ROLE Models: ‘Happy Valley’ is a BBC crime drama set in Yorkshire about a 50-something female police officer.

She’s strong, intimidating, brave, annoying, fragile, loving and sometimes cruel. The actress, Sarah Lancashire is receiving huge praise for her acting skills in portraying the character.

Lancashire is 58, playing an unglamorous woman in a cardigan when not in uniform with such power and authenticity it’s a shock to see her in other roles and remember that acting is actually all ‘pretend’. TV audiences are ‘in love’ with Lancashire’s character.

Many women watch scenes where she takes control or makes arrests with admiration and some envy. The physicality of her acting and intensity of her emotion is mesmerising. Playing a role is part of all human interactions (whether scripted or not). But at what point does adopting a persona for a job or a social situation start feeling and looking fake?

Like many of us, I’ve got close to the limit for watching interviews with national politicians. Their refusal to answer a question, the posturing and pretending – it’s too manufactured to sit well on most stomachs.

Whatever you think of the causes, the consequences of recent political decisions are, unlike the wealth of those who make them, cascading down to day-to-day levels. Rising bills and falling incomes threaten the economies of towns like ours. What can we do to help our local communities?

Buying fruit and veg from independent shops is one small yet important choice we can make. In the past year, I’ve noticed that veg from supermarkets isn’t lasting so well, looks tired somehow, is even at times mouldy.

So, spending any money that’s left after fixed costs with local businesses on fruit that won’t rot is not just helpful to shop-keepers, it can save money in the long term.

And that includes toiletries. I use locally made Dartmoor soap on my hair. One bar lasts months, doesn’t pollute the environment, has no plastic wrapping and can be chopped into small bits for going away.

The multinational giants from whom I used to buy highly synthetic shampoos, conditioners, sprays and gels get no more of my money. It’s often much cheaper to buy local as well as more sustainable, so if time allows, it’s definitely worth a bit of research.

Sustainable relationships are perhaps less straightforward – especially perhaps for women of Sarah Lancashire’s age where men conventionally are falling for the charms of younger women. (As with the classic line – ‘he owes his career to his first wife and his second wife to his career’.)

It was therefore with some amusement that I read this week of another impressive 50 something actor – 56-year-old actress Helena Bonham Carter has a male live-in partner 22 years her junior. Way to go Helena! If the men can do that, why shouldn’t the women?