WHEN a crazed knifeman started indiscriminately stabbing 38-year-old mother Ashlee Good and her baby during a routine shopping trip in a Sydney mall, she displayed an astonishing clarity of thought.
She “threw” nine-month-old Harriet in to the arms of passing strangers and begged them: “Please, please help.”
Ashlee, an osteopath, later died from her wounds, but her rapid reaction may well have saved the life of her daughter, who is now in a “serious but stable” condition in hospital.
Her friend Steven Foxwell, who has organised a GoFundMe page for her devastated partner Dan and the now motherless Harriet, says: “Ash was a ray of sunshine and positivity in every aspect of her life and died a hero saving her little girl from the most unspeakable evil.”
It was indeed a heroic act, but she probably wouldn’t have seen it that way.
She was simply placing her child’s welfare before her own in this heart-breaking example of that most powerful of things — “a mother’s love”.
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A dad would do it too, of course, but physically we are known as the weaker sex, so the term “hysterical strength” is used when, for example, a mother might find the power to lift a car to free her child.
It’s hard to test because, as one expert put it: “You can’t really design an experiment to do this in a lab and make people think they’re going to die.
“Something has to happen by fluke.”
When it does, a cocktail of adrenalin and stress can give us “super-human” strength, like the documented case of a mother who broke down a door with her shoulder when her toddler was locked inside.
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But rather than physical power, Ashlee’s “super-human” action was purely a psychological strength which, despite being under attack, allowed her to focus on getting her child to safety.
Such laser focus when you are in danger is rare.
Indeed, in his new book Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder, author Salman Rushdie has spoken of being attacked by a knifeman at a literary event in 2022 and says: “I just stood there like a pinata and let him smash me.”
This paralysis of thought or action is reportedly a common reaction for those in potential life or death situations.
But the sheer force of Ashlee’s love for her child prompted a quick-thinking action that has hopefully saved Harriet’s life.
HAROLD WILSON, for those too young to remember, was the pipe-smoking Labour PM of this country twice, from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1976.
Born in Huddersfield, he was exceptionally bright but spoke with a distinctive nasal twang that made him an impersonator’s dream.
He also looked middle-aged from birth.
So it may come as a surprise to learn that, despite being married to wife Mary from 1940 until his death in 1995, he had not one, but two, possible mistresses — both of whom worked for him, and one being 22 years his junior.
Ah, the heady aphrodisiac of power.
Still, it didn’t seem to bother his wife Mary, who saw them both off and lived until she was 102.
CLAIRVOYANT Rebekah Carmichael reckons she and ghost hunter girlfriend Katharyn Birgfeld are in a throuple with a British soldier from 1781.
Rebekah, who lives in the US (where else?), says she has a polyamorous relationship with the other two, but Katharyn has a strictly platonic relationship with the ghost of “Rupert” who is 6ft 6in with blond hair and blue eyes.
Sounds more like a Viking or Peter Crouch if you ask me.
But I digress.
When delusional souls tell us they’re in relationships with someone from the past, it’s never a fugly with rotting, pre-Revolution teeth and smallpox, is it?
£10,000 bikini? Are they fur real…
SOMEONE has paid £10,000 at auction for a Raquel Welch bikini inspired by the one she wore in the movie One Million Years B.C..
Let’s hope they have a body like hers to showcase it.
Otherwise, they’ve forked out a small fortune on what resembles a particularly loaded nappy.
HAVEN’T yet seen the Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black but I hear that Dermot O’Leary is very good in it.
Amol must drop it
MASTERMIND and Radio 4’s Today host Amol Rajan says that, until recently, he thought the word “aitch” was pronounced “haitch”.
An easy mistake to make.
My mother was a teacher and fanatical about grammar, so during my “too cool for school” teen years she would walk along behind me pretending to sweep up what she claimed were my “dropped aitches”.
But when the word for the letter H doesn’t actually start with H, you can see why “proper” English is so tricky to learn.
AS Meghan and Harry launch two new Netflix shows, its chief executive says: “You may love them or hate them, but you’re watching.”
No we’re not.
A bad dream
SINCE moving to Portugal in 2016 and filming it for Channel 4’s Our Wildest Dreams, Brits Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco have been subjected to a hate campaign in the village of Guarda.
They’ve been spat at, had their pets poisoned, been called “English pigs” and, in poor Lynn’s case, “a devil-worshipping prostitute”. Nice.
“Time to Be” is the slogan for Portugal’s ad campaigns aimed at attracting international tourism.
Time to be on a plane home might be more apt.
BELIEVE it or not, bras are subject to VAT.
Now experts are debating whether it’s discriminatory against women and should be scrapped.
I’d say so, particularly as antiques are exempt and most of my undergarments qualify.
Willy do it?
DIET Coke launched in 1982 and since then the adverts have featured an array of celebrities and, of course, shirtless male models being ogled by women.
Now actor Barry Keoghan has reportedly signed a six-figure deal to appear in the next campaign, so will he go a step further and re-enact the naked gyrating from his latest movie Saltburn?
And, if so, will it be a prosthetic or, staying on brand, the real thing?
Why I’m taking a stand?
I WAS offered a seat on a crowded Tube train the other day.
I’d just had my roots done as well.
So . . . not grey then, not using anything resembling a walking aid and, after my recent droopy eyelid removal, looking a little more fresh-faced than usual. Or so I thought.
Prompting the burning question: Why was I offered a seat?
It wasn’t chivalry, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, because it wasn’t a man. It was a young woman.
I politely declined, but spent the rest of the journey mulling over her possible reasoning.
Did she think I looked unsteady on my feet? Or maybe I reminded her of her mother?
In the end, I concluded that it was just a sisterly act of good manners and went on my way.
But this week, I read about 66-year-old Filipe Edreira, a recycling plant worker from Worcester who sued after a colleague offered him a chair.
The judge at the Birmingham tribunal said he, “could legitimately conclude that he was being treated disadvantageously” but ultimately rejected the claim as it couldn’t be proven it was offered purely because of his age.
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Jeez. Young men are stabbing each other on our streets and 72 per cent of car thefts are unattended by police, but our specialist courts are being used for this nonsense?
I think I need to sit down.
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Adam Sonin
