In 1992, I got held up in a store robbery.  I was with my daughter, Caitlin, then age 3, and we were in a north London health store, of all places.  The health store had a little café in the back, where we’d often take time from a shopping trip to go to have a tea and a biscuit.
We’d gone to the ladies’ room, and as soon as we came out, a guy in his 30s in a khaki jacket flashed a handgun at us and a few others in the store and said, “You – get in here now.”
At first I thought it was a joke – so completely surreal is it to see anyone in the UK holding a gun.
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A big mental adjustment
Despite being the world’s most popular form of alternative treatment, chiropractic has lately had a bad press, particularly in the UK.
It began when Simon Singh, the self-appointed attack dog on all things alternative, decided to promote his book Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial by writing an article in The Guardian in 2008 specifically targeting chiropractors and their various claims.
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Broadcast journalism has landed many low blows before when it comes to alternative views about medicine. I was eight months pregnant with our first child when we launched WDDTY, and a few moments before I was due to have a live debate with a media doctor, he leaned over and murmured, sotto voce: ‘Did you know that your obstetrician was up on charges for malpractice?’
It wasn’t true – my doctor is well-known natural birth specialist – but who does this to a pregnant woman?  Answer:  somebody with an agenda.
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