Nightmare

HEY say that if you love someone you should let them go – but, by God, when it comes to your kids that’s easier said than done. My 19-year-old daughter toddled off to New Zealand this summer and I spent three weeks in a state of mild panic.

I was thrilled she was having an adventure, of course, but I was also beset with worry that something very bad would happen to her.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t live in a state of paralysed, sweaty terror but each day, there it was – a white noise, a background hum of disquiet accompanying everything I did.

Most of the time it was under control. A text or a call would take the edge off. I could even laugh about my paranoia.

But in the wee small hours it ran rampant.

At the lower end of the scale was the worry she would fall victim to robbery or illness.

At the top end – well, you can probably imagine.

She was on the other side of the world, so very, very far away, and I could do nothing to keep her safe but trust to her good judgement and to fate and to all the conversations we ever had about personal safety.

The irony is that, thanks to social media, we have never been more connected but it’s also thanks to the likes of Facebook and Twitter that we are all horribly aware of how things can go wrong with stories served up regularly about the very worst of human nature.

And, while my daughter used the web to keep in touch, I used it to Google crime rates in Auckland.

Of course she returned home safe and well, complete with a wealth of stories, piles of dirty washing and lots of photos. I said nothing. What parents wants to burden their child with grown-up worries?

And the worst hadn’t happened. I’d been a fool to imagine it ever would, I told myself.

She was a sensible kid, after all, and who doesn’t want to witness their offspring spread their wings and have experiences their parents could only have dreamed of at the same age?

So my heart goes out to the parents of Amelia Bambridge, the 21-year-old backpacker who has disappeared while out in Cambodia.

All of those thoughts and worries and fears must have gone through their heads as they saw their child off on the plane on her own adventure.

The difference is, those worries seem to have been realised in the most horrible way.

Around 200 local army, navy and police personnel are scouring the island on which Amelia was last seen. A photo of her, frozen in time and snapped as she enjoyed a beach bonfire, shows her looking relaxed and happy. She’d been having the time of her life.

At the time of writing six men have been arrested in connection with the inquiry. Her dad admits he is now ‘hoping for a miracle.’

Every parent in the land will be hoping with him.

THE giddy fairground ride that is UK politics is about to get a great deal more stomach turning now that we’re facing a pre-Christmas election.

It will become less like the Waltzer, where we’ve been spun round and round, and more like the Twister – the debate lurching at speed from one side to the other.

Either way, I reckon we’ll all be feeling more discombobulated than ever come mid-December.

But as an electorate we shouldn’t be blinded by Brexit; it is a crucial issue but not the not the sole issue on which we should be demanding answers from our politicians.

The appalling effects of austerity, ongoing inequality, the challenged economy are things which are affecting lives now and must be front and centre this election.

Over the coming weeks politicians will attempt to set the agenda, perhaps for their own ends.

As voters we need to make sure we do the same.