the times | Saturday January 1 2022 21
News
Introducing a new type of painless
smear test could double the attendance
of older women at appointments and
save lives, according to a study.
Doctors found that women aged 50
to 64 would be more likely to attend a
cervical screening using a swab, with-
out the use of a speculum.
Half of UK cervical cancer deaths are
among those aged 65 and over. But
because the speculum “can be a real
source of fear and embarrassment”, the
study’s authors wrote, many women
As the first Maria in the Broadway
production of The Sound of Music, she
confounded Nazis and delighted
audiences on a nightly basis.
Mary Martin, the mother of Larry
Hagman, also prevented the Queen’s
state visit to California being disrupted
by IRA sympathisers.
Newly released documents show
that British diplomats were nervous
about the trip in 1983, and their fears ap-
peared to be realised when Seamus
Gibney, a spokesman for Noraid, which
raised millions of dollars for the IRA,
infiltrated a royal reception at a San
Francisco concert hall.
However, his loud protests were
drowned out by the appearance on
stage of Martin, a much loved perform-
er. The spontaneous ovation for her
meant that Gibney’s presence went
largely unnoticed.
He had evaded US and British secur-
ity agents and entered the Davies
Symphony Hall with a photograph of
Francis Hughes, an IRA hunger striker,
pinned to his lapel. Instead of being
challenged Gibney was handed a glass
of wine and ushered into the event,
where the Queen and Duke of
Edinburgh were guests of honour.
After his protest Gibney was swiftly
removed from the venue but not
arrested.
British officials noted later that the
royal visit generated positive headlines.
“San Franciscans had never seen
anything quite like it,” they wrote. “Not
only were the Queen and the Duke of
Edinburgh in town, but also the
president and Mrs Reagan, mostly all of
his cabinet and virtually all of the top
White House staff.”
Their fears that the tour would be
tainted by disruption were allayed by
shambolic TV and radio interviews
with Gibney. In scruffy clothes,
perspiring, and with a drooping
moustache and pugnacious demean-
our, he alienated potentially sympa-
thetic US viewers and listeners.
“Noraid’s main spokesman in the San
Francisco area, Mr Seamus Gibney,
performed so badly on television and
radio interviews in advance of the visit
as to provoke an overwhelmingly criti-
cal response,” consular staff noted.
“Perversely enough, Mr Gibney’s ir-
rational haranguing of the Queen and
Britain in the weeks leading up to the
visit was one of the factors that helped
to bring out, in a positive way, the ‘Brit-
ishness’ of the occasion.
“The pro-IRA factions that boasted
in advance of their intention to disrupt
the visit by all means short of violence,
in the event, failed to deliver.”Painless swab ‘doubles smear test attendance among over-50s’
Daniel O’Mahony put off their screening or ignore invita-
tions for a smear test.
“This is a real concern because
under-screened women are at the high-
est risk of getting cervical cancer,” said
Dr Anita Wey Lim, who led the study
from King’s College London.
Cervical cancer kills about 850
women a year in the UK. A quarter of
women between 50 and 64 are thought
to ignore invitations for smear tests
even though there are an estimated
600 cases of cervical cancer a year
among the over-65s.
It is feared that many more women
have missed smear test appointments
during the pandemic, with seven in ten
eligible women in England attending
their screening check-up in the year to
March 2021.
The study, reported by the Daily Mail,
looked at women who had previously
not responded to invitations for a
smear test, and offered them two
choices: test themselves at home, or
have a doctor take a swab in a clinic.
Of 393 women given both choices, 31
per cent attended cervical screening in
the following year. This compared with
an uptake of 14 per cent of 391 olderwomen in the regular screening pro-
gramme.
Currently, the only smear test avail-
able on the NHS uses a speculum to ex-
amine the cervix and sample cells to
check whether they are pre-cancerous.
Using a speculum becomes more pain-
ful as women get older.
But since 2019 doctors have first
looked for the HPV virus, the main
cause of cervical cancer, a test that can
be done using a swab.
The study’s authors hope that further
research could see women offered
swabs in clinics or at home in the nextthree years. The study, published in the
British Journal of General Practice, also
found that almost two thirds of women
who tested themselves at home were
not confident of the accuracy of the re-
sult, despite studies confirming the
method’s safety.
Lim said: “Self-sampling has been
hailed as a game-changer for cervical
screening, but the solution isn’t just
about screening at home — having a
doctor or nurse take a sample without a
speculum gives women even more
choice to feel comfortable about get-
ting checked.”The Duchess of Cambridge has been
likened to the Queen Mother by royal
insiders who have praised her for
having the same “toughness”.
As the duchess approaches her 40th
birthday next weekend she will be
showered with tributes celebrating her
charity work, sense of style and even
her attempts to broker peace between
her husband and the Duke of Sussex.
However, it is the comparison with
her husband’s great-grandmother that
offers an insight into the crucial role she
has played in ensuring a future for the
royal family.
Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, 61, who
was private secretary to the Cambridg-
es and Prince Harry and used to work
for the Queen Mother, told The Times:
“When I was a 23-year-old I was the
Queen Mother’s equerry for a couple of
years. The duchess reminds me so
much of her.”
The Queen Mother never expected
to be queen. But after it was forced upon
her in 1936 by Edward VIII’s abdication,
she threw herself into the role without
hesitation.
That same dedication, Lowther-Pin-
kerton argues, can be seen in the
duchess. “In a funny sort of way, she has
got the same temperament. Like the
Queen Mother, she is incredibly
polite to everybody. She takes
time to talk to people. She is
tough. She has got that
Queen Mother feel in her, so
that when things need doing,
she is there do them.”
Robert Lacey, the royal
author, said that the Queen
Mother’s combination of
sweetness and charm al-
lied with an inner
toughness — the steel
magnolia of cliché, or, as
Cecil Beaton memora-
bly put it, “a marshmal-
low made on a welding
machine” — could also
be seen in the duchess.
Of the women Willi-
am and Harry married,
Meghan seemed to be the
tough one, Lacey said.
There are echoes of the Queen Mother in the way the Duchess of Cambridge has
embraced the royal culture of keeping the show on the road through any crisisDuchess at 40,
queen of style
with a familiar
flash of steel
But history showed that it was Kate
who was the more resilient, he argued.
“When it came to the ordeal by tabloid,
she understood the importance of with-
standing the pressure. I see royal ante-
cedents here in the form of the
ever-smiling Queen Mother. You have
to be tough to survive in that job. And
Kate has got the toughness.”
The duchess’s strength of character
was shown most starkly when a French
magazine published topless pictures of
her in 2012, while the Cambridges were
on a tour of southeast Asia. William was
visibly upset by what happened. But
according to Lowther-Pinkerton, it was
the duchess’s resolve not to let it ruin
the tour that helped to keep the show
on the road.
“That tour could have gone pretty
weird,” he said. “It could have not
worked at all if she had not shown that
steel edge. It was, ‘Come on these things
happen... Let’s not be distracted.’
“We took the lead off her. She took up
the leadership role, which was to buckle
up and get on with it — just like the
Queen Mother.”
Sir David Manning, the former Brit-
ish ambassador in Washington who
spent ten years as an adviser to the
Cambridges and Prince Harry, believes
that the duchess is a key figure as far as
the future of the monarchy is con-
cerned.
He said: “Her arrival broke
the mould. The highly
intelligent daughter of hard-
working middle-class parents,
who had studied art history at
university, she was far from con-
forming to the profile of those
who previously married heirs
to the throne.
“She had known William
for ten years before she
married him. She had
thought deeply about what
she was taking on and the
sort of life it entailed.”
The former ambassador
added: “Over the past 20
years she has established
herself as a sheet anchor
of the institution. She is
now central to its future
success.”Valentine Low
SIMON BRUTY/ANYCHANCE/GETTY IMAGESBroadway
star stopped
IRA ruining
royal visit
Marc Horne