Ali Hewson: ethics girl - Telegraph (2024)

BY Justine Picardie | 18 May 2008

Not for Ali Hewson the traditional rock chick's pursuits of shopping and partying. Bono's wife is far too busy raising a family and worrying about saving the world. Could she also be an Irish president-in-waiting, asks Justine Picardie

There was a time when one might have expected a meeting with a rock star's wife to be attended by a certain amount of mayhem - temper tantrums and trashed hotel rooms, perhaps, or at the very least a retinue including a drug dealer, masseuse, hair stylist and personal astrologer.

But the softly spoken 47-year-old woman sitting opposite me in a suite in Claridge's is anything but the cartoon version of a hell-raising, hard-drinking rock chick; she is wearing a black calf-length Comme des Garçons skirt with a Victorian bell-sleeved blouse; raven hair neatly brushed, porcelain skin unadorned by make-up.

She is, in fact, very much her own woman - Ali Hewson rather than Mrs Bono - and as such it is not wifely duties that have brought her to London today, but a meeting with her business associates in Nude, a thoroughly modern, impeccably ethical skincare brand. And, as befits her role as a long-term environmental campaigner, she has travelled here from her home in Dublin not by private jet but by scheduled airline, and she won't be partying in the suite tonight, but returning in time to see her four children before they go to bed this evening.

When I arrive she is concluding a conversation with two of the aforementioned business associates - Bryan Meehan, the Irish entrepreneur who set up Fresh & Wild (and is therefore a major player in the green business world), and Julietta Dexter, the founder of the Communications Store, one of this country's most effective and influential PR companies. They make a formidable trio (backed up by Christy Turlington, who also has a say in the company, having tested each and every one of the Nude products) and, as a result, the range has none of the hippy-dippiness that has sometimes been an ingredient in organic skincare.

But, as Hewson makes clear, Nude lives up to its green promises, with recycled (and recyclable) pots and biodegradable packaging, right down to the non-toxic, water-soluble inks. 'We have to maintain the integrity of the brand,' she says. 'That is the first requirement.' Meehan nods his head. 'It was Ali who insisted on the packaging,' he says. 'We could have done it cheaper, but it had to be distinctive.'

Spend a little time in her company, and you begin to realise that Ali Hewson has a quietly distinctive way of getting things done, not only with Nude, which was launched last year, but also its sister company, Edun, an ethical clothing company established in 2005 that has been at the forefront of bringing Fairtrade into fashion. Thus, for all the gentleness of her demeanour, Hewson is also a force to be reckoned with, possessing the strength of character that has doubtless played a part in the success of her marriage to one of the most famous men on the planet.

They are generally regarded as having an unusually stable relationship - surviving an industry notorious for wreaking havoc on marital life - that has remained rock-solid for over three decades, since they met at Mount Temple school in Dublin, when Ali was 15, and Bono (who had already shed his real name, Paul Hewson) just a year older. 'He was my first real boyfriend,' she says, and when I ask her if she ever wanted to go out with anyone else she laughs and shakes her head. 'He's enough man for any woman.'

Clearly, U2 was part of their lives from the very start. 'It was 1976 that we got together - the same year that the band formed. I saw their first gig, in our school gym.' By 1982, when the couple married, Bono was already a fledgling rock star, with a touring schedule that kept him away for months at a time; a pattern that continued after the birth of their four children, as he conquered the globe, while she stayed at home.

'There is something to be said for those periods apart,' she says. 'It's a great way not to take someone for granted. Mind you, according to him, when he gets home after being on tour I just keep trying to tidy him up. When he climbs up on the kitchen table at 11 o'clock at night to play a gig, I have to tell him, "I'm not 60,000 people!" But it's never boring, that's for sure.'

As a way of life, it might seem to be a world apart from her own upbringing - her father worked nine to five in the electrical trade, her mother was a housewife, 'we were a good Protestant family, just the two children, me and my older brother' - but there are similarities. She remains very close to her own parents, who live nearby and have helped look after her children ('There's no one better than your parents - you can trust them to love your children just as you do'), and says she can't imagine a different kind of marriage to the one she has: 'I've never lived in any other way.'

Not that she put her own life on hold while her husband travelled the world: she studied for a degree in politics and sociology at University College Dublin, sitting her finals two weeks after the birth of her first child, Jordan, in May 1989 (the couple have two daughters, now 19 and 16, and two sons, aged eight and six).

'When I got pregnant with Jordan I thought, "Oh, God, she's due in May," which was ten days before my finals. So I could have been in labour during my exams. And it was my first baby - I had no idea what to expect. But a very wise woman said to me - when I was fretting about whether to put off my exams - "You'll have an unbelievable sense of calm when you have a baby. The hormones kick in, and you're breastfeeding, and you're actually very relaxed." I took her at her word, and it worked out. I did really well.'

But before you begin feeling annoyed at Hewson's apparently effortless take on motherhood, she adds, ruefully, 'I had two exams together on the last day, I'd had no sleep, and I couldn't get home to feed the baby, so I had to express my milk in the car. I drove to the furthest end of a car-park, expressed the milk, and had to throw it out of the window. There was nowhere to store it. Anyway, when I tried to drive back for the exam, the car wouldn't start. So I had to get out and run. I was five minutes late. I read the exam question - it was an essay question on moral philosophy - and everything went black. I literally couldn't see the paper - my vision had gone. I had to try to write what I thought was in a straight line. I think it was caused by dehydration and lack of sleep. But it was my best exam! Sadly, I haven't had a brain cell since I had children.'

Those who know her well do not agree, citing her ability to grasp crucial political issues at the same time as responding on an emotional level. The Irish broadcaster and U2 biographer Eamon Dunphy, has said, 'The best thing about Bono is Ali. She is calm and rational and able to see beyond individuals to policies.'

Hence her long-term activism - including spearheading a campaign to send 1.5 million postcards from the Irish people to Tony Blair, highlighting the risk of radioactive pollution from Sellafield drifting across to Ireland - and her involvement in charities to help the child victims of Chernobyl. In a neat illustration of her ability to make the personal political, she asked her husband to donate the substantial proceeds of the U2 hit single, Sweetest Thing - a song he wrote for her as an apology for forgetting her birthday - to the Chernobyl Children's Project.

'I know how I want to try and live my life,' she says, when I ask what motivates her campaigning. 'I know I don't want to leave any darkness behind me. I think we should all have a responsibility not to affect other people in a negative way. It starts with your children - you see how trusting they are, so small and so innocent. That's why I got involved in the Chernobyl project, because of what happened to the children there.

'Similarly, I realised that Sellafield is just across the water, and it's useless, pointless - pumping all that low-grade radioactive material out into the sea, not admitting to the leaks they have. The Sellafield reprocessing plant is downwind of us. If there was an accident - well, I've seen the results of Chernobyl, I've been to Belarus and the Ukraine, where they got 90 per cent of the fall-out. There are no nuclear plants in Belarus - but radiation fall-out doesn't stop at national borders.

'There are no borders, and there ain't no compensation. And when you see the children there - they're just so vulnerable. Their thyroid absorbs the radioactive iodine. So you have all these children in Belarus who have had their thyroids removed, but with no medication to help them to continue to grow, because they can't afford it. And some of them are having the operation in the wrong circ*mstances - it's just wrong, all of it is wrong.'

As she speaks, her voice remains calm, but her impassioned conviction is evident, just as it is on the subject of Africa; in particular, the need for trade as well as aid, which is the credo behind Edun (and therefore why the company uses African organic cotton, and manufactures in Lesotho, redistributing its profits to the local communities).

'Africa had six per cent of the world trade in the 1980s, which has dropped to two per cent now. If they were to gain back one per cent of world trade, that's the equivalent of $70 billion dollars a year, which would be twice what they get in aid. That's why we had the idea of trying to do something in Africa that would put our money where our mouth was - to actually make a difference by developing Edun.'

Such is her heartfelt fluency and faith in the potential for change that you can see why there are a number of commentators in Ireland who are speculating that Ali Hewson might be a realistic candidate for Irish president. When I put the idea to her she sidesteps it gracefully by saying, 'I can't speak Irish properly - and that's a requirement - but I wish I could. Though my husband always said he wouldn't move into a smaller house or walk behind me!'

What about in ten years time, I say? Surely she could learn Irish by then? 'That may happen! It would be a huge honour. I think Mary McAleese is a great president, and Mary Robinson was a great president. You know when you see a woman coming into a position that was previously held by a man, that they will take the job on…'

She looks me straight in the eye as she speaks, with her steady, level-headed gaze, and as she does so a picture comes into my mind of Mr Ali Hewson, walking a few paces behind his wife, Her Excellency the President. Perhaps he's still humming Sweetest Thing, but she's looking good centre stage, taking her turn in the spotlight.