THE MOST MISGUIDED MOTHER IN BRITAIN?
What modern mother hasn’t worried about her daughter’s computer habit? When
Sarah Burge bemoans the fact that 16-year-old Hannah ‘spends hour after hour peering
at the screen’, its hard not to sympathise.
So what exactly is Sarah’s concern - online perverts? Facebook bullies?
Well, no. She’s worried about a different sort of nuisance altogether - Hannah’s
future wrinkles.
‘I look at Hannah when she’s on the computer - which she is for hours- and she’s
frowning. That leads to furrows between the eyes and, eventually, wrinkles.’
‘Of course, you can’t take computers away from your children, but we can do
something about the frowning, can’t we?’
‘That’s one of the reasons why, when Hannah asked me if she could try Botox, I
said yes. I’m not saying she has wrinkles now, but if we can prevent them in the future,
what’s the problem?’
What’s the problem with giving a 16-year-old Botox? Is the woman serious?
The fact that the question even has to be asked is an indication of how different
this 49-year-old is to the women she describes disparagingly as ‘other mums’.
Not being like the other mothers at the school gates is something Sarah is proud
of. In truth, it’s been her raison d’etre for as long as she can remember. It led her down
the route of extreme cosmetic surgery and to a bizarre personal challenge to turn herself
into something akin to a Human Barbie. To date, she holds the record for having had the
most procedures carried out on one woman. She has been remodelled from head to toe,
at a cost of £500,000, with results that can only be described as eye-catching.
Procedures she’s had include three facelifts, a brow lift, liposuction and buttock and
breast implants. Fine, if that floats your boat, but her self-confessed obsession with
tweaking what nature provided has now become an altogether different proposition. For,
having pretty much exhausted parts of her own body to ‘improve’, she has moved on to
her children. And what a storm this has caused, nationally as well as locally. When the
Mail reported earlier this week that she had allowed her daughter to have Botox at just 15,
internet chatrooms went into meltdown as readers clamoured to post their opinions. The
verdict was not good. ‘Mad cow’ was one of the politer comments. More devastating for
Sarah were the suggestions that, as well as a shrink, she could do with the services of a
social worker.
‘People have called me all sorts of things over the years. A freak, a lunatic. I can
deal with those. But calling me a bad mother - saying that I am abusing my daughter, is
not on,’ she rants, when I meet her to find out how on earth having her ears pinned back
aged seven (the start of her surgery ‘addiction’, she reckons) could have led to this.
‘It’s not abuse. How can it be abuse? She is 16 years old!’
Well no. The facts are that Hannah, who is still at school and wants to be a dancer,
was 15 when she first had Botox on holiday in Marbella. Sarah’s signature, giving
consent, was required.
She waves an arm. ‘Yeah, that was in Marbella, out of jurisdiction.’ Whatever that
means.
But morally? Morals don’t have jurisdictions.
‘How could I have a problem with it? It’s what I do myself, and if I didn’t help her
she could have gone to some quack or voodoo doctor, got the stuff anywhere. ‘I was
being the responsible one here.’
Perhaps it’s not surprising that Sarah genuinely can’t see what the fuss is about. A
trained therapist herself, she routinely gives herself Botox jabs, pumps her face full of
fillers and admits she has injected Hannah herself.
‘But not with Botox. With an empty needle, just to stimulate the Botox that was
already there.’
We embark on something of a science lesson, where she talks at length about how
Botox really isn’t harmful. ‘It’s Botox Hannah had, not barbiturates,’ she points out. ‘It’s
used to treat medical conditions. People get it on their bunions. It’s out of the system
within three months. What’s the problem?’
Indeed she’s happy that Botox is the only vice Hannah is interested in dabbling in.
‘They are doing everything at her age, aren’t they? Drugs, sex, wild parties. I‘ve known
parents giving their kids marijuana. Now that’s abuse. If Botox is all I have to worry about
with Hannah, thank goodness.’
‘A lot of this criticism is just ignorance about the procedure. All this talk of wrinkles
is rubbish. Botox doesn’t erase wrinkles, it just paralyses the muscles. It’s about
freshening you up.’
But isn’t a teenage face about as ‘fresh’ as it gets?
‘I know a lot of 18-year-olds who look dreadful. They have sun damage already
and terrible skin.’
Sarah likes to think she knows a thing or two about teenage girls. She says her
‘open’ approach to cosmetic surgery has made her popular with her daughter’s friends,
who are ‘obsessed with it’.
‘They are, though, and that’s not my fault. It’s society. They are all on the TV
saying they want a boob job for their sixteenth birthday, and a fast car, and to look like
Jordan. They want the trappings, to be part of the beautiful people, and they think
cosmetic surgery can help them achieve that.’ And she sympathises. Sarah herself was a
stage-school kid, a wannabe star who ended up as a bunny girl and in an abusive
relationship.
She likes to think she is famous these days, but her fame has only come about
because of her surgery. As she puts it, ‘it’s a vicious circle’. ‘It doesn’t always work the
way the teenagers think it will, and I’ve got caught in a trap. I have to have more cosmetic
work in order to work, if you know what I mean. People forget that I’m a business woman,
you know. I’ve made all this myself, from nothing.’
All what? She may jet around the world parading on TV shows, but at home she
hardly seems happy. I say that the little village where she lives is beautiful. She pulls a
face. ‘We want to move. I want to live in London. I don’t fit in here.’
She says, with glee, that the other mums in the area ‘aren’t too happy’ when their
daughters come round to her house. ‘Do they honestly think I am going to force Botox on
their daughters? Come on! I listen to their concerns about their looks. I don’t know a
single one who is happy with how they are. We have a laugh. We end up tap dancing in
the kitchen. ‘The kids end up saying to me: “I wish my mum was like you.” ’
Really? The infectious laugh and fruity language may be attractive to a teenager,
but does any youngster truly want their mum flashing her pants at complete strangers?
This is what happens when you interview Sarah. When we meet, she is wearing an
orange lace see-through dress which barely covers her bum (more of which later) and is
designed to show off her fluorescent pink underwear. Disturbing enough if you are
interviewing a porn star in a Soho nightclub. Downright freaky on a suburban sofa on a
Thursday afternoon.
She won’t let any of her daughters be present for this interview so it isn’t possible
to watch her interact with them. What is clear, though, is that her eternal quest for
‘youthful radiance’ has dominated all their lives. She has three children aged 26,16 and
six, who are used to their mother disappearing for a few days and coming back with new
cheeks/eyes/tummy.
‘Oh, they take no notice now. I come back looking like a walking, bandaged
mummy and they say “Oh hi mum.” Once, Charlotte said to me: “Why can’t you be
normal, like the other mummies”, but she was only being flippant. ‘I said: “would you love
me more, then?” And she said: “Of course not.”’
We talk about role models. She thinks she is a ‘brilliant one’. ‘I am taking care of
myself, not letting myself go. I think I’m a better role model than parents who drink or take
drugs. All those woman who get fat, bitter and depressed. Who would want that? I’m the
first to say that my surgery has become an addiction. But it makes me happy, and a fun
person to be around. ‘Can you imagine what I’d be like if I was fat and ugly and never
wanted to have sex with my husband? That’s the reality for a lot of women.’
By Jenny Johnston.