The hole in my life that will never be filled
Loss
and
Idealism I
Mick North lost his five-year-old daughter Sophie in the Dunblane massacre 13 years ago. He reflects on the
nature of that loss
Thirteen years is a long period in anybody’s life. For most children it is the length of their school life, from those first days in primary one to the attainment of young adulthood at the age of 18. For those of us who are older it would be enough time to achieve a complete change of direction, for the pursuit of entirely new activities. That’s certainly been true for me. It is also time enough to forget, for memories to fade, but that’s something I won’t let happen. Thirteen years ago I was a proud father, a single parent bringing up my five-year-old daughter Sophie, but that ended on a cold March morning. Friday 13 March will mark the 13th anniversary of that dreadful day, when a gunman walked into the gym at Dunblane Primary School and opened fire on Sophie’s class. Sixteen families lost a young child, 16 children who should now be young adults but whose lives were ended at a time when their school life had only just begun.
I don’t need anniversaries to provide reminders of the past. Those memories, happy and sad, are always with me. I have often felt that such events are more opportunities for others perhaps less directly affected to think back and remember what happened. This year, however, the proximity of the anniversary to the death of a young boy has made me reflect even more on what it means to lose a child.
‘No one should outlive their child.’ I’ve heard that said rather a lot during the last few days following the sad death of David Cameron’s son Ivan at the age of six. It is true that the death of a child upsets the natural order, yet the tragedy of Sophie’s death, indeed of any child’s death, is surely not that I was still alive when it happened but that her life had ended prematurely. In talking of Ivan Cameron, Gordon Brown said that the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure. He spoke as a father whose own baby daughter had died a few days after she was born.
We live in a country where, thanks in particular to modern medicine, child mortality rates are now comparatively low. Yet elsewhere in the world a child’s death is something that too many parents still have to endure. In 2006 there were 41 countries in which at least 10% of children under five died. In Sierra Leone the figure is over 26%. It was only relatively recently that the situation improved in Britain. When I read about the lives of eminent Victorians I am always struck by how many of them experienced the death of one or more of their children. Charles Darwin, of whom we have heard plenty this year, had 10 children, two of whom died in infancy and his daughter Annie died at the age of 10. Darwin was devastated by Annie’s death. Indeed, although child death happened all too frequently, this did not diminish the devastation felt by Victorians at losing a young member of their family. We are perhaps more shocked now when a child dies, but the impact is doubtless the same.
David Cameron has said of Ivan’s death that ‘he leaves a hole in our life so big that words can’t describe it’. Thirteen years on and I know that the hole cannot be filled. I had never expected it to be. I hover at its edges, step back from it for a while but it is always there. Perhaps more so than with any other deaths, the loss of a child leaves loved ones feeling that they want to do something ‘to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, that other parents don’t have to suffer’. Critics will say that this urge to campaign and to publicise is simply an attempt to fill that hole, to replace the child with some intensive activity in order to avoid confronting the inevitable grief. I disagree. Tragedy brings a focus that is otherwise not there, and that focus can also provide insight. The Dunblane parents were concerned about gun laws and became involved in the campaign to ban handguns, yet at no time were our children forgotten, nor did I ever feel I’d delayed my grief.
There is an acute sensitivity over the death of children. Some who offer immediate sympathy are not comfortable when the circumstances surrounding the death are discussed in public. They prefer such matters to remain private. I’ve already seen comments that Ivan Cameron’s death should have been kept as a private matter, and I have no doubt that the Camerons would prefer it to be, but neither should it be wrong for a private tragedy to shape what is said and done by someone in public life, whether he is the leader of the opposition or a parent who has been thrust into the public eye through their child’s death. David Cameron’s views on the NHS had already been affected through his son’s illness, and the news of Ivan’s death will have given the public a greater awareness and understanding of his condition. This in turn may mean better care and treatment for future sufferers. Such benefits do not compensate for the loss, but there can be a positive legacy.
The children who died at Dunblane Primary School would have been 18 now, one of them 19. For me it is too painful and ultimately pointless to speculate about what each of them would be doing, but there is no doubt that those 16 bright young lives had much to contribute. We as parents can ensure something of a legacy through campaigns and charity work, but the best legacy of all is to create an environment where children can thrive and fulfil their potential to make significant contributions of their own. This year’s anniversary falls not only on Friday the 13th but Red Nose Day. I am sure that there will be plenty of 18-year olds who will be ‘doing something funny for money’ for Comic Relief. There are many young people who don’t need a special day to do something for others, and I was privileged to meet some of them this week at the Young Scot of the Year Awards. Thirteen years on and my personal hole is still there, but there are plenty of young Scots of whom I can feel proud.
[click here] for the Young Idealists: photo essay on the Young Scots of the Year
The Weekend Review
LOSS
AND
IDEALISM
THE HOLE IN
MY LIFE
Dunblane parent Mick North on the loss of his daughter
[click here]
Thirteen years on, young people in Scotland are fighting for a better world. In this edition we celebrate some of their work
THE YOUNG IDEALISTS
Photo essay by Islay McLeod
[click here]
THE POVERTY FIGHTERS
Barbara Millar and Nick Henderson on Youth End Poverty
[click here]
THE MAN WHO NURTURED TALENT
Kenneth Roy
on Arnold Kemp
[click here]
The Scottish Review is published on Tuesday and Thursday. The next edition will be on Tuesday 10 March
The Scottish Review is proud
to be associated with the
Arnold
Kemp
Awards
The awards in his memory are given each year for outstanding work in the community by young people
[click here] for Kenneth Roy’s profile of
Arnold Kemp:
the man who nurtured talent