Incident

What would you do if you witnessed a violent incident, not just from afar, but right in front of you? Would you intervene, or not want to get involved? Would you just watch, walk away, wait until it was over, or want to stop it?

That was the dilemma my friend and I had to face today. We'd just spent a lovely day together - more of which later! - and she had walked me to the bus stop where we were waiting for the bus. We didn't really notice anyone else at the stop, so engrossed in conversation were we.

Two girls walked to the stop, and I half noticed them approach a girl sitting by herself at the stop, right next to us. There seemed a bit of a scuffle, but at first it seemed good natured banter. Then one of the girls hit the lone girl, and at some point quite quickly she fell to the floor, where one of the girls kicked her. It all happened quite suddenly, and was very scary. I wanted to say something, but was scared in case they turned on us. Fortunately my friend had more presence of mind, and very kindly said "Stop", "Excuse me", "Come on girls, off you go" or something similar. I quietly tried to usher them away without saying much or touching them, but trying to protect the girl somehow, who was by now basically at my feet. The two girls ran off.

It was very sudden, and the girl picked herself up, shaking. My friend asked how she was, where she lived, did she want us to walk some way with her? She didn't want to walk in the direction of her home, since that was where the girls had ran away to. So my friend offered to drive her home. We walked back to our friends, and my friend's husband and I drove the girl back, and made sure she got safely back to her mum. It turns out that the two girls, although not the victim, go to the school that my friend's husband teaches at. Small world.

It was a short but scary episode. She knew the two girls - the "jumping" was over an iPod - and had been friends with one of them. Not any more. You hear about these things, girl on girl violence, and I've seen pupils "flip" quite badly and violently in school. Sometimes, as a teacher, you get caught up in the middle of something, and it can be quite scary, and you can sometimes be hurt. But on the street, with children you don't know, fifteen year old girls, well, you just don't know what's going to happen. Fortunately the girl wasn't badly hurt, just shaken up. But you don't know at the time what could happen next.

Long pause before moving on to the nice stuff ...

The reason I was out in the park today, getting nicely sunburnt (very red neck!), was that we were celebrating the dedication of my friend's youngest daughter. After a nice service with lots of singing, we went along to the local park for a big picnic. Although I only knew my friend and her family (it was lovely to see her parents and brother and sister again, after many years), there were lots of other friendly people there, so I chatted to lots of interesting people. Mostly about what it's like being a Catholic ...! There were lots of little girls, and one little boy, and they were all running around enjoying the sunshine ... very cute! Also lots of nice food - pasta, quiche, beetroot salad, green salad, crisps, dips, bread, chipolata sausages, chicken, cheese, chocolate, banana bread, nutella cake - lots of delicious food for us to eat. So we ate, and chatted, and watched the children run around, and got suntanned, and talked some more. What a lovely few hours. Shame it ended in such a sad way. But that doesn't stop it from being a great day - if my friend is reading this, then thank you, it was lovely, and the photos and video will find its way to you as soon as we can meet up again!