ISLA FISHER reveals the touching gift Sacha Baron Cohen bought her after her father died… as she shares the personal mission that took her back to Scotland, land of her forefathers
Karen Erskine is a busy woman and her workload is mounting by the day. ‘Families are coming to us thick and fast, and we predict more will be referred in the coming months,’ she says.
As a service manager for Glasgow North and North Lanarkshire’s Home-Start, a community support project that works with Save the Children, Erskine – along with a team of staff and volunteers – helps pregnant women and families with young children who are struggling with challenges such as mental health, poverty and isolation.
This past week alone, she has supported 120 local families with an array of services, both practical and emotional, from volunteer home visits to community-based groups and counselling referrals.
Jacket and trousers, Joseph. Jumper, Day Birger et Mikkelsen at Fenwick
Isla with husband Sacha Baron Cohen
It’s a crisp autumn day when I meet her in an airy church hall in North Lanarkshire where Home-Start holds many of its group sessions. As the days get shorter and temperatures drop, Erskine predicts lots more families will be coming through the church’s doors seeking help. ‘Many mums say they’re dreading winter,’ she says. ‘Salaries are having to stretch further than ever before. Being a parent is challenging at the best of times, so we have to make sure we’re there for them when they need us most.’
Erskine is matter-of-fact about the work she does, but I can’t help feeling I’m talking to one of the everyday, unsung heroes of the community in Glasgow.
Isla with her dad in 1983
This visit is highly personal for me as Scotland is where my ancestral roots are. In many ways, these are my people. As a young girl, I lived just 20 minutes away from this very building. Both my parents are Scottish and relatives are still dotted around the area.
Returning here brings hazy memories back into focus: wearing a kilt on my second birthday; scratchy woollen tights encasing my stocky toddler legs; the invigorating hikes in the Highlands, running and clambering to keep pace with my brothers as cold winds whipped at our cheeks. I remember the LPs of Highland pipe music my parents played to remind them of their youth. Even my name – Isla – comes from Islay, the small Hebridean island off the west coast of Scotland famous for the peaty single-malt whiskies my late father used to love.
Here in the church hall, boxes full of toys from the noisy mother-and-toddler playgroup I joined earlier are stashed under tables. Amid the chaos of children scampering around and tumbling over themselves, I saw how these groups can be a lifeline for people feeling trapped by the pressures of parenthood.
Isla’s dad with Princess Anne in 1987 in Perth, Western Australia
Faiza joined us with her beautiful three-year-old boy, Zakariya, who flashes me a cheeky grin from under his shock of black curls. A local mother to six rowdy boys, Faiza has been coming to the group for nearly five years, and she says the effect on her mental health and self-worth has been transformative.
‘I didn’t leave the house with the children before,’ Faiza says. ‘I found it too overwhelming and got myself into a negative mindset. But the toddler sessions have helped me grow in confidence. They make you forget the struggles you might be facing. When you are down, the sessions make you feel like life’s not so hard.’
Many here are living at the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis. I hear of parents earning double incomes and still unable to cover the basics; mothers skipping meals so their children can eat; how the crisis is tipping many here into food poverty.
With Faiza and her son Zakariya at the home-start group
In the UK, nearly four million children live in families that are food insecure, meaning they struggle consistently to afford healthy meals. In Glasgow, it’s estimated that nearly one in three children is living in poverty and new Save the Children research shows the same rate applies across Scotland for families with a baby under one – much higher than the national average of one in four. Sometimes what families need is an emergency injection of money. Save the Children works with Home-Start to provide just that – an immediate grant of up to £340 for families with children under six who are facing hardship, so they can get food on the table, pay their heating bill or buy the essentials they need to survive.
I feel incredibly touched that the women are sharing their stories with me. Motherhood can be isolating at best. Throw in financial difficulties, soaring food prices, mental-health struggles and I know I’m talking to some real fighters.
Isla and her Dad in Perth in 1987
This is the first time I’ve been to Scotland since Dad passed away in January, aged 84. Over the past months, I’ve learnt to cope with the sudden and searing waves of grief that were once overwhelming. Now, being here in Scotland makes me feel closer to him. I hear his voice in the accents of the people I meet. I see his stoic determination in theirs.
Brian Fisher was born into a working-class household in Bathgate the year the Second World War erupted. A modest, brilliant man, he was best known for his sense of humour. Jokes were a currency in our family and you were rewarded for getting the loudest laugh. Plus, nothing was off limits, something that has no doubt inspired my comedic acting over the years – and possibly my choice of husband [the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen] too. But it was Dad’s career that, when I was six, took us to Australia, where he went on to become chief executive officer of Western Australia’s Save the Children Fund. And so we come full circle.
Isla in 1979 in Cambridge
He was always proud of his work supporting disadvantaged children both in Australia and around the world – as was I. He described meeting Princess Anne – who took over from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as the charity’s patron in 2017 after serving as its president since 1970 – as the pinnacle of his career.
Inspired by his work and my interest in early-years development, I became an ambassador for Save the Children in 2012. My first involvement with the charity was for a breastfeeding campaign, when I visited the slums of São Paulo and met mothers who pumped their breastmilk so it could be donated to neonatal wards, giving babies who were ill or born premature the best start in life. Eleven years on, I still remember how inspired I was by this simple, selfless act. And it’s that feeling of sisterhood and solidarity that I’m reminded of while in Scotland. Here I can feel, once again, the power of human connection, of community. Sometimes it’s the small gestures that make everything OK.
Erskine agrees. ‘Having a cup of tea with families can be so, so powerful,’ she says. ‘We hear from parents that sometimes we’re the only people they see that week. They’re really isolated. And that’s what we’re all about – empowering families to grow in confidence and build strong relationships within themselves and the community.’
Perhaps that’s what I miss most about my dad since he left us: wherever I was in my life, he was there for me and we felt so connected. It’s no exaggeration to say that I spoke with him every day and those wide-ranging, at times very silly, conversations are what got me through the Covid pandemic in Los Angeles – when the world was in lockdown and human connection was in short supply.
After he died, Sacha bought me a ring so I could hold his memory close every day. It’s a simple gold band with a delicate Scottish heather. It reminds me of home.
To support children suffering food poverty in the UK and around the world, visit savethechildren.org.uk/donate-today
Picture director: Ester Malloy.
Stylist: Nicola Rose.
Stylist’s assistant: Hope Palmer.
Hair: Ben Cooke at Frank Agency using Bondi Boost.
Make-up: Sarah Reygate at Carol Hayes using Giorgio Armani.
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