife, and his affair with an exotic woman thirty years younger was regarded as scandalous. (He already had developed a reputation as something of a womaniser.) Four years later, they married  - a marriage that was to last for 32 years - and work began on Taliesin West.

The tour continues and we marvel at the magnificent 56ft by 34 ft (17m by 10 m) living room, a wall of windows looking over the garden and full of Wright designed seating to ensure comfort for the many people attending the celebrity social gatherings  he and Olgivanna hosted. We admire the Japanese painting on the walls of Olgivanna’s modestly sized bedroom, which is next door to Wright’s larger bedroom with its strange bed divided in two by a partition. Precocious Girl Child asks why Olgivanna and Frank did not sleep together. The docent answers that this was quite common in those days – with an aside to the grown-ups that we should not try to draw any of our own conclusions.

The view from the architectural school

Precocious Boy Child’s question about Wright's strange divided bed was easier to answer. If Wright chose to sleep on the side of the bed closer to the wall, he was not to be disturbed by anyone – even Olgivanna. If he was lying on the other side of the partition closer to the door, then he was happy to be disturbed.

We move on to have a glimpse at the studio filled with students and walk through the rather claustrophobic cabaret complete with piano positioned in a niche carved from the rock and festooned with strings of fairy lights. Finally we are shepherded into the auditorium, the largest enclosed space at Taliesin West.  There is no proscenium arch, the asymetric stage curtains swinging back on rails into the wings, and the large deep stage was designed for the ballet and theatre performances that Olgivanna loved to arrange. We hear how she continued to live at Taliesin West after Wright's death, aged 91 in 1959.

Mother of the Precocious Children suddenly speaks. "Isn't today the anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright's death?" she asks the docent. He shuffles and mutters something about maybe it being sometime around now. She retrieves her smartphone from her bag and presses a few buttons. "Yes, it is today, 9 April." she announces. "Now isn't that just marvellous?" We all murmur in agreement, not only marvelling at synchronicity but also at the technology that can provide the right answer in an instant.

I call upon technology myself later that day, to find answers to some of  the questions that were left in the air and particularly to find out more about the redoubtable Olgivanna Lloyd Wright. Her influence on a giant of architecture was profound, and indeed many saw her as too controlling, particularly when continuing to manage Taliesin West, the school and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation until - and even after - her death at 86 in 1985. Her instructions  that Wright's body be exhumed from Wisconsin, cremated and the ashes mixed with hers for burial in the garden at Taliesin West  were carried out -  despite being against the local law and the wishes of his family.

But Wright clearly had found the right woman for him in the last thirty years of his life. As he said of her in his memoirs, "A woman is, for man, the best of true friends, if man will let her be one."

Rock against rock: Taliesin West roofline

All photographs by Sandi Rhys Jones

On the right track

Shauni O'Neill, station master

As the woman tube driver on the Northern Line announced the other morning, in a clear and cheerful voice, that she was waiting for signals to change before moving on, I was reminded of smiling face of Shauni O'Neill on the front cover of the latest City and Guilds magazine Broadsheet. At the age of 15, with a clutch of GCSEs at A and B grade, she beat 7,000 applicants to become one of the 15 apprentices taken on by Transport for London (TfL). She studied signalling, controlling, train driving amongst other things,  undertaking 100 City and Guild study units and becoming National Apprentice of the Year in 2011. 

Shauni describes how passengers and staff alike laughed at her first station announcements as a trainee, because she sounded so happy. “You’re not really meant to sound that happy when you’re telling people about delays on the Metropolitan Line.” Now she is the station manager at Chalfont and Latimer underground station at the age of 18, earning a good salary and with ambitions to reach the top in TfL. As Shauni points out, if she had taken the university route, she would have begun accumulating debt rather than earning a good salary and well on the way on her chosen career path.

At last there seems to be a shift away from the absurd New Labour dream of seeing 50 per cent of the population going to university. Quite apart from the sheer cost, the dubious nature of the some of the degree courses and the high dropout rate, it is increasingly recognised that there are other routes to building a successful working life and career. This is particularly so in the world of construction and engineering, powerfully brought home earlier this month at the Big Bang Science andEngineering Fair at the NEC Birmingham.

 

Thumbs up for the Big Bang Fair

As a  non-executive director of EngineeringUK, which dreamt up the idea of the Big Bang Fair in 2008, I found this year's fair even more exhilarating, entertaining and inspirational than ever.  Touring the exhibition with the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, we met a number of young people who were making  informed decisions about the right track to take. A couple of Year 13 students, demonstrating their innovative robotic device, talked enthusiastically about their plans. One is aiming to take a degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Southampton University, the other is delighted to be taking up an apprenticeship with a diesel engine company in Gloucestershire. 

Making the right decision is more important than taking the one that is perceived to be the 'better' decision. The Big Bang Fair is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK. Everything is aimed at showing just how many exciting and rewarding opportunities there are out there for them with the right experience and qualifications. With over three days of wall-to-wall science and engineering shows, activities and workshops, the Fair attracted 56,000 visitors, including young people and very importantly their parents and teachers. 

Shauni O'Neill recounts how her teachers told her she was too intelligent to do an apprenticeship - "but now they've seen that I've done well and it's a viable option, I've been invited back to school to talk about it."

 Captivating:  flying penguins at the record breaking Big Bang Fair 2012

A tale of two plumbers

A feature  appeared the other week in Stella, the Sunday Telegraph magazine, about five women working happily in non-traditional jobs. Annabel Smith, Britain’s only female beer inspector, Diane McMurray, who drives refuse trucks for Bolton Council and Shelley Morgan, a fire-fighter with the London Fire Brigade all talk enthusiastically about their work and how they deal with the surprised looks. But the two of particular interest to constructive women are Rosa Garrigos and Zoe Watson.

Rosa, a 37 year old with two children, became a scaffolder after getting to know about the job when working in a building site canteen. She got a job on the Olympic Village site as a trainee, where she knew a lot of the men working there and where there were lots of women working too – but no other female scaffolders. “So when I’d put my helmet and harness on I would watch the guys’ jaws literally drop. I was something of a novelty,” she says.

Zoe Watson, 25, is a plumbing and heating engineer in Surrey, who took a college course after helping a friend with his plumbing business. She too was seen as something of a novelty by the men on the course, who were friendly but seemed rather immature to Zoe. “I was there to learn," she says, “and I didn’t want distractions.”

Zoe Watson receiving her apprenticeship certificate.

 

She obtained an apprenticeship which gave her four days work and one day at college each week. When Zoe was made redundant during her apprenticeship, her mum wrote to the plumbing company that looks after the estate where they live and Zoe was given a job and able to complete her training. Confident in her capabilities, she admits that sometimes the older male residents on the estate sneer when she turns up to service their boilers, “banging on about girls stealing all the mean’s jobs. I just laugh it off and ask them when was the last time they were even in work.”

Zoe’s story is in stark contrast to the recent tale of Sheona Keith, the female plumber from Exeter in Devon who admitted causing actual bodily harm to a stranger in a bar (injuring him in the face with a glass) because she felt he was looking at her in a 'suggestive' way. The judge spared her the customary jail sentence because he accepted the defence that she had been subjected to intolerable sexual harassment at work for months, which apparently had resulted in her losing her job on the day of the attack after complaining to her boss.

Sheona Keith at work in April 2011. 

This is a worrying case, as there appeared to be no opportunity for her employers, outsourcing company Mitie, to respond to these allegations. There is also some confusion in the reporting as to whether she left her job or was made redundant. Moreover just a few months earlier the magazine Devon Life featured an interview with Sheona in which she described how happy she was with her career choice. She said, “I chose plumbing because it opens so many doors, and doing my apprenticeship with Mitie has been amazing. I have learnt so much. Every day I am challenging myself and go home exhausted but happy."

Just three weeks before the case went to court in January this year, the Chief Executive of Mitie, Ruby MacGregor-Smith was awarded the CBE in the New Year’s Honours List, for services to business and diversity in business. Mitie was voted one of the Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2011. Ruby is one of a small number of women holding the position of Chief Executive in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 and is the first Asian woman to be appointed in such a role within that group of companies.  I have shared a platform with Ruby, and can vouch for her practical and unassuming commitment to supporting women in the workplace.

Ruby MacGregor-Smith, CEO of Mitie                

Let us hope that the allegations of Sheona’s treatment and redundancy have been thoroughly investigated and any issues resolved. Let us also hope that this case does not encourage those who feel they are suffering discrimination and harassment at work to take out their frustration on innocent bystanders rather than taking their grievances to a tribunal.

Photographs: NESCOT, This is Devon, Coutts

A big hand for the drama queens!

Dame Helen Mirren with co-host Rosario Dawson at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo

I promised a follow-up on my first report on the recent CIC Diversity Panel Seminar looking at how to increase the number of women on company boards. Entitled Constructive Women (nice title!!) and led by the redoubtable duo of structural engineer Jane Wernick and architect Angela Brady, current President of the RIBA, the event included a workshop facilitated by a 'thought leader in executive and top talent development.'

It quickly became apparent that this thought leader was not going to attract many followers. The audience restiveness quickly began with her remarks dismissing women non-executives directors as the “usual ten individuals who do very little except drink champagne”, followed by the suggestion to move on from promoting gender diversity – old hat and counter-productive apparently. However tension came to the boil with her advice that women aspiring to get on the board should not behave like  ‘drama queens.’

Delegate after delegate rose to express their anger at both the arguments and the tone of voice. But as one organizer gamely commented, “How refreshing to get a real debate, rather than a chorus of consensus.”  Relative calm was restored and a number of practical actions were discussed in small groups. Congratulations to Jane and Angela for driving the agenda.

The phrase ‘drama queens’ came back loud and clear this week, however, in a decidedly positive way. Hosting the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo, Norway on Sunday 10 December, Dame Helen Mirren saw an opportunity and seized it. She combined her admiration and congratulation for the three women winners with the comment that it is shameful that only 12 women have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 112 years. 

Three extraordinary women, changing the world.

The three women honoured for their work are Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian women's rights activist Leymah Gbowee, and democracy activist Tawakkul Karman, from Yemen. Commenting how important women historically have always been, specifically in terms of peace,  Dame Helen described them as the role models for young women, adding, ''It is only a step on a journey that women are taking, and hopefully in 20-30 years' time we will be looking at a very different scenario in the world.”

Meryl Streep - Vogue's oldest cover girl

Two days later and the extraordinary actress Meryl Streep is talking on Radio 4 about her latest role as Margaret Thatcher, in The Iron Lady. Filming began with her portraying  Thatcher's early days in Parliament as Education Secretary, and Streep describes the sensation of walking into Parliament as a woman at that time as walking into a bath of fire. She goes on to say how she began to appreciate what it takes to be a leader, “what it takes to stand up to that level of distain, hatred and contempt every day, unrelentingly, and then get things done.”

Later in the interview, Streep talks about her support for the construction of a National Women's History Museum, in Washington DC, a proposal that is taking Congress for ever to endorse, despite the fact that it is being entirely privately funded. She has just given her salary from The Iron Lady to the cause and recently gathered a crowd of ground breakers for a photo opportunity. Amongst them was Madeline Albright, (the first woman Secretary of State in the US) who told her that she didn’t agree wih any of Margaret Thatcher’s policies, but “she was the only one who stood up with us in Bosnia and I’ll never forget it. I know what it’s like to be the first.”

In my first report on the CIC Diversity Panel seminar, I make the point that construction and engineering needed to recognize the influence of women as clients – ie the providers of business and revenue. Streep makes a similar point. Asked whether things are getting better for older actresses, she says that it is, commenting that there are more women in “the decision-making echelons of our business, the financial end who are in a position to green light pictures. We have infiltrated the enemy ranks!”

So if behaving like a drama queen means using position, authority and articulacy to make change for other women, I am all for it. As Dame Helen says, ''In my personal experience, wherever there was a force for the positive, for creativity, it was almost always led by women and they are doing it with no recognition and under very difficult circumstances. It is so important for all of us to realise that these movements start in very, very small ways.'' 

A standing ovation please, or at least three loud cheers for these leading ladies.

Supplementary trivia:

Helen Mirren and I were contemporaries in the same Essex town. She went to St Bernard's Convent, which my mother rejected when we found ourselves just one road out of the catchment area for our first choice of Westcliff High School.  "Convent girls tend to go off the rails," she declared, so I cycled four miles each way every day to Southend High School instead. 

I turned down a job at Vogue, many years ago when working as a fashion journalist. In those days, the job itself was considered to be sufficient reward and most youung women working there were assumed to have private incomes. It was the economy stupid, (I needed to pay the rent) so I missed my Devil wears Prada moment. Clearly not a sufficiently dedicated follower of fashion, I returned to the field that really excites me, construction and engineering.

Who's that girl/woman/captain of industry......

There we were, listening to the head of one of the most successful engineering companies in the world declaring his support for promoting women on to boards. The event was a seminar organised by the Diversity Group of the Construction Industry Council in conjunction with Architects for Change. All rather encouraging, until the moment that reminded me, yet again, that construction and engineering lives in its own strange bubble. Brandishing a recent copy of the Financial Times women in business supplement, he asked the assembled audience if anyone recognized the woman on the cover - before declaring that he himself did not know who she was.

The woman in question was Irene Rosenfeld, Chief Executive of Kraft, who has attracted fury in the UK with her handling of the acquisition of Cadbury last year. Admittedly she doesn’t visit the UK often – in fact refusing to attend a Select Committee inquiry into the take-over in May this year– but even so her face has been  splashed over the business pages for weeks.  The controversy continues with her recent decision to split Kraft into two companies. And Allan Cooke, Chairman of Atkins, didn’t know her?

It reminded me of the day I put a series of women’s faces on the screen at a workshop at Simons Group, asking the assembled directors and staff if they recognized them.  And they didn’t – not even some of the women who held senior roles in companies who gave them business or who were influential in the world of property and retail. This inspired me to set up a mentoring programme with senior women from clients with high potential women from Simons – not only did the individual women benefit, but the profile of all them was raised.

This  incident  confirms my long held belief that people working in construction and engineering have huge difficulty recognizing not only the women working in their own industry but also in the rest of business world. If the woman who earns more than £11 million a year running a global company is invisible,  what hope is there for lesser female mortals in our industry who aspire to get on a board?

More on the CIC Diversity seminar later......