It is a column my mother clipped from the paper and pinned to her notice board. Over three years later it remains there, but this week, for the first time in a long time, it caught my eye. For one very important reason, as I read it it caught a lot more than that. Here it is...

As a bloke, it’s not for me to talk about what things are like for women or how these things have changed through history.

I’ll never know the world from a woman’s point of view, nor truly be able to understand many of the issues that women face every day, because – quite simply – I’m not one.

My world, however, is full of inspirational women, and in the spirit of International Women’s Day, I’d like to talk a bit about them.

We’ll start at the top. I’m lucky enough to have two grandmothers, who each recently turned 89 and 93 respectively. Both have lived through nearly a century of change and uncertainty and done so with gusto, grit and determination.

Each has met every challenge life has thrown at them head on, and for a large part have done this without my grandfathers, who both passed many years ago.........

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