Ahmed Oun

I made the call to the Bahraini Embassy this afternoon. First I faffed about, walking round the kitchen, wondering if the info from Twitter were true. Then I reminded myself that Amnesty International had had an Urgent Action which included him, so I looked through my file and saw it was the first one of 2012.

Then I faffed some more, then reminded myself that I have made 2 two calls before to different Governors' Offices in the US, so this wasn't quite so hard. It was only a call to London! It was about someone who is not due to be executed, and what's more is only a year older than one of my sons.

Then I thought that I was an outsider and maybe one cool, calm and collected call from a stranger might have more weight and therefore be worth trying. My name is not that strange to the embassy though, if they open their mail.

I also thought that if fellow prisoners were doing their bit to try and get some treatment for this young man then I could try from my carpeted drawing room with green lawn outside.

When I was put through to someone and gave my message politely I thought I heard a faint sigh, the lady in the office had most certainly heard of Ahmed Oun. So that was a good feeling.

I was nearly driven into on a roundabout a bit later, so I reflected that if I'd gone at least I had made that call and had tried to help beforehand.