The Gifting Room

A few years ago Karen was named Fearless Woman of the Year by Cosmopolitan magazine and invited to London for a big awards night at Banqueting House. It was one of those evenings where exceptional people are celebrated. She’d also get to visit 10 Downing Street.

I’m never keen on dressing up, but it felt like a big deal, so I went as her +1. I hired a kilt instead of a dinner jacket — half the price and, living in Inverness, kilts were ten a penny. A Glaswegian taxi driver had once told me it was fine: a Yorkshireman, he said, is just a Scotsman without the brains.

We flew down, were picked up at the airport, and taken to a Mayfair hotel where a Coke cost about four quid. The other winners — all women — had done extraordinary things: saved lives, changed lives, overcome real adversity. They were the best of us. Their stories deserved light in a world obsessed with footballers and reality TV nobodies.

That evening we were driven to the event and walked along a red carpet past banks of paparazzi waiting for a Radio 1 DJ and an X-Factor runner-up. No one seemed interested in the award winners. They were almost invisible.

Inside it was all glitz: round tables, stage lights, flawless catering. The remarkable women were placed on two tables. Around us were Hello magazine regulars — faces you recognise only while waiting for a haircut. Karen is oblivious to that world. She once met Dame Vera Lynn and asked what she did. When the Queen asked what had brought her there, Karen replied, “I don’t know — you invited me.”

I’d worked — sort of — with Johnny Depp once, so I knew what a real star looked like. Usually someone who doesn’t act like one.

The awards began and it quickly became clear how the night would unfold. Between stories of courage and endurance were awards for best soap, best hair, best dressed. When set beside someone who’d lifted thousands from poverty or survived acid thrown in her face, it felt grotesque. A room full of self-licking ice creams.

Afterwards we were invited to a party downstairs. Because Karen was in a wheelchair, we were taken round the back and through rooms we weren’t meant to see. Somehow we lost our minder and wandered into what looked like a miniature Harrods: tables stacked with handbags, perfume, chocolates and glossy tat.

The celebrities and their assistants — easy to spot by their hunted expressions and two iPhones apiece — were filling bags like pigs at a trough. Karen wasn’t interested. If it had been cycling kit, maybe. We stood there watching until someone noticed us. A call was made. Security appeared. We were escorted out.

In the antechamber sat the real heroes of the night — the women who had actually done the things being celebrated. They looked shell-shocked. Saving lives still wasn’t enough to get into the gifting room. The entrance criteria seemed to lie elsewhere.

To be fair, some of the more grounded celebrities were also barred and just handed their gifts over to the winners.

The next morning we went to Number 10 for breakfast with Sarah Brown. In daylight everyone looked smaller. When she asked Karen if she’d had a good night, I blurted out, “She doesn’t drink — she’s a recovering alcoholic.” Silence. Then, trying to rescue it: “Oh, and she gets violent when she drinks.” Sarah Brown walked away. Karen was not amused. Vernon Kay laughed.

In an hour I’m off to meet the BBC about a possible big wall programme. If it goes well, who knows — maybe I’ll be the next Bear Grylls, only fatter and with less hair.

People sometimes accuse me of chasing fame. Honestly, speaking and writing aren’t about that. I do them because I love them, like climbing. If I had a choice, I’d rather be known for what I’ve done than for being on the cover of a tatty magazine in a hairdresser’s.

I still think about that gifting room — about who gets let in and who stays outside. Recently someone who’d worked with a celebrity I quite liked told me, “He’d fuck his own mother to be more famous.”

And there, I suppose, was the password.