ALL THE LOST CHILDREN

It has been a crazy few weeks. Whenever I have been tired, I have remembered greater folk than me. Did Scott of the Antarctic seek a comfortable chair and a Hobnob? Did Shackleton watch bad TV? No because they pushed up through unpleasantness and strain – to achieve great things.

Not at all comparable – but I have challenged myself to do interesting stuff and none more interesting than going to Downing Street. Me – an ex-anarchist – walking the stairs where many decision-makers' slippers have trodden. But this was important – an event for RAILWAY CHILDREN

http://www.railwaychildren.org.uk/campaigns/help-make-the-invisible,-visible/

A group of mostly women (as we had been selected through our connection with Mumsnet, the very vocal parenting site that often makes the news) met first at Horseguards Parade Hotel – for lurid macaroons and to meet several other charities around the country who deal with children on the streets:

www.streetwork.org.uk
www.safeatlast.org.uk
www.aberlour.org.uk

These lost children are invisible to most. Outreach workers, who can see them, are out there all the time – not only checking on anyone obviously homeless, but identifying children at risk.

Statistics can be powerful – but these just made me sad:

‘Every year thousands of children across the UK, India and East Africa run away or are forced to leave homes that have become unbearable through poverty, abuse, violence and neglect.

In the UK a child runs away from home every 5 minutes. That's 100,000 children under 16 a year, and 70% of those children are never even reported missing by those who are supposed to love and protect them.
Unwanted, unloved and often abused, children find themselves alone and at risk on the streets simply because there's nowhere else to go and no one left to turn to.

The streets are often even more dangerous and frightening than the homes these children were desperate to escape. Violence becomes a way of life; something to be endured and often a necessary means of survival. Sexual abuse and exploitation is rife. Drug use often seeps into the lives of children living on the streets and becomes impossible to avoid; drugs are often the only available escape from the hopelessness of their situation. These factors are the same across the three continents in which we work.

With no means of support or protection, these children fade into the background of the streets, often unseen by societies who either deny their existence or regard them as the 'norm'.’


So many of these children are under twelve years old. Imagine not even having a dozen years on the planet under your belt and to be out in the world. Vulnerable, maybe superficially tough but on the inside, where it matters, to be tender and lost. Truly disturbing.

The flip side wass hearing about the incredible workers who put their time into these projects. They radiated enthusiasm and sincerity when they explained their work. It must never be forgotten how vulnerable a child is out there.

Downing Street is a tiny political village. Policemen laughed with us but their hands never left their guns. Inside the place there is Tardis magic and as you walk up the stairs, you have to stop to look at the handsome Earl of Aberdeen and the many many portraits Prime Ministers who have graced the place. Samantha Cameron came to support the charity. She is not her husband and is a person in her own right. But it still felt a little uncomfortable, especially when I talked to her. I felt a bit better when I chatted to Andy, who gives talks for Railway Children and has been at the rough end of things – in care, waking up with another strange tattoo he can't remember. He told me that being in a Tory den was nothing – there were plenty of places where he had felt a lot, lot dirtier. But it’s all about the kids to him. Theresa May arrived as we were leaving but was not impressed by a gaggle of women giggling on the steps.

Fanastic charity, great experience.


I have also:

Helped to judge a short story competition with Reading Writers

Auditioned unsuccessfully for Blithe Spirit

Rejoined my playwrites group

Attended a Writers and Artists’ event at Bloomsbury and spent time with wonderful writers Vanessa Gebbie and Tania Hershman

Said goodbye to someone and truly meant it – a door closed and locked firmly

Met a member of great Indie band The Real Tuesday Weld at a gothic and gin-pickled event called London Bone (which I will blog about shortly).


Exhausted. Communing now with my pillow but still thinking of all those children out there. Some stories are coming too...always a good thing...