I was very moved after reading today about the selfless life of single mum of three  Julie Jones who only earns £18,000 a year as an administrator, yet willingly adopted her best friend’s five children after she had died.

I think any woman who can bring up eight very happy kids, works 40 hours a week and can survive on £18,000 deserves a top management job. I challenge any man to do the same! Could any of our bankers on big bonuses succeed?

Julie got to meet Samantha Cameron at Downing Street, along with other finalists from the Daily Mail Inspirational Woman of the Year award.

But wouldn’t it  be great if the Prime Minister’s wife kept in touch with Julie Jones and offered the hand of friendship to her and her family from the bottom of her heart because women like Julie are one in a million, or more; they keep you grounded. Perhaps Julie’s extended family could be invited to play with the Cameron’s kids one day at Chequers.

Here is Julie’s inspirational story from today’s Mail:

When Julie Jones and Caroline Atkin were schoolgirls, they vowed to be best friends for ever. At the age of 11, they solemnly promised to do anything for each other.
That childhood pledge was honoured years later, when Caroline died from a brain tumour at the age of 45, leaving five children. In her last weeks, she asked Julie to raise the children as her own.
Julie, a softly spoken single mother of three with a modest home in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and a tiny income, didn’t hesitate.
She says: ‘I told Caroline that I would be her “Plan B”. I held her in my arms and said “You’ll be OK”, but I knew I was losing her.’
Caroline was already battling a brain tumour when her husband David died in January 2010 from a brain haemorrhage.
Before her death in June 2011, she drew up a will giving Julie custody of her children.
‘The hospital rang me and I raced there, but Caroline had just gone,’ she says.
‘I went to her house. The children arrived home from school in a taxi and I gathered them in my arms and said: “Mummy’s gone to Heaven. She isn’t poorly anymore.”
‘Michael, who was 11, left the room. Kieran, ten, sat in shock, James, nine, broke down, while Emma, seven, and Chantelle, five fidgeted. I took them to the park, then we packed and I brought them home.’
Julie, mother of Adam, 20, Peter, 19, and 14-year-old Christian moved the table from her dining room to turn it into an extra bedroom for the girls.
She says: ‘I put a tent up in the garden, and the children took turns to camp outside. We turned it into a game. The children were terribly traumatised by losing both their parents so quickly.
‘Michael kept being sick and Chantelle was hysterical at the thought of leaving me to go to school. But now, despite our lack of space and money, we have become one happy family.’
The table in the kitchen is so small that Julie had to cook Christmas dinner in two sittings. Her eldest son has left for university and his bedroom is used by the younger boys.
Julie works 40 hours a week as an administrator and runs the home on her £18,000-a-year salary.
‘Caroline’s photographs are all around, and the children aren’t quiet anymore. The house is filled with screams and shouts and  laughter,’ she says.
‘They say “Julie, you make us so happy,” but the truth is that they’re the ones who make me happy. I’m not extraordinary. I’m just a mum — with lots of love to give.’