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Friday night was Sport Relief, which raised a record breaking amount on the night and did a fab job of entertaining us all!

But one thing stood out to me, so many of the celebrities, on their VTs from the world poorest countries used this phrase: “It’s just not right”.

Last year Lenny Henry, Samantha Womack, Angela Rippon and Reggie Yates went and lived in the Kibera slums in Kenya, and the documentary was huge. I think it really brought it home to a lot of people what life is like for those who have to live like that on a day to day basis, and realised that we really need to do something about it.

So this year, Sport Relief seemed to have a much bolder attitude. In the past these sort of shows have sometimes felt a bit apologetic that they’ve had to interrupt the “fun” parts of the evenings with the VTs, but this year, with each video that they showed, they admitted that while it might be hard to watch, it’s something we need to see, to know what’s happening to people who are only seperated from us by geography.

A few years ago, I’d’ve been sat here sharing with you some of the funniest sketches and bits and pieces from the evening.
Today, I’d like to share with you some of the most powerful and challenging videos from the evening.
Most of these videos are about a named child. Not a statistic, a real person.
Definitely don’t feel obliged to watch them all, but I just thought I’d put up a selection.
There’s not a single one of these that isn’t moving, upsetting and challenging. So if you’re feeling fragile, just be warned…

Bernard

Philip with David Walliams

Christine with Miranda Hart

Florence with Miranda Hart

Benjamin with Lorraine Kelly

Jose with Lorraine Kelly

Vaccines with John Bishop

Kariatu (little bit of a guess at the spelling) with John Bishop

Catriona with JLS

Margaret with JLS

After one VT, I forget which one, Davina McCall was struggling to keep it together as she did the next link – I was impressed with how composed she was considering how upsetting I’d found it, but again, it was really good to see that these videos were affecting the presenters, not an inconvenience to the show, but the point of the whole thing. It’s a real problem.

I’d really encourage you to donate to Sport Relief. Just because they raised a record total that doesn’t mean it’s enough. Just because we are winning the battle against poverty it does not mean that the fight is over – there’s a long way to go!

The other thing I’d like to give you as an option if you don’t like to give and not know exactly where your money is going, then maybe consider sponsoring a child with Compassion UK. I’m not speaking as a member of staff here, but as a sponsor – I’m building a personal relationship with my sponsored kids, and getting to know them and hearing what the money does – incredible!

Last weekend I was at my parents and mum had dug out a whole load of my old primary school work for me to go through and decide what was worth keeping and recycle the rest.

I spent most of the Saturday reading through science, history and geography stuff from junior school, and found some of it really interesting, it was like reading it for the first time!

Which begs the question my mum asked – what’s the point in teaching those things at school? Who honestly remembers all the facts they learn about the Romans or the names of the muscles or different settlement types?

There’s obviously value in methods and processes like maths and English, things that are life skills. But random facts – was that really worth the effort they put in?!

It was interesting to read it all, don’t get me wrong, but I barely remembered any of it! Maybe it’s just me…

Do you remember those things you learnt at school?

I help out at a kids club at church, and last week, the guy due to do games this week said to me that he was away this week and would I mind doing it.

I have real difficulty saying no here. If he’d said would I like to, I probably would have said no, but he asked if I minded. Big mistake.

So, this week came around, I had a couple of game ideas in my head, people at work had helped with some ideas and I thought I might just about manage it.

I got down to kids club, sat with them through the craft, then went to the kitchen while they had drinks. By this point I’d realised how scared I was getting. I was too scared to even talk to them. My game ideas were falling apart due to not being right for their age, not having the right number of kids, not having the right equipment, and generally, just having boring ideas.

Someone came up to me and asked if I was ok and what my plans were, and quite frankly, I fell apart.

I’m a wuss and I’m sorry.

They told me it wasn’t a problem, someone else could do it, and I spent the rest of the evening with the older group which actually went really well.

But. How much easier would it have been for everyone, (particularly the wonderful people who stood in for me) if I had said no the week before and maybe caused inconvenience for someone, but at least would have given them 7 days to prepare rather than 7 seconds.

Pathetic isn’t it? But I think I learnt a lesson tonight.