WEBVTT

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All right, we've got a question right here in the middle for Patrick Stewart. What is your name?

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My name is Heather.

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Hello, Heather. You OK?

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Yeah.

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OK, what's your question?

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All right, this is more of a somber question. I recently saw on YouTube how you talked

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to Amnesty Now, I think it was, um, about your view against violence against women,

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and that speech was really moving to me, and it helped me through my own turmoils a little bit.

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So I wanted to thank you personally for that. And then my question, segueing into that:

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Besides acting, what are you most proud of that you've done in your life

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that you're willing to share with us that isn't really into acting?

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Great question.
Thank you.

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I think you have very beautifully linked the important things together.

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The work that I do in campaigns about violence towards women, particularly domestic violence,

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is something that grew out of my own childhood experience, and I am associated

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particularly with one organisation in England called Refuge, which has since the 1970s

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provided, among many other services, safe houses for women and children.

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And I mean SAFE houses where they can go and feel, perhaps for the first time in years,

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secure with their children.

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Refuge is a great organisation. Now, a few months ago I did do this event, the Million Man Pledge,

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which was co-sponsored by the United Nations, and it is a great campaign which is based on the belief

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that the people who could do most to improve the situation of so many women and children

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are, in fact, men. It's in our hands to stop violence towards women.

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So I do what I do -- I do what I do in my mother's name because I couldn't help her then.

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Now I can. But since -- and I've talked often about this, I'm on record about my childhood --

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but last year, I learnt things about my father that I didn't know and my elder brother didn't know,

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and that was that in 1940, due to his experiences in France with the British expeditionary force,

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my father was suffering from what was then called severe shell shock.

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And that's what I read in his notes at the Imperial War Museum in England.

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We now know it as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and we also know that there are soldiers now

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all over the world, here in the United States and in the United Kingdom who are returning

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from combat zones with a serious condition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now we know what it is,

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and we know how to deal with it. In 1940 it was just shell shock, and basically soldiers were being told,

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"Pull yourself together. Get a grip on yourself and get out there and be a man."

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Well, it has put [incomprehensible] an expert in this condition who works with a charity,

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another organisation I'm now happy to be a patron of called Combat Stress, has said to me,

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"What your father had in 1940, because he was never treated, never left him.

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And all the conditions of your childhood that you have described to me are classic symptoms

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of veterans who were suffering from this serious psychological and physical illness."

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So I work for Refuge for my mother, and I work for Combat Stress for my father in equal measure.

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Thank you so much. That was a beautiful story.

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Thank you. And, my dear, are you OK? You are?

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Yeah... it, uh, knowing that the thing that happened... it's past and there was just a point of

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accepting that it was OK that it happened.
Yeah.

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And that I, you know, that I wasn't... because one thing that I've noticed is there's still that

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shaming of the women.
Yeah... yeah.

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And so, that, that speech really just finally let me say, "It's OK that that happened,"

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and you know, I can move on and heal. So I really appreciate it, I really do.

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As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, "Mrs Stewart,

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you must have done something to provoke him. Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make an argument."

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Wrong. Wrong! My mother did nothing to provoke that -- and even if she had, violence is

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never, ever a choice that a man should make. Ever.

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And you know...

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Guys, thank you. I look around and I see a lot of men standing up, and that's brilliant,

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because you have, here in Texas, a man called Michael Rawlings, Mayor of Dallas.

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Michael was with me on that platform at the United Nations event, and he spoke so potently

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and so powerfully about these issues. He spoke about it from his own experience of being

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a Texan and of living and working in Dallas, and I was so proud to share that platform with him.

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He's a remarkable individual. OK, we're gonna talk about other things.

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You take care of yourself.
You want a hug? Go get a hug.

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Almost impossible to follow. So, uh...