Sunday Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 40

Features THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH FEBRUARY 21 1999 The bitter pill parents of girls may have to swallow Dr James Le Fanu to ask whether I could point him in the direction of any relevant research on the matter But and it is a most astonishing thing there is none There have been several studies in boys investigating possible links between the male sex hormone testosterone and changes in personality at puberty Most if not all of these studies reveal that boys with higher than normal levels are more likely to be physically aggressive and socially maladjusted But for girls I could find nothing So 1 turned to John Studd consultant obstetrician at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital who has a special interest in the links between hormones and the psyche There are he points out three well recognised situations in which have some psychological effects But to his knowledge with one single exception nowhere in the vast acres of research devoted to the behavioural problems of adolescence has any link with hormones generally been investigated The exception is an unusual condition in teenage girls characterised by severe PMT aggression a high libido (resulting in sexual promiscuity) and rather prosaically severe acne Blood tests reveal high levels of testosterone and according to Mr Studd a drug that blocks its action Cyproterone When girls behave badly it is customary to blame sociological factors such as poor parenting or teenage These can be impor powerful forces which under the guise of concern for the welfare of teenagers actively undermine parental influence Most notably contraceptives are handed out to oung girls without their consent and clinics are organised at schools on Mondays to dish out the morning-after pill The inevitable consequence is to make matters worse as revealed by the most recent statistics collected by Victoria Gillick the veteran campaigner for the family These reveal that while the numbers of 14-year-olds receiving contraceptive advice have increased from fewer than one in 100 to one in 10 over the past 20 years teenage pregnancies and abortions continue to rise lying and deceitful She is now almost 18 and there has been little change except for the worse She managed to pass her O-levels with reasonable grades but has done no work at all in her two years in the sixth form and is now approaching the day of reckoning We anticipate she will fail all her My correspondent recognises that many parents might have a similar tale to tell but goes on to ask There have been no traumatic experiences to account for this change in personality: no deaths of friends or parents no rapes or assaults The only possible explanation we can think of is that it must be something to do with the hormonal changes associated with puberty His purpose in writing was tant but as my correspondent points out they must be only part of the story because the sort of deviancy that he describes in his daughter can occur despite the best intentions for tfleir welfare of the most solicitous of parents This is not to suggest that if as seems likely hormonal changes at puberty are a significant contributory factor there would necessarily be some easy solution Rather such a biological explanation merely emphasises the vulnerability of adolescents and the need to do everything to support and protect them in this difficult period of development in the hope that with time and increasing maturity their behavioural problems will resolve There are regrettably IS ALWAYS gratifying to be able to answer queries or at least point them in the direction of someone who can None the less there are problems for which I have no explanation and for which on investigation it is quite clear that no one else has either The following letter which will send a chill down the spines of all parents of teenage children falls into this category daughter was the absolute perfect child up to the age of 13 She was a keen student worked extremely hard and was liked by writes a solicitor from Surrey when she reached puberty she changed completely She became aggressive lazy greedy would seem to be strongly influenced by changes in the levels of oestrogen in the blood: at the start of the menstrual cycle immediately after giving birth: and following the menopause These give rise to respectively premenstrual tension and postnatal and menopausal depression We know this because in many if not quite all of those affected the mood markedly improves following treatment with oestrogen hormones Precisely the same principle Mr Studd told me must apply to puberty' where the sudden surge of oestrogen associated with the beginning of ovulation is likely to A non-smoker until an epiphany seven years ago John Simpson now enjoys the occasional very good cigar and the accompanying whiff of prosperity his father valued so much IT'S BEEN one of the biggest social changes of my lifetime In the early 1960s those of us who smoke were always making excuses for ourselves: not really that a bore a social misfit a sad little person it's my health my religion my mother like it Nowadays if you smoke you have a licence to despise the smokers ho huddle apologetically in the freezing stairwells of office blocks knowing they' are only there because they have the moral fibre to stop Yet just when the antismoking campaign has achieved almost everything it set out to and the sense of superiority felt by those who have given up could grow' no greater an altogether contrary tendency has established itself Cigar smoking has caught on in the very Countries that are most strongly anti-tobacco During the past 18 months half a dozen cigar bars have opened up in London and more are planned In New York the cigar bar has become immensely fashionable An American cigar magazine (another new institution) maintained recently that every American city with a population of more than three million people will soon have one In Hong Kong Singapore Geneva and Hamburg the most expensive hotels have quiet corners for the sale and smoking of cigars This is a trend hich no one planned and which seems to have been completely unforeseen The smoking of cigars as the habit of the relatively rich and the relatively few It had distinct port-and-brandy co lo 1-o f-t he -regiment waistcoat-straining oxer- tones: a good Havana went with the easing of the cummerbund the slipping off of the patent-leather shoes under the table and the speech by the guest of honour And of course it was solely something men did In the library with its pleasantly brackish smell of smoke-impregnated leather bindings a cigar went with a glass of something strong and an hour or two of solitude before bedtime peace in a Laran-aga wrote Kipling about his favourite brand and he meant a specifically male peace Later in the same poem he say For a woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a a joke but only just Now if you go into a cigar bar in New York most of the people are young and there are likely to be as many women as men The cigar has jumped the barriers of age and sex It is perceived as classy and attractive and people ho would recoil from the smell of cigarettes have no objection to the smell of cigars Demi Moore smokes them and so do several supermodels President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky introduced one to the Oval Office Last summer in the open-air restaurant at the Beverley Hills Hotel two militant Hollywood feminists at the next table to mine recoiled angrily from the smoke until they realised that it came from a cigar being smoked by my wife That changed everything It all comes down to money A decent Havana costs £12 or more so we aren't talking back-street tobacconists In the United States Cuban cigars cost even more because they have to be Burnt offering John Simpson remembers how his father regarded a smoking cigar as an oblation to the goddess Fortuna Sweet smell of affluence I neither coughed nor felt sick Instead a sensation of wellbeing filled me and I became slightly wired not the reaction you get from alcohol but sharper and calmer Not being a smoker I wasn't tempted to inhale I leant back in my chair cigar in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other and felt myself to be no end of a fine fellow: which is I imagine the reason why so many people have taken to smoking Havanas Some hours later 1 went to sleep with the aftertaste in my mouth altogether pleasant but I slept unusually ell and oke up in i A good cigar may be something fora connoisseur to savour but like magnificent claret it can kill you if you overuse it 7 possession of old productive land can inspire He showed me a wrapper leaf a couple of feet long almost the same colour as his hand and just as heavily veined He stretched it to show its thinness and elasticity Soon it would be cut and folded to provide the outer layer of one of the Robaina farnosos the chunky cigars that are perhaps the best things he makes He handed me one I lit it with care anxious to avoid a faux pas but he is not one to worry about the trivialities of smoking technique I smoke seven famosos a day' he said: It -shows in the deep lines of his face the yellowing of his skin the browning of his fingers A good cigar may be something for a true connoisseur to savour but like a bottle of magnificent claret it can kill you if you ov eruse it I watched the blue shioke circle upwards and drew the familiar rich earthy flavour into my mouth famosos" said Alejandro examining the grey-white ash that formed in ridges as the flame wore evenly down "are made exactly as my forebears made them And my grandson will make them this way too" 1 nodded I was listening to my own father's voice in my head: smell of cigar smoke always makes me feel as though things are going well again" John Simpson is World Affairs Editor of the BBC south-west of Havana where the tobacco for the best cigars is grown The vegetation became lusher the soil grew redder and more moist and the bright green tobacco plants stood out against the earth like jade on a fur coat This area is to cigars what the vignobles of Bordeaux and Burgundy are to ine Alejandro Robaina was sitting in a rocking chair on the patio of his bungalow when we arrived His face is exactly as it appears on the labels of his cigar boxes: wrinkled smiling calm the golden brown of his best tobacco leaves He is in his midseventies and seems to spend most of his days receiv ing visitors Some years ago he had an audience with Castro and explained to him in gentle yet passionate detail that state control was wrecking the Cuban cigar industry said to Fidel me try going back to the old system so I can grow what I want pay my workers hat I can afford and sack them if they don't work' Then I sat back to see what he would say because this is not how things are done in Cuba He thought for a moment then he said OK' That was all Now we have the Robaina brand His family has been growing tobacco here since 1845 and as he gazes at the valleys and hills beyond his patio he has the look of ease that the the morning to find it had disappeared Since then I have gradually found my favourite brands Upmann Number 2s of course but also other figura-dos or torpedo-shaped cigars such as Simon Bolivar Belico-sos Finos Montecristo Number 2s and the thick stubby Cohiba Robustos I smoke rarely maybe once every week or 10 days and only when the occasion merits it: a particularly pleasant dinner at which no one else objects or a saunter along Sloane Street in London or Grafton Street in Dublin or somewhere more exotic such as Florida the main shopping street of Buenos Aires And I think I ever take the first puff without thinking what it would have represented to my father Droughts the 35- year American embargo and Marxist -Leninist bureaucracy have all had their effect on Cuban cigar production Dealers in London often despair of getting the brands and the quantities they need Still in its new mood of compromise with capitalism Cuba is beginning to change A few private cigar companies have even been allowed to establish themselves The other week I drove out ith my camera crew to Pinar del Rio in the Vuelta Abajo smuggled in Smoking a Havana is as close as you can get now to the excitement of Prohibition and bootleg whiskey In a New York cigar bar they will sell you perfectly good cigars from the Dominican Republic Jamaica or Nicaragua but if you know someone behind the counter who knows someone a Havana will usually be produced at some point For a price In a way it was the expen-siveness of cigars that led me to smoke them My father as a boy associated the smell of cigar smoke with affluence because his father would smoke cigars when things were going well As my father grew older and his financial affairs grew worse and worse he would buy a cigar light it and put it in an ashtray to give the place the remembered smell of good times: a burnt Offering to the goddess Fortuna For me too although I have never smoked a cigarette in my life and used to be a militant anti-smoker the smell of cigars and cigar smoke came to represent affluence and comfort just as it did for my father I had never smoked one until I went to Cuba in 1992 to report on the presidential election It one of the great political cliffhangers of the year: Fidel Castro as the only candidate Castro himself has given up smoking cigars on orders but occasionally as when the new Trinidad brand was introduced at a banquet in Havana for favoured international guests a few years ago he takes a few puffs and rolls a cigar between his fingers During the Cuban election my team and I were invited to dinner by a British diplomat the MacLaren of MacLaren whom I had previously known in Moscow He and his ife both enjoyed I ic ing in Cuba and were agreeable enthusiastic about many aspects of it Over brandy the cigars came out and although the rest of the team refused them I felt that being in Havana I should accept Maybe the brandy played its part I pointed to a handsome large torpedo-shaped cigar in the box an Upmann Number 2 as it happened and the waiter lifted it out and cut it for me It was the colour of dark honey spongy and resilient to the touch and fortunately I commit the old-fashioned British solecism of holding it to my ear to hear it crackle (How could a cigar kept under the correct conditions of humidity be dry enough to make a sound?) By chance I held the cigar properly an inch or so over the flame turning it round so that it took light uniformly and drew in the first mouthful of tobacco-smoke I had ever experienced writes I The Catherine Pakenham Award is an annual journalism competition I open to womenaged between 18 I and 25 years You will need to have had something published however humble and be determined to make it as a journalist We know it not easy for you to succeed in this business That's why the Catherine Pakenham Award fiction article between 750 and 2000 words long by the deadline of March 1 1999 The winner will receive £1000 and the opportunity to write for one of The Telegraph publications Three runners up will each win £200 If you feel you have what it takes an entry form can be obtained by writing to: Melanie Tuppen not God All-matey God Press Public Relations Dept The Sunday Telegraph 1 Canada Square Canary Wharf London El 4 5DT was set up to encourage young women as they embark on a journalistic career Just submit a non- Mt mb My (Sob things that went bump in the night There were always people knocking on doors asking for She feels she was set on the right path aged eight by some word-play from the family vicar remember him droning on and suddenly something penetrated He said forget congregation: not God All-Matey God I thought done it all wrong been having chats with him and treating him like Father Christmas always asking for things I took that message to I ask whether she prays she tells me she is organising an event featuring Sting at the Globe next month to raise money for the Garden find myself praying all the time: let it let enough people give she adds sheepishly the moment a bit like the old Father Christmas The Box office for the Globe event is on 0171 403 7400 Chinese occupation of Her current (one not involving Sting) is to raise £300000 for a Tibetan Peace Garden close to the Imperial War Museum which ill be opened by the Dalai Lama in May Trudie Styler grew up on a council estate just outside Birmingham She remembers her whole community attending church think the Church of England and the Church of Rome have lost their way: people go to church as they did when I was growing up in the Fifties and Sixties went to an Anglican Sunday School and I was in the choir We were quite isolated where we lived and I loved mixing with Her late mother a school-dinner lady was a fervent Anglican who regularly cleaned the church Trudie Styler believes she inherits her conscience from her Her great aunt was a medium was very intrigued as a child There were endless ghost stories and RUDIE STYLER and her husband Sting combine an interest in Eastern religion with a strong commitment to the Church of England The couple practise yoga and chant together regularly and they are regular worshippers at their local Wiltshire church love our says the actress vicar John Reynolds is someone I can go to when feeling down or if I have a problem with one of our Two years ago she and Sting decided to have their four children christened at the local church yoga teachers were visiting us regularly so the children were being exposed to Buddhism Sting and I were visiting Hindu temples It began to bother me that the children had no proper anchoring in religion They were missing out on what I had as a Sting is Roman Catholic the couple were married at a register office before having a blessing at the local church After the blessing Sting led his wife away on a horse know what the significance of the horse was it was probably some pagan she says was idea But the service was very religious We all took Communion still considers himself Roman Catholic Some people might argue with his marrying an Anglican But I feel those are silly rules God create Roman Catholic church recognise I put in Sting was previously married to the actress Frances Tomelty sort of rules just practical version of God comes from his Roman Catholic upbringing happy to continue with that but like me interested in all aspects of As she discusses religion Trudie answers are occasionally stilted: this stems jiot as I first fear Trudie Styler talks to Frances Welch from offence at my questions but from anxiety not to misrepresent herself She says she became particularly interested in Buddhism after producing a film about Tiananmen Square researching the history of China I read about the CATHERINE PAKENHAM AWARD 4.