25th June 2023

A few days ago, there was a trial of a 15 years old girl from Ross-on-Wye, just 2 hours’ drive away from here. She was accused of murdering her own new-born child. Everybody thought ‘how terrible’ and ‘how could she have done such a thing?’ She had grown up so insecure that at the age of 13 she started going out with boys - not to have a good time but “to make them like me”.   It seemed that the girl didn’t want her parents to be ashamed of her, so hid her pregnancy, telling no-one, not even her mother, and retreated inside her head. At school she tried to act normally despite sickness, even doing PE lessons. At home, there was a difficult situation with her father, so the girl gave birth alone, shouting to her brother to stay away. And yet…..my mind flew back to my own childhood. So much of the girl’s demeanour and introverted personality rang true for me. I remembered, at 13, also desperately wanting everyone to like me too. Thankfully, those same set of circumstances didn’t happen to me as a teenager. But, have you ever thought ‘there but for the grace of G-d go I’?