In Aid of
Mikeysline
Amount donated: £53,421
Mikeysline is a multi-award-winning grass roots mental health and suicide prevention charity based in Highland offering non-judgemental, confidential peer support 365 days a year.
Mikeysline was formed out of tragedy to offer hope following the loss to suicide of two 23-year-old male friends within 48 hours of each other. This was against a background of increasing numbers of suicides at this time in Highland, particularly amongst younger people. At their wake, Mikey’s uncle talked to their peers and found that many of them felt there was nowhere to go if they were struggling with their mental health or thoughts of suicide, and they said that they would not use traditional phone helplines. The idea of the text line was born. Mikeysline’s textline was the first text helpline in the UK when formed in late 2015.
Chair
Emma Weir and Lady Venetia Fuller
Emma was born and raised in Scotland until she moved to London after school to start her career. She set-up and ran a successful boutique headhunting business for 25 years which specialised within the financial markets and had offices in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and New York. She also purchased Arisaig House in 2010 and her sister ran it as a hotel until 2020 when Emma retired. Emma is now running the house and holiday cottages as a rental business and sits on a number of Committees for charities.
Venetia grew up in Scotland and now lives in Wiltshire with her husband James. Together they run their home Neston Park which has an organic dairy herd with the milk going to Ivy House, The Old Cheese Room and their own ice cream “Luscious”. Neston is also used for filming including Larkrise to Candleford, Poldark, Agatha Raisin, Persuasion, Four Seasons and The Other Wife to name a few.
Sponsors
Speakers
Lady Anne Glenconner
Lady Glenconner was born Lady Anne Coke in 1932, the eldest daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, and grew up in their ancestral estate at Holkham Hall in Norfolk. A Maid of Honour at the Queen's Coronation, she married Lord Glenconner in 1956. They had 5 children together of whom 3 survive. In 1958 she and her husband began to transform the island of Mustique into a paradise for the rich and famous. They granted a plot of land to Princess Margaret who built her favourite home there. She was appointed Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret in 1973 and kept this role – accompanying her on many state occasions and foreign tours – until her death in 2002. Lord Glenconner died in 2010, leaving everything in his will to his former employee. She now lives in a farmhouse near Kings Lynn in Norfolk.
Lady Glenconner's memoir, Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown, was published in 2019 and was an immediate Sunday Times bestseller. Her first novel Murder on Mustique was published in 2020.