When Rosa Monckton gave birth to her daughter Domenica, one of the first to pay a call was the late Princess of Wales. Given the two had long been friends, the visit was unexceptional. But what did surprise Monckton was the princess’s announcement that she would like to be Domenica’s godmother. “It was very much her decision,” recalls Monckton 20 years later. “She was quite clear: she said that Domenica would need all the help that she could get.”
For Domenica was born with Down’s syndrome. While she is now a confident, gregarious young woman, someone who completed mainstream school and who now studies catering at Brighton City College, she will always be vulnerable. “Domenica has no filter on her emotions and will never be able to live on her own. She will always need to be in a safe protected environment,” Monckton says. Her learning disability is not the same as dyslexia or ADHD. “What it means is mental impairment. Domenica’s cognitive functions are not in step with her chronological age.”
But that’s not to say she doesn’t need to work. Like many of the other 1.3 million people with learning disabilities in Britain, Domenica thrives on the sense of purpose and self-esteem which comes with a job well done. It is as important to her as it would be to any of us. It is this truth which has inspired Monckton’s latest endeavour: the founding this week of a charity called Team Domenica which will help people with a learning disability into employment.
Monckton, 62, is dashing in a tailored grey tweed suit and fresh from a lunch at the Dorchester when we meet in my kitchen. She brims with brio as she describes her vision for the charity, which should be up and running by the autumn in a pilot scheme in Brighton. There are three elements. The first is a café where around 20 young people with learning disabilities will work alongside people who are qualified. They will be chefs, waiters, front of house staff, on the marketing team, or designing the menus.
The genius of the scheme is that there will be a wide range of possible jobs on offer, which will play to the differing strengths of those involved. “We are already plotting picnics in baskets, and Christmas cakes with company logos,” enthuses Monckton, who at an earlier stage in her career was managing director of Tiffany & Co and then chief executive of the jeweller Asprey & Garrard. It is clear she has lost none of her retail nous.
Then there will an educational course helping its 20 participants develop skills for life. Monckton has already recruited two specialist teachers. Finally, there are plans for an employment agency, allied to the course, but open to all those who have learning disabilities to help place 50 people a year in work. Monckton’s attention to detail on all matters to do with her charity exemplifies the cliché that retail is detail – she is still director of a jewellery company. She plans that local employers will hire two people for each job.
“It’s much better if there is at least one other person on your wavelength,” she says. “Inclusion without companionship is not satisfactory. Domenica is the happiest she’s ever been now that she is with others with learning disabilities. She’s in an environment where everyone is on a level playing field.”
The plan is for a seamless transition from the end of Domenica’s course in July to work at the café in the autumn. Monckton’s tenacity is such that she has already raised £325,000 towards the £400,000 start-up costs, and has three part-time staff. She is adamant that much of the credit should go to Martin Armstrong, a fellow Catholic and businessman who is the charity’s chairman and who made the donation that kickstarted Team Domenica.
She is fired by a fury at the lack of jobs for those who deserve them. Currently just six per cent of those with learning disabilities are employed. “These people are trained to an exceptionally high standard at Brighton City College, yet no one will employ them. Other parents like me despair for the future of their children. The whole journey of being a parent of one of these children is one long, exhausting battle. It’s not just getting them jobs, but where they will live, too.” More and more homes for those with learning disabilities are closing.
Monckton is highly critical of successive governments, which she feels have shown no interest in this pressing social problem, perhaps on the assumption that there are few votes in it. Whereas the physically disabled have a powerful voice in the corridors of power, those with mental disabilities don’t. “I am determined to be that voice,” she says. At times, listening to the challenges she and Domenica have encountered, I wonder how she’s kept going. Her faith has sustained her, though it has waxed and waned over the years. She describes herself as a “Doubting Thomas” who at times is so dismayed by the cruelty of the world that she wonders about God’s existence.
She went to a Catholic boarding school in Belgium between 1965 and 1970. Her father, the Viscount Monckton, was posted overseas as a general in the British Army. Her schooling was such a dreadful experience of fear-driven faith that she abandoned the Church. Yet in her 20s on a trip to Lourdes with her father she met Dom Antony Sutch, who reawakened her faith. Later Fr Alexander Sherbrooke, the parish priest of St Patrick’s, Soho, was another inspiration. “I had lost a baby at six months between our two daughters, Savannah and Domenica. Fr Alexander turned up and he was incredible. He just sat at my bedside in hospital and prayed.”
Fr Alexander also baptised Domenica. Up to that point, Monckton had found it hard to accept the reality of being a mother of a child with Down’s syndrome, unlike her husband, the journalist and former Sunday Telegraph editor Dominic Lawson. But at the baptism she had a moment of epiphany and felt a sense of acceptance of all that had befallen her. She found God in the innocence of Domenica, an innocence she retains as an adult. In addition, Monckton’s work is inspired by Pope Francis. “His is a message of mercy,” she says. “That’s what this charity is about: compassion. I feel it’s completely disappeared from public life.”
As we end our chat, Monckton recalls a Sunday lunch in December when Domenica was seven. An older guest admonished Domenica for behaving badly and told her that baby Jesus would tell Father Christmas not to come if she continued. “Baby Jesus isn’t a tell-tale tit,” replied Domenica. In a few words, Monckton gives something of the spirited flavour of her daughter’s engaging character. Equally, as the late Princess of Wales wisely said, she is also a young woman who needs all the help she can get. How lucky for her, and potentially countless others, that Domenica has a mother like Rosa Monckton.
Rachel Kelly is the author of Walking on Sunshine: 52 Small Steps to Happiness, published by Short Books, £9.99
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