THE pneumatic model Emma B helped to launch this year's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which runs throughout October, by waving a pink bra above her head on Hungerford Bridge in London.

While I'm not suggesting you should go this far - the breeze that whips off the Ouse at this time of year can be a real nipple-freezer - I am suggesting you should follow her lead in some small way.

Buy a pink ribbon, squeeze yourself into a snazzy pink T-shirt, do a sponsored walk or wave a pink bra above your head if the fancy takes you. But whatever you do, make sure you also donate time to finding out more about breast cancer.

As with most diseases, information is power. The more you know about breast cancer, the quicker you are to spot the signs and the more prepared you are to deal with the consequences. But you need to do more than skim the surface - don't just smile encouragingly when someone hands you a leaflet and bung it in the bottom of your bag where it will never see the light of day again. Read it.

Ten years on from when Este Lauder first launched its pink ribbons in the United States, campaigns now run in 40 countries around the world. But, 17 million ribbons down the line, women are still confused about breast cancer.

A recent survey by Breast Cancer Care showed that one in three women are still baffled about breast awareness. Half of the women questioned did not know that the risk of breast cancer significantly increases with age, and many thought they should only check their breasts for lumps, when in fact some of the key signs of the disease are nipple rashes and skin dimpling.

Some experts, most notably Professor Michael Baum, a breast cancer surgeon and Emeritus Professor of Surgery at University College London, believe that information drives such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month cause more harm than good because they frighten women - particularly young women who are actually at a substantially smaller risk - as well as inform them.

But breast cancer charities argue that it is better to know more about a disease that kills 1,000 British women a month than to save some young women from worry.

Some experts also argue that screening, which is offered to women aged 50-64 in the UK, is not worth the expense, quoting the best estimate (presented to the US government last month) that you need to screen 1,224 women aged above 50 for 14 years to prevent one death. But when that one life saved is your mum's, your sister's, your daughter's, your gran's or your own, the infinite value of screening is brought into sharp focus.

I am a vociferous advocate of screening, not least because my mum lived to fight (with me) another day as a direct result of it. Without her regular screening appointment, who is to say when she would have spotted the cancerous lump in her right breast. It doesn't bear thinking about.

But she was screened, the malignant lump was found, it was swiftly removed and she is still here - fit as a fiddle and just as highly strung - to torment me for many more years to come.

Without screening my life would be very different now. For a start there wouldn't be anyone to rearrange my cupboards when I'm not looking; tell complete strangers stories about my Violet Elizabeth-style childhood tantrums; or send me Red Cross parcels of supplies (toothpaste, chocolate digestives and loo roll) on a weekly basis even though I am a grown woman who lives within walking distance of several major supermarkets.

And I'll tell you something else for nothing, my life - and the lives of complete strangers at bus stops - would be a lot less interesting for it.

For more information about Breast Cancer Awareness Month click on to

www.cancerresearchuk.org

Updated: 10:00 Tuesday, October 01, 2002