Family Christmas

 

When we revisit childhood sites there can be a kind of temporal vertigo in which the years collapse in on themselves. This often happens on a return to school or university. Sometimes it happens in a family setting. This year my cousin kindly hosted Christmas at her home in which I spent numerous Christmases before the age of 10. It's in that life period real Christmas imprinting takes place. The template is cut against which all future Christmases are judged.

Returning to that house with children of my own but together too with my father and sister got me thinking about how families evolve both by degrees but also in leaps and bounds. There can be years in which family dynamics seem hardly to change, then there is a birth, marriage or death and suddenly the warp and weft of the family tapestry is fundamentally altered.

It can be very tempting to resist change and the big life events are an obvious challenge to that impulse but it seems to me important to remember that even in the quiet moments change is always happening. Family rituals can often obscure changes hence the disproportionate tension that can arise when a presents before lunch person marries an after luncher. Also, as often happens in life, close proximity can prevent a clear observation of developments.

Ironically it's in noticing and, even more so, in embracing change that family traditions remain vital and meaningful rather than stale retreads of what went before. Families are, of course, composed of individuals and constituent groupings but they are also or at least can be more than the sum of their parts. Christmas can be so freighted with expectation because people instinctively know this and when we gather there is inevitably an assessment of where we stand in relation to the whole but also of the whole itself.

Some families are very expressive and open about this process, some refer to it only obliquely and others leave it all unsaid but somehow manage to make their feelings known nonetheless. It certainly isn't always easy but I admire families that manage to gather and cohere. Sometimes it is necessary for people to stand apart from their family to safeguard their own wellbeing or because they are the victims of familial prejudice or even threat. But spurning family for no really good reason is perhaps a prime example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It's precisely because you don't get to choose your family that they hold a value that a friend never can. Even closest and oldest friends don't have the time, energy or interest to engage with and assess your development in a way that your parents, siblings and relations (often maddeningly) do. When we are able to value our family, both in terms of cherishing them but also in being unabashed about taking stock, the chances are the family will value us.

The Coffee Community

 

When we are born it is guaranteed that our mother will be in attendance. These days our father might be there too, although it might be a birth partner or a relative instead. Generally though we arrive into fairly select company.

When we die it's anybody's guess who will be with us. I'd venture that most of us hope it will be quietly in our sleep with our loved one by our side. Certainly few hope for it to be a public spectacle. But death is not the saying goodbye. That is the function of funerals.

At 41 I've still been to surprisingly few funerals. Four close family members and my nanny Jane, nearly ten times as many weddings. Yesterday made it six but what made it notable for me was that I wasn't just attending the funeral I was officiating.

As a consequence of being asked to perform that role I have been giving a lot of thought to funerals. I know that some people plan them meticulously and I know that others are absolutely indifferent to the send off they receive. There are public funerals watched by millions, Princess Diana obviously springs to mind, and there are funerals that go completely unwitnessed referred to, even today, as paupers' funerals.

In my view a funeral is an extremely important occasion, much more so than a wedding, but like weddings they can be overwhelmed by folderol and frippery, completely at odds with the person whose life is being celebrated. Rituals are the punctuation of life, a public recognition that a new life has begun or that a life lived has ended. Without funerals we miss a chance to take pause for thought and make proper acknowledgment of the lives and deaths of others; we fail to accord to people the respect that every human life deserves.

I have lived near a cafe for a while now owned by two magnificent men. This cafe, as well as serving absolutely ace coffee, is the lifeblood of the community. Out-of-towners tend to suppose that London is incapable of a sense of community but anyone who has lived in London for any time will know that London is an amalgamation of villages. That said, community does not arise from sheer proximity to others. Community is not just about place it's about people too.

If you head direct from home to work and back again, indifferent to the existence of those living around you, community will not come to you and you to it. People can be slow to engage with those around them through shyness, exhaustion or suspicion. Sometimes it takes somebody to take a lead and show the way.

This coffee shop organises a street party most summers, and this isn't a curling sandwiches and a few tins of beer affair, but first rate entertainment performed from a vintage Dreamliner caravan and delicious food stalls. Carols outside the cafe at Christmas. Rotating displays of art on the walls. Interest in the lives of their customers, a place to belong and make friends. And a place, in particular, for Sylvia whose funeral it was.

I did not know Sylvia well and my connection to her was the same as it was for everyone that attended her funeral: the coffee shop. Without it, and in particular without Matt and Nick who make it what it is, I don't like to think too much about what her funeral might have been and what, no doubt, many funerals are. But organising a funeral wasn't just a one off act of benevolence on their part, they embraced Sylvia in her last years ensuring that she unequivocally had a community to be part of. What she gave in response was character and a zest for life that would put many decades her junior to shame. When you value people they value you right back.

If you'd told Sylvia that I would be MC'ing her funeral she'd probably have asked who the hell I was but for me it was one of the honours of my life. 

Look about you and see what your community is and if you can't see one take a leaf out of Matt and Nick's book.

Arthur - In Memoriam

The amalgamation of absolute horror and total bewilderment is so unsettling it can induce a feeling of disconnection from reality. I have been struck, in discussion with colleagues over the last 24 hours, most of whom have been involved in cases involving terrible things done to children, by how much of an impact the little life and dreadful, dreadful death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes has had on them and on me also. 

We see children treated as sexual objects, we see children suffering the neglect of the substance addicted, the utterly inadequate and the unwell, we see children disabled or killed in spasms of rage and frustration. But only occasionally do we see children deliberately and gleefully tortured. The bewilderment in this case stems from it being a woman who instigated and orchestrated that relentless campaign of cruelty. 

Of course we should not be bewildered, anyone who knows anything of the evil humans do and the harm they are capable of inflicting upon the weak and the defenceless will know that men, contrary to some popular opinion, hold no monopoly in wrongdoing. And yet so engrained still is the conception of women as protectors and nurturers that a case such as this is nonetheless capable of provoking a feeling of astonishment. 

It was real, it happened and the most painful truth is it will happen again. We all knew the lockdown would enable the bad things that happen behind closed doors to get worse and here is the worst example of those bad things. There will be the inevitable review into the missed opportunities to rescue Arthur and save his life. The cliché of lessons will be learned is now as empty as the response to Arthur’s plaintive and miserable cries that nobody loved him. 

We know it takes a village to raise a child, unfortunately we don’t live in villages anymore but great anonymous cities and towns where although our lives are often shared extravagantly on social media ironically the atomisation of our existences only accelerates. Undoubtedly there were agencies and institutions that should have seen what was happening to Arthur and should have stopped it. Social workers and teachers noticing and enquiring and demanding satisfaction. 

But we must not kid ourselves that the safety nets are working and how could they be? Social workers are paid badly. Their caseloads are unmanageable. The children that are experiencing the most visibly problematic parenting are not necessarily the children suffering the most dangerous and merciless cruelty. I am often relieved as a barrister that although I am exposed to terrible things it is in a very compartmentalised way. My cases have a beginning and end. A social worker’s case is a child’s whole life, existence and upbringing. 

We have agency. We are also subject to a moral imperative. Every time we cast a vote at the ballot box we can send a signal that we will not tolerate this kind of thing. If we vote for politicians that will tolerate it then that is on us. Meanwhile, it is incumbent upon every one of us to practise ceaseless vigilance. Making a nuisance of oneself is a negligible price to pay when a child’s life and future is at stake. Trust your instincts, if there’s a child at your child’s school with regular bruising make enquiry and don’t be fobbed off. If you encounter professional inertia and complacency remind that person of Arthur. 

It is very, very easy to persuade oneself that other people’s lives are other people’s business but the lives of children are everybody’s business.