Sarah Brown can’t stop tweeting. “Up bright and early to make the journey to Italy G8,” she tweeted yesterday. Whether whispering with Michelle Obama, wearing matching wellies with Naomi Campbell at Glastonbury, singing on the Gay Pride March, watching Andy Murray “through my fingers”, laughing with Paris Hilton or at the zoo with her children, she can’t stop herself. Every few hours there is another update on her life or just on the sunshine, her baking or her home-grown strawberries.
Demi Moore, Britney Spears, Boris Johnson and even Barack Obama are obvious twitterers. They are compelled to communicate, whether it is about their pert bottom, their latest handbag, their traffic projects for London or their health plans for America. But the discreet Mrs Brown seems an odd candidate. Her days are already filled with hosting receptions at Number 10, soothing the Garden Room Girls who field Gordon Brown’s telephone calls, championing her charities, making sure that the heating for the swimming pool has been turned on at Chequers or taking her children to football games. It is amazing that she has any time to tweet about her favourite M&S jumper or her love of egg-and-spoon races.
Sarah Brown, however, is a lady who tweets. Like many high-powered working mothers, she uses Twitter to get her through the day. Her friend, the comedian Kathy Lette, explains: “She is a natural communicator. It’s just her instinct to communicate good, positive messages about her charitable passions like maternal mortality.” Another friend says, “It’s a very innocent vice; she doesn’t take Valium or tuck into the gin, but it’s her way of relaxing, kicking off her shoes and showing people the real her.”
As @SarahBrown10 she’s made friends with everyone from bored housewives to Paris Hilton, as well as tweeting to her friends in Notting Hill. The Prime Minister’s wife is now a master of summing up everything from memorial services to world summits in the required 140 characters.
Britt Lintner, who designs many of Sarah Brown’s dresses, wonders where she finds the time: “I suppose it is the only way that she can reach out directly to her husband’s voters, it’s part of her job,” she says.
However the Prime Minister’s wife insists that she loves the chatter and information exchange. “I learn a lot here,” she has trilled. She was horrified when she had to go off-line for a day, sending an apology to her 344,765 followers, and she often signs off at midnight, saying, “Help, I have exceeded my self-allotted tweeting time.” She even finds the time to follow 3,742 other people’s tweets.
Queen Rania of Jordan, who has four children and promotes dozens of charities, tweets most days on @QueenRania. “Tweeting is a very personal form of expression,” she says. “Who else could talk about my son refusing to wear a suit to meet the Pope, my husband flying a helicopter, or take a Twitpic (Twitter photo) from our home?”
These women are juggling careers, children, husbands, nannies, school concerts, charitable work and gym routines. They tweet 15 times a day not because they see it as yet another commitment, but as a way to unwind. Professor Mark Griffiths, who studies internet obsessions at Nottingham Trent University thinks it is obvious that clever, working women should be the most inspired by Twitter. “It’s very fast and restricted so you can do it after the school run, on the way into work or in the playground,” he says. “It’s perfect for women who no longer have time to chat.”
Kirstie Allsopp, the Channel 4 presenter, has two small children and two stepchildren, runs three houses, and has spent the last two weeks criss-crossing Britain for Location, Location between sports days and watching her son at his concert. Yet she has twittered throughout.
“I have never done Facebook or YouTube, but I have fallen in love with Twitter. It is nice and kind,” she says. “I know those are loathed words but people look after each other on Twitter. Those mothering websites can be really bitchy but on Twitter everyone is helping each other out and if someone does call me fat, bossy or posh, I can tweet straight back and often become friends.”
For a compulsive communicator, it is heaven, Allsopp says. “I had a Rocky Road at Starbucks and said, “How come no one told me about these things?” Soon I had recipes for it. When I was stuck on the M40 I could find out what was causing the jam. A school bus had crashed, so I sat patiently for three hours feeling sorry for the children.”
She stopped during the Iranian riots last month. “I didn’t want to overload Twitter when there might be protesters trying to get through to the world.” But she is now back on form. “It’s perfect for me; Facebook is all about 15-year-olds getting drunk, this is about swapping information about restaurants, the best car insurance and being the first to know when ministers resign.”
Her new friends come from Twitter. “I have an architect friend, and a lawyer in Belgium, a lot of women who run small businesses and work late at night or early in the morning; this is their bit of space. When you ring friends you are always worried they will be too busy for a chat. This way I can just fire off whatever I’m thinking and wait for replies.”
Emma Freud, the screen writer, says that she quit after four days because she was so addicted — but not before she had left the memorable: “Just back from Take That. Beyond words. Well, not beyond actually, just worthy of big extreme adulatory words. I cried. In a good way.”
Lack of time hasn’t hasn’t stopped India Knight, the Sunday Times columnist and mother, who tweets while watching Newsnight.Davina McCall is even more prolific, chatting about everything from her minidresses to sleeping habits. But the twitterers’ favourite topic of conversation is each other. “Now off to Chequers for a charity function,” tweets McCall. “Oh la di da. Here I am with Sarah Brown!! She is an awesome woman, clever, kind and funny.” As one of them explains: “It’s great for mutual assurance.”
Husbands and partners suffer, but not in silence. Kirstie Allsopp’s partner, Ben Anderson, says: “At first it was irritating but I’ve got used to it now, it’s just communal garden girls’ chat.” Stephen Fry has one of the largest number of followers, but men seem to tire of it far more easily. The comedian Alan Carr has had enough. “Twitter is like your humourless friend who doesn’t get the sarcasm,” he says.
The writer Celia Walden also refuses to tweet, saying: “It’s really an extended ladies who lunch. No one in their late 20s or 30s does it, they’d rather go to the pub to talk. It reminds me of being 14 again and wanting to know what your best friend ate for tea every night.”
Charlie McVeigh, the restaurateur, disagrees, “Men use it slightly differently. It’s great for linking up with chefs and for advertising jobs. Tweetdeck means that you can just put in things you are interested in.”
Male tweets tend to be sharper. The writer Toby Young, aka @Toadmeister, this week posted: “You must have a heart of stone to watch the memorial service of Michael Jackson without laughing.” The women were not amused.
So will Sarah Brown ever be able to stop tweeting? According to Professor Mark Griffiiths, there is hope. “It’s a habit, not a real addiction,” he says. You might suffer withdrawal symptoms, but if you take a few days off you will be back to normal.”
