MRS GORMAN'S HORMONES

Candida Crewe meets

the energetic defender of hormone replacement

'THERE'S a clinic now where a man can go and have a plastic rod stuck in his winkle to keep it up,' the MP for Billericay informed me. 'Men are just as vain as women, you see. Like us, they also resort to medical practices to prolong their youth, but nobody comments on that.' Teresa Gorman is 57 and, according to Private Eye, has more hormones in her than a Christmas turkey. She is on Hor- mone Replacement Therapy. This treat- ment is meant to relieve middle-aged women of menopausal symptoms such as sweating, migraines, forgetfulness and de- pression. Apparently it also halts bone decay and protects users against heart disease, strokes and senility. What is more, it is supposed to improve hair, skin, and nails as well.

'All I want is women in this country to know about it and to be able to go on it if they choose,' she declared. We were sitting in her small Westminster house. The panelled sitting-room was light and crowded with books. On one of the shelves a blue 'Vote Conservative' rosette had been pinned; on another a vase of dried artichokes stood near a bottle of sherry.

'When Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, he was ridiculed by the medical world. Darwin got it in the neck too. And now I'm getting the same kind of flak for promoting HRT.'

The NHS prescribes it grudgingly and only in extreme cases. Thus two years ago Mrs Gorman set up a charity, based in London, called the Amarant Trust. It aims to raise money for further research into the treatment, and to set up special clinics to make it more accessible to women nation- wide. She has appealed to both the public and private sectors for funds.

'Although I'll get nothing back myself, except satisfaction, I've put a lot of my own resources into the trust — a five-figure sum! Progressive companies such as Marks & Spencer have responded well, and we had a good meeting with Kenneth Clarke earlier this year. The Government turned us down for a grant when Edwina was junior minister. She wasn't helpful; she didn't think of the idea first.'

Mrs Gorman glanced at the coffee table in front of her. Beside a copy of the Daily Mail and a nail-file the size of a small ruler, was a big fat report called The Risk of Food Poisoning from Eggs. 'I suppose,' she went on, 'it wasn't really out of bitchiness. She was probably influenced by her advisers who seemed to prefer to spend millions on research into ills such as Aids and heart disease, both of which happen primarily to affect men!'

Mrs Gorman, who had small clocks on her shoes instead of buckles, looked indig- nant on her sofa. Her expression was as formidable as the bright splashy flowers on her white silk shirt. 'Those of us women who've come out and publicly admitted we're on HRT are as brave as the suff- ragettes,' she proclaimed. The tight banana-coloured curls shook a bit. `FIRT's a very, very womanly, femaly movementy thing, you know. The medical profession and the media are dominated by men, and men are chauvinistically dismissive of HRT.'

Critics of the therapy say it can increase the risks of cancer to the breast, womb and cervix. Mrs Gorman is hotly defensive. She says it cannot. 'It's been going for 40 years in America. Advanced research has greatly refined treatments in that time. It would have stopped long ago if people's toes had started falling off. The fact is 30 per cent of menopausal women take it there, and only two per cent do so in Britain. There are ten million who could benefit from it, and that number increases by 250,000 a year. But the British attitude is that women should take nature on the chin, not try and fight the ageing process. Do men eschew dental treatment for ageing teeth? Of course not. Yet women are meant to rot after child- bearing age.'

She reminded me that in the past women rarely survived into their fifties. 'They had ten children and died,' she said. 'But now, because of contraception and healthier living, we last much longer. Economically it's enormously significant that we stay well and feel good. There are fewer and fewer youngsters, so older people must go on working and not become a burden to the state. The NHS spend so much money patching up women for things HRT can prevent. For example, it costs them £165 million a year to mend 40,000 hip fractures caused by osteoporosis. HRT keeps women out of the hospitals, the divorce courts and the madhouses. The saving for the Government could be stupendous.'

Mrs Gorman started using HRT 14 years ago. She has lost weight and is full of confidence and energy. She gets up at six, works non-stop, goes to bed after one a.m. and feels 25 years younger than she did before. She cites other examples of HRT users who have benefited from it — Mrs Thatcher ('almost certainly on it, though she hasn't admitted it, and why should she if she's going to have to go through what I have?'); Patricia Rawlings; and Angela Rumbold.

All Conservative women, I pointed out. 'Look, it's not a well-to-do middle-class Tory thing. I've sent out literature about HRT to trade unions. I'm not trying to make it a party issue. It scatters across party lines. People like Barbara Cartland, Marje Proops and Kate O'Mara are all on it.' Isn't there a certain lack of dignity in women who wish to remain eternally young? 'Is there a lack of dignity in cripples who wish to throw away their crutches?' she retorted. 'I am the archetypal liberta- rian individual. I have no views if someone wants to have nose jobs or cosmetic surgery or spend money on expensive face creams. I personally don't want to look old, grey, fat and crumbly and not feel good about myself. And HRT makes that possible. It adds years to your life, not life to your years. Everyone tells me I'm amazing. I feel exuberant, healthy, in- terested in everything. And I'm doing four jobs, each more than enough work for one man.'

'Do we want,' she went on, 'to cultivate a lot of elderly women sitting round in institutions like cabbages waiting to be fed? I find the attitude of those doctors and politicians who are sceptical about HRT not absurd, but obscene.'

Do we want, I wondered, to cultivate a force of mature women with the youthful dynamism, sexual voraciousness and glow- ing complexions of those half their age? Is that not equally obscene? Alas, I didn't have the courage to pose these questions to Mrs Gorman. I was too fearful she might pick up the big fat egg report and, with all her new-found energy and exuberance, hurl it at me.

'I understood it had a granny flat.'