I feel a little ungrateful. In December 2009 I received a rather fine certificate from James Gray Antrican the retiring Chairman of the UKCP.  It read “On Behalf of the Board of Trustees of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy awards this certificate to Martin Pollecoff in recognition of their (I think this is often given to organisations) outstanding contribution to the UKCP and to Psychotherapy.I was quite ticked with that. It came in a gold frame and I brought it home,  showed my wife then,  in the run up to Christmas, I promptly forgot all about it   Anyway, this week I went to see Joanne Cash who is the conservative candidate for Westminster North a new constituency which is a mix of the gentified and yet to be gentrified parts of old Paddington.joanne@westminsternorthconservatives.com

I wanted to tell her about the www.thelongboathome.co.uk  - how we had started this service that provided reduced cost therapy for ex servicemen and women - their partners and adult dependants- and how we now had over 120 registered therapists.  I wanted her ‘on-side’.   Joanne listened patiently and then asked if the UKCP was behind me on this.  I answered that of course they were behind this.  Had I not had Professor Andrew Samuel’s own promise that he thought that this a god project, and David Pink’s exasperated reassurances that they had already given me support, but the UKCP website does not actually list social action groups because to do so could mean a fast tumble into the gummy oubliette of new-age politics.  And then I remembered the award, which I got for ‘The Long Boat Home’ project.

So Joanne, the answer is:  ”Yes they do and I have a certificate to prove it.” Joanne is backing the project and I have volunteered to canvass for her come May 6th.

So to get back to my ingratitude.  When I am trying to sell this project I normally take with me my Blackberry - to demonstrate the www.thelongboathome.co.uk web site,  an A-Z Great Britain Roadmap with 120 red stickers on showing where our volunteers live (We need at least another 500 volunteer therapists). Now I take my gold framed ‘Award’ indicating the backing of the UKCP and my status as someone who is not as barmy as I look or sound.   No one, but no one, works an award harder than I do.  So - to the trustees of the UKCP- thank you.  That award is helping us to create a network of professional care across the UK and that is pretty good.