Catherine Czerkawska

What did you find most encouraging?
All my most encouraging encounters during the first decade of the 21st century were with young people. I've worked with young actors and directors in theatre, I've given talks and workshops, my own son graduated a year ago – and I also ran a great many one to one sessions with students as RLF Writing Fellow at the University of the West of Scotland for four years. Almost without exception, the young people involved – from varied backgrounds, studying a variety of subjects, including education and nursing – were committed, enthusiastic, caring and interesting. And that was even the case when they seemed to have been let down by a secondary school system from which some of them emerged, blinking, into the light. Attending university open days, degree shows and graduation ceremonies at university and FE colleges only served to reinforce my sense that there is a silent majority of compassionate and considerate youngsters out there. But good news stories don't sell papers.

What did you find most discouraging?
Most discouraging is the constant state of fear in which we are expected to live: CJD (back again, we're told), bird flu, swine flu, climate disasters, obesity, alcohol, feral children, terrorism, what next? The decade began with the ruinously expensive damp squib that was the Millennium Bug. No 'expert' was ever taken to task about the series of dire predictions that never came true. Why not? Where did they all go to ground afterwards? Presumably they took the money and ran. The media have continued in much the same vein throughout the decade, like eager puppies, seizing on every scare and these, in turn, provide a series of excuses for the establishment to exert ever greater control over us. One result for me, personally, has been a profound scepticism about almost everything. It is so very easy to lie with statistics. And since nobody now does independent research, because nobody can get the funding, even so called scientific research is no guarantee of credibility.

Which public figure did you most admire?
It was hard to come up with a public figure I admired – but eventually (when I could stop myself from thinking about politicians and minor celebrities) I settled on three: Bob Dylan, the Queen and mathematician Marcus de Sautoy. But not necessarily in that order.
     I admire Bob for his refusal to be labelled in any way and for being so admirably and incomparably cool, the Queen for maintaining a certain dignity when all around were losing theirs and Marcus de Sautoy for being in many ways the antithesis of Richard Dawkins, see below. De Sautoy's books are challenging celebrations of something wonderful and his public persona is engaging and persuasive.

Which public figure did you least admire?
The person I least admire has to be Richard Dawkins: ultra opinionated, extreme left brainer, can't bear to be contradicted in any way. Or to quote from the man himself about his childhood: 'so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes and I'm not sure whether that has a sort of insidious effect on rationality'. All I can say is, you'd have to kiss a hell of a lot of Dawkins to find the prince beneath.