My blood boiled when I saw this headline on the BBC website:

Queen in anniversary tribute to British Red Cross

The Queen praised the “dedicated work” of the British Red Cross on its 150th anniversary. Better still, the old girl added, volunteers and staff are “valued and greatly appreciated”, she said. I started shaking with anger when I read that bit.

I do not intend to repeat in any detail the pattern of bullying and abuse I suffered when working for the British Red Cross in Warmley which culminated with me being shouted at by an area manager and told to work on my own out of a broom cupboard in Easton. I’ll remind you, my loyal reader, about some aspects of my awful experience which caused me to have a mental breakdown.

• After I was bullied and abused, the local manager said I was the one who needed to go on an anger management course and not the bullies and abusers.
• The occupational health officer tried to ridicule me by saying I was “emotionally weak”.
• After the incidents of bullying and abuse, I was the member of staff who was sent to work alone out of a broom cupboard in Easton.
• When I wrote to £180k per annum CEO Mike Adamson, he revealed that the internal investigation, which was carried about by the line manager of the main abuser, concluded that the bullying and abuse never happened so they wouldn’t say sorry. The line manager has since been promoted on a number of occasions.
• When all this was going on, I kept finding nails driven into the tyres of my car when it was on my drive. This was, of course, a complete coincidence.

The scars have never healed from my time at the British Red Cross and given their uncaring and dismissive attitude since I left in 2017 – Adamson has never bothered to acknowledge subsequent letters I have sent to him – and I have vowed to never again donate anything to this horrible behemoth of a charity, whose finances are shrouded in mystery and spends enormous sums on highly paid staff. The British Red Cross has more money than God so they don’t need yours and I am not the only person who has been a victim of bulling and abuse because other Red Cross ‘survivors’ have contacted me to say my story was not unique.

Prince Charles says of Red Cross volunteers: “Their conspicuous humanity in times of crisis offers an inspiration to us all.” Yes, he’s right about that. But there’s nothing inspirational about the British Red Cross bullies and abusers who got very close to ruining my life and stole from me the best job I ever had.

The particular bullies and abusers have both left the British Red Cross have long left the organisation. Whether their attitudes remain, who knows? I’ve kept all my detailed notes for a rainy day. But I wouldn’t piss on the British Red Cross if it was on fire.