Safeguarding

The hatchet-faced woman who shouted at me pulled out her lipstick and sat reapplying it during the meeting. The pretty young girl next to her took out a nail file and sat filing her nails, as people shared. She was wearing see-through, skin-tight, skin-coloured leggings and a pair of six-inch wedged boots. I sat opposite them in the church hall and brooded. This used to be a support group but after 20 years of going it no longer feels like I am getting support. Lately, I feel worse when I come out. The woman with the stern face screeched at me at another meeting recently when I tried to speak

A lot has been going wrong lately in the support group I’ve been attending for more than 20 years. I wasn’t going to write about it, of course. But then a fellow member stuck her iPhone in my face at a meeting and filmed me. So rather than sitting here waiting for the footage to turn up on the internet, I thought I’d explain. I’ve been objecting to the banning of a long-time member who has helped a lot of other members over the years, but he’s chatted up too many women and now the safeguarding procedures of this strange new era have kicked in and the younger female members,