Profile of Deborah
Deborah Hutton was born into a large family in Norfolk and became a mother of four with two boys, Archie and Freddie and two girls, Romilly and Clemmie. Whilst devoted to them, she also pursued her career as a health writer, publishing books on the subject for women, and writing as a journalist, twenty-five years with Vogue as well as for other magazines and newspapers.
Strange to think it now, but attitudes to smoking in Deborah’s youth were so different, and though not permitted at school, she was actually given a lighter as a sixteenth birthday present. Occasional smoking in her mid-teens developed into a twenty a day habit as a student. She stopped soon after meeting her non-smoking husband, Charlie Stebbings, a photographer in London and the arrival of children prevented her ever going back to her old habit.
Above all Deborah had a huge respect for the value of family ties and friendship. She was always prepared to support those having a hard time and in her wisdom, tell the plain truth to those of her friends whom perhaps didn’t want to hear it – making a true friendship born of love. This honesty in everything she did informed her work as a journalist.
She was a great communicator, so clear in what she wrote - however difficult the subject - and a joy to listen to when talking. Even the most serious matters she could illuminate with plain common sense and humour.
Deborah had extraordinary energy all through her life coupled with a sense of real conviction in her writing, even more keenly felt by those around her in the seven months after her diagnosis, knowing she had Stage IV lung cancer. She regarded her personal experiences as valuable lessons from which other people - as well as she herself - could gain.
Through writing her blog she took many people along with her on her final journey, informing and debating as well as providing much amusement and of course comfort. During this brief period she not only tried to raise awareness of the need for greater funding for lung cancer research, she also became very aware of the long term damage smoking causes, in particular to young women who can more readily develop less operable lung cancers which so often prove fatal.
To help others with a terminal illness Deborah also wrote a remarkably positive and clever book called ‘What can I do to help?’ - a supremely practical guide, containing examples of ways in which friends and family of people who are terminally ill can really make a difference. The book was published four days before she died.
Just two days before she died she dictated a brief but heartfelt note of gratitude to all who had supported her through her life, ending with one simple request… ‘And if I could ask just one more thing, it would be to go out and do a little kindness.’
It is out of this simple thought that The Deborah Hutton Campaign was born to focus on a subject so close to her heart - the danger to young people of smoking cigarettes.
She died at home on July 15th, 2005 aged 49.