Could there be a starker contrast in priorities and self-awareness than the life experiences of three mid-life women in the public eye this week?

Dame Deborah James, in her last days of life at just 40, ravaged by incurable bowel cancer and getting weaker by the hour, continues to smile, think of others and raise millions of pounds for Cancer Research.

Despite the stress of living under a death sentence, she never takes herself seriously, even dressing as a giant poo to raise awareness of bowel cancer symptoms to encourage people to be aware and seek help for early diagnosis.

This week, her husband carried her fragile body to the car for what might well be their last outing together, to celebrate her finishing her second book, pushing her wheelchair around the beautiful gardens at Royal Horticultural Society Wisley.

Meanwhile, her children were at school trying to get on with their lives coming to terms with facing life without their mother

Since announcing she was in end-of-life hospice care at home last week and setting up Bowelbabe fund for Cancer Research UK, she has raised more than £6.3 million and prompted tens of thousands of people this week alone to seek information about bowel cancer.

As Dame Deborah took in the scent of the roses in the May sunshine, laughing and joking with her husband, just a few miles away footballer Wayne Rooney carried his wife’s hugely expensive bag into the High Court for the most vacuous pointless self-obsessed legal action, which has volleyed the reputation of footballers’ wives to a whole new distasteful level.

Rebekah Vardy, at 40, the same age as Dame Deborah, arrived holding her husband’s hand, both stony faced, for another day of her libel trial against Colleen Rooney for publicly accusing her of selling stories about her to the public after Rooney believed she had trapped her in an Instagram sting.

In the name of reputation – puh-leese – this pair of super wealthy, over indulged women are slugging it out in court with multi-million legal bills that would swamp the £6.3 raised for the fund.

How can anyone not cringe to think of all the good that money spent on Vardy having her day in court could do instead.

As Dame Deborah was carried back into her parents’ home after her trip out, exhausted and weak, Mrs Vardy left court early feeling unwell after the judge was told England manager had asked Rooney to speak to Vardy to have a word with his wife about her social media frenzy during the 2016 Euros. She needed to “calm down” apparently.

The uncomfortable irony in the above situations cannot be overlooked.

Vardy and Rooney fighting about their reputation, their priorities being laid out for all to see.

These women taking themselves so seriously, their Instagram lives, the inanities and the tittle-tattle would be risible without its juxtaposition with the tragedy of Dame Deborah.

It feels more than grubby; it carries a shameful obscenity.

These two, so awash with cash in a privileged entitled bubble, throwing untold millions at a case that could have been sorted over a Porn Star Martini, while Dame Deborah continues her mission for others while staring death in face

As lawyers soak it up, the Bowelbabe fund is more than 25 times the target Dame Deborah hoped for. As their case ends, she won’t live long enough to see her second book, To Live When You Could be Dead, published.

The other two will live with the label 'Wagatha Christie' forever.

Its triviality and banalness, when compared to the achievements the former deputy headteacher turned journalist and campaigner are even more marked.

Until Dame Deborah, no one talked much about bowel cancer. Bowels aren’t glamorous, anything to do with poo, number twos, bottoms and down there comes with embarrassment. Always had a serious image problem

Raising money for bowel, and oesophageal and pancreatic, has always been difficult because of the serious image problem

They never had the same fund-raising potential as breasts, or latterly, prostate.

Dame Deborah took a serious issue that had been killing her for five years and made it light-hearted. She broke down barriers and banishing taboos. She was funny, refreshingly open, credible and engaging.

Her work has been selfless - she is never at the top of her pecking order – always with a smile, making a massive impact on public awareness and the number of people taking up screening.

She doesn’t take herself seriously – one of the best qualities any individual can have - and became a national treasure, radiating warmth, passion and humour, while all the time she was dying.

In contrast, Vardy and Rooney are who they are because they are married to footballers in the era of the deification of footballers.

Dame Deborah has had her Instagram trolling, followers telling her to stop dancing and wearing miniskirts at her age because it was inappropriate behaviour for someone with cancer. How could she really be so ill if she was leaving hospital for go to Wimbledon, she was asked?

Her attitude to trolls was to ‘kill it with kindness and love back’ rightly acknowledging a troll’s issue is really with herself or himself.

If only the same measured 'life’s too short approach' had been taken to the other case.