Jodie Whittaker: Skelmanthorpe's Doctor Who star a helping hand for Mirfield's Northorpe Hall Child and Family Trust

“No because I’m worried you’re going to go off-topic and...” the Doctor Who star is mindful of the journalist with a recording device sitting opposite.

"Oh okay, all right, okay,” says Victoria.

It’s all affectionate. When it comes to these two, “friends doesn’t cover it”, says Whittaker – they have been thick as thieves since Shelley High School – or, as Victoria puts it: “I knew Jodie when she had purple hair.”

Whittaker, who is from Skelmanthorpe near Huddersfield, met and posed for photos with fans back in April at Mirfield’s Eastthorpe Hall, where Victoria is a director, when the site supported the nearby Northorpe Hall Child and Family Trust, an organisation helping young people and their families struggling with mental illness. Eastthorpe Hall relaunched in 2023 as a health and wellness centre and is home to 12 independent practitioners, and celebrated its first anniversary by inviting Whittaker to a fundraising event for the Trust, which is going through a difficult time.

The charity was part of Kirklees Council’s Thriving Kirklees Partnership and managed the single point of access for all children mental health referrals from 2017 to March 31 this year but that came to an end.

Dipika Kaushal, the charity’s CEO, says: “We all want to feel well, we all want to feel happy and we all want to function. Northorpe Hall helps children, young people and families do that.

But, “due to public service cuts, everything’s gone back into the NHS and the council and, sadly, we're no longer delivering those services. So we've lost two thirds of our workforce and we've lost probably around 85 per cent of our income within three months.”

It also led to the redundancy of 39 “dedicated and highly valued” members of the Northorpe team.

Dipika adds: “Like many charities nationally Northorpe Hall has been subsidising the Thriving Kirklees council funded contract. The gap between funding and actual cost of services has grown as a result of Covid and increasing costs. This has resulted in the charity having to use its own funds to continue supporting children at a time when demand for services and crisis in children and young people has peaked and continues to grow.”

The difference that the charity makes to its users is outlined by the chair of trustees, Justine Haworth, whose daughter was referred to the service a decade ago aged 12.

Justine says: "She'd really changed from being this really ditzy, bubbly, little curious girl to just a shadow of her former self and it was all because she'd actually got undiagnosed dyspraxia at that time and we didn’t know, and she was really struggling to cope going to secondary school.”

Her daughter got effective help but the “sting in the tail”, says Justine, is that she herself also suffered mentally.

She adds: “When you are faced with an ill child, all you want to do is get that child well, but you do not appreciate the toll it takes on you and your family.

"And what we do at Northorpe is we support parents. We support parents in schools, we support parents who can just come to Northorpe and get help, and we even provide therapy. It's so important.”

Dipika adds: “It's in our blood, to make sure that we continue to listen and respond to what people need. What we do need is support. We need profile, and we need people to come and help us to do what we do in the community.”

The Trust had already been looking for a public figure to raise awareness about its work and, by good fortune, when attending a women’s networking event, staff met Victoria, who called on Whittaker.

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Eastthorpe Hall’s event raised more than £2,400 for the charity, and the Trust continues to seek donations and other opportunities.

On the day Whittaker, the first woman Doctor Who, said: "The marriage of these two places, I think, is really important and really shines a light on when you are giving back to the community, the kind of work you can do and the impact you can have.”

A statement from Kirklees Council and Kirklees Health and Care Partnership said: “Our priority is to ensure that people who use these services are able to access consistent and high-quality support.

"The new Kirklees Keep in Mind service will reach more people, is wider ranging in its offer and will deliver a service which has the maximum positive impact on people’s lives.

“Kirklees Keep in Mind aims to ensure young people can access the right services in the right place at the right time, and only have to tell their story once – a significant improvement in the way they are supported. We are working hard to ensure the transition to Kirklees Keep in Mind happens as seamlessly as possible. Just a few weeks after the new service was launched, we’re already achieving much quicker response times for many families.

“Northorpe Hall has been an important partner within the Thriving Kirklees Partnership and we would like to thank them for their hard work and commitment towards the wellbeing of children and young people. It is normal practice for local authorities to review and improve the way they provide services. The previous model was inconsistent, fragmented and didn’t offer a service to almost half of schools.

“The change to Kirklees Keep in Mind will mean a wider range of support to children and young people, parents and carers, and all educational settings. It is based around good practice, national requirements and reflects the feedback we have received from parents, families, people who work in educational settings and, most importantly, children and young people.”