Chewing the cud, The Complaining Cow

Helen Dewdney is The Complaining Cow. A trusted consumer champion, journalist best-selling author and blogger, empowering consumers to gain the redress to which they are entitled.

Helen is the “go to” person to talk about how to complain effectively, consumer rights and topical consumer issues. She regularly appears in the media giving consumer advice and opinion about complaining and customer service.

Helen is frequently seen and heard on BBC Breakfast, The One Show, BBC Radio 2, 4 and 5 all the national newspapers and many magazines, giving advice and opinion on consumer issues.

School magazine complaint

Over 40 years ago, when I was about 12 years old, I started a school magazine. I got a couple of friends together and we sold each copy for 10p!

Then something annoyed me. The boys and girls were put together for P.E. and we only ever did “boys games”. I had no problem with playing what were considered then to be “boys games” (aside from disliking all sports of course!)

My issue was that we never played netball (the only game I was actually good at, of course, played Goal Attack – I’m sure I liked that position because it had the word Attack” in it! Anyway I digress…) I mentioned this to my father who casually said “I wonder what the Sex Discrimination Act would say about that.” So did I, so I decided to ask the whole school through the magazine.

Result?

I got stopped from producing the magazine. However, the discrimination (as I perceived it) stopped the following week and we played netball.

Fighting and effecting change

Now of course, I would write an article about equality, varied curriculum, anti discriminatory practice, Curriculum etc etc. But of course it wouldn’t be happening, the equivalent now might be not letting the girls play football?! Back in the 80’s I think it was poor planning and laziness, perhaps the Head wasn’t aware that the staff were putting everyone together every week? Who knows?

But what I do know, is that most of the pupils were moaning about it at the time. No-one did anything about it. So I did. It gave me my first lesson in censorship, stopped my tiny earnings, got me into trouble and I’m not sure if that was the start of my name frequenting the staff room. (Which it most certainly did!) But most importantly it made a change.

Remember this was long before the concept of School Councils where now an issue such as this would easily be discussed.

Complaining to magazines

As a teenager I wrote to Jackie magazine talking about an organisation that raised funds for alternatives to experimenting on animals and got my letter printed. They didn’t pay up so I had to write and complain. At college I wrote to Nursery World informing them that the “100’s of jobs” was grammatically incorrect, twice over. No-one responded but they did change the fortnightly cover.

So, I pinpoint my censorship episode as the time I decided that if I was going to complain I was going to do something about it. Principle of the thing. If it was wrong it should be brought to the Powers That Be’s attention, regardless of the names I got/get called for doing it!

This has probably been the driving force in my life, fighting for the rights for children and young people, fighting the systems in local government (as an employee and resident!) and fighting for better customer service. All boils down to the same thing, sometimes changes have to be made, it is the “Principle of the thing”.

Fighting for children, young people and those with learning disabilities

I became a volunteer for Waltham Forest Mencap for many years in clubs and as a committee member fighting for children and young people’s rights in the community. I worked for the National Association of Toy and Leisure Libraries fighting for children’s right to play.

I was a Play Service manager at Thurrock running projects and fighting for children’s right to play and then the Children’s Fund Programme Manager and Play lead for the whole of Essex. Yup you’ve guessed it, commissioning and running early intervention and participation projects. I was fighting for extra funding (and yes it was good getting 11 out of 12 men in suits who had never heard of the word “play” agree to commit time and resources to a consultation project! That in turn ensured a few million quid from the Big Lottery. (Remember those days?!)

So always fighting.

Developing complaining effectively

Then, still as a teenager, I found my ‘cowsin’ Tricia complained a lot to companies and got redress. I think it was a chocolate biscuit hamper or similar that she got free that got my attention! Already armed with a ferocious and passionate fight to challenge and change the unjust, my fight to right the wrongs of bad customer service began…..

The fight for the consumer

I always fought for friends and family to gain redress where it was justified to do so.

Sometime in 2013 someone suggested I shared my stories and wisdom such as it was/is. So I set up a blog. I asked Facebook friends for a suggested title and put a couple out to vote!

The lovely Karalyne gave me my new and perfect name and The Complaining Cow Blog began…..

The Complaining Cow Blog growth

A couple of years into writing the blog it became hugely apparent, that there was a gaping great hole in the market for a book. It became an Amazon bestseller as soon as it was released in 2014 and remains so. I guess I was right, there was a big gap!