About Suffering They Were Never Wrong

“About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood …”.

 

Those lines of W H Auden came powerfully to mind when I received a call from The National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children, the NSPCC, who are running a campaign in schools to explain to very young children what abuse is and how to report it. As a donor to the NSPCC they wanted me to increase my direct debit to assist in paying for Childline in schools. The Society say they are receiving an increasing number of calls from children aged around 11 which has prompted the Childline initiative in schools.

The tragedy of the situation is that many children blame themselves for the abuse or somehow try to convince themselves that it is normal. Here in Crystal Palace it is a lovely sunny day but those lines of Auden, quoted above just keep replaying themselves in my head. Terrible suffering of children does go on while we go about our daily lives. As I write this a child, somewhere is being physically or sexually abused. I can give money. I only wish that I could do more.

 

For Auden’s poem please visit http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html