Virginia Ironside (born 3 February 1944) is a British journalist,

agony aunt An advice column is a column in a question and answer format. Typically, a (usually anonymous) reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response. The responses are wr ...

and author. Born in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, she is the daughter of

Christopher Ironside Christopher Ironside OBE, FRBS (11 July 1913, London – 13 July 1992, Winchester, Hampshire) was an English painter and coin designer, particularly known for the reverse sides of the new British coins issued on decimalisation in 1971. Life an ...

, painter and coin designer, and

Janey Ironside Janey Ironside (1919 – 6 April 1979)"Professor Janey Ironside", ''The Times'', 19 November 1979, p. IV. was professor of fashion at London's Royal College of Art, a position she held from 1956 to 1968. She was a key figure in enabling fashion t ...

who was the first professor of fashion design at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It ...

. She was the niece of the painter and designer Robin Ironside.

Education

Ironside attended

Miss Ironside's School Miss Ironside's School (also called Miss Ironside's Day School and Miss Ironside's School For Girls) was a school at 2 Elvaston Place, in Kensington. The journalist John Walsh, writing in ''The Daily Telegraph'', called it "legendary". Notable alu ...

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Garden ...

, where her great-aunt was headmistress.

Career

Ironside writes a column, "Dilemmas", for ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

,'' an agony column for the ''

Idler The Idler refers to someone idle: * An idle game * A slacker, a person who habitually avoids work * Idler-wheel, a system used to transmit the rotation of the main shaft of a motor to another rotating device * Idler circuit, a circuit in a parame ...

'', and a monthly column for '' The Oldie''. Her first book, ''Chelsea Bird'', was published when she was 19. During the 1960s she wrote a

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States a ...

column for the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

'' newspaper. She is an Honorary Associate of the

National Secular Society The National Secular Society (NSS) is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of it. It was ...

Comments about abortion

Ironside received attention after her appearance on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

's religious discussion programme, '' Sunday Morning Live'', in 2010. She stated "If a baby's going to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely an abortion is the act of a loving mother" and added "If I were the mother of a suffering child – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face... If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would." Though some viewers supported Ironside, many complaints were registered on the programme's website message board.

My Death My Decision

Ironside is a Patron of the right to die organisation,

My Death My Decision My Death, My Decision (MDMD) is an organisation that campaigns for the legalisation of assisted dying in England and Wales. The group was founded in 2009, in order to campaign for a change in the law and advocate on behalf of adults of sound ...

. My Death My Decision is a right to die campaign organisation that wants to see a more compassionate approach to dying in the UK, including giving people the legal right to a medically assisted death if that is their persistent wish.

Works

*''Chelsea Bird'' (1964) *''Distant Sunset'' (1982) *''Made for Each Other'' (1985) *''How to Have a Baby and Stay Sane'' (1989) *''The Subfertility Handbook (Overcoming Common Problems)'' (1995) *''You’ll Get Over It: The Rage of Bereavement'' (1997) *''Problems! Problems!: Confessions of an Agony Aunt'' (1998) *''Goodbye, Dear Friend: Coming to Terms with the Death of a Pet'' (1998) *''Janey and Me: Growing Up with My Mother'' (2003) *''The Huge Bag of Worries'' (2004) *''No! I Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub'' (2007) *''The Virginia Monologues – 20 Reasons Why Growing Old is Great'' (2009)

References

External links

''The Virginia Monologues''
1944 births Living people British advice columnists British women columnists British women writers British women journalists Writers from London {{UK-journalist-stub