Actress Joanna Lumley has urged schoolgirls to switch off their mobile phones if they want to get on in life.
The Ab Fab star said youngsters are becoming “servants” to their handsets which is stifling their creativity.
In a speech to pupils at a £30,000-a-year girls’ school, she urged them to switch off their phones for at least one hour a day.
She said: “Don’t be a servant to your phone. If all you are doing is reacting to calls then you never develop.
“You need to have time to be free and for your heads to be free to think.”
Her other top tip for getting on in life was to never go on the dole and always keep working – even if it isn’t the perfect job.
“You must swear never to go on the dole, find something to do,” she said.
“By doing you become employable. It doesn’t matter what the job is by working you learn new things, meet new people and are exposed to new ideas.”
Ms Lumley, who herself attended a girls’ school, was addressing pupils at Westonbirt School near Tetbury, Glos., which has 210 students aged from 11 to 18.
She spoke of her boarding school days and admitted that she wasn’t always the model pupil.
Lumley kept a mouse hidden in her clothes drawer which she carried around in the inside pocket of her blazer and committed the cardinal sin – spoke to boys.
On a more serious note, the actress – who returns to the big screen in Martin Scorsese’s crime drama The Wolf of Wall Street – also urged pupils to not obsess about perfect grades.
“No one has ever asked me what grades I made,” she said.
Lumley praised Westonbirt’s new business school and Skills for Life programme, adding: “The business school will help you learn to be streetwise and savvy. That’s the best kind of clever.
“Be beautiful, be brave, be kind, be clever, be happy.”
And Ms Lumley’s final tip for adulthood? “Never be bored. Find something to do. And don’t yawn!”
Natasha Dangerfield, headmistress of Westonbirt School, said the school was delighted and honoured by Joanna Lumley’s visit.
She said: “The girls loved her. We all loved her and she was gracious and entertaining, and we fully endorse her tips for the girls.
“If they follow her advice I am sure they will fare well as adults.”
