Not in front of the children

Nobody this side of the indecently callous would wish to rain upon the parade in Machynlleth on Sunday. As it slowly wound its way through the streets towards the local church, we turned away, then watched, then turned away again from the raw faces of people who had spent six days in search and hope that dwindled to despondency and despair.

So here we are once again, expecting forthwith to learn more than we would ever want to know, while understanding none of it. I don’t get it and good money says you don’t get it, either.

But here’s the thing. If we — reading, reasoning, thinking grown-ups — cannot make a shred of sense of these nightmares, what on earth do we imagine a child to make of them? If we ache and tremble and fear for our own, how much worse must the terror be in the pulse of a six-year-old? So why did we see children by the many dozen — far more than could possibly know one five-year-old – carried upon shoulders to join a parade provoked by thoughts so macabre that we would normally banish them to the far distant side of the Brothers Grimm? And how can we bear the certainty that, should April Jones be found dead, this was but a dry run for her eventual funeral, which total strangers would travel miles to attend, with children in tow and a picnic in the boot? Making a day of it.