In which real life provides material for discussion

is something I've seen on a lot of t-shirts and placards at home ed events and it's certainly proving true this week. I'd been trying to shield Hannah from hearing too much about what has been going on because it is challenging enough to get your head round as an adult. But it is all literally close to home. The tube station where Mark Duggan was shot is only about 5 miles from our house. We sometimes shop both at that retail park at Tottenham Hale and at the town centre in Enfield. And there was a shop looted and 3 police officers injured at the top of our road. I sat up half the night listening to sirens and following reports on Facebook while Hannah was sleeping, then tried to get on with normal life when she was awake, but today she became aware of what is going on.

It started on what would otherwise have been an idyllic afternoon. We went for a long walk in Epping Forest with the dog and some friends. Hannah and her friend found a small stream and paddled in it; they climbed trees and ran through grass pretending to be zebras. But away beyond the trees lies Enfield and from the Sony warehouse a thick black plume of smoke had been rising all day. It was unavoidable andmy friend, L, and I had to try to explain to the girls what had been going on. Man, that was difficult. And impossible to keep it from scaring the hell out of her. I explain as best I can, trying to tailor my own complex thoughts about society and state and police and family to the capabilities of a reasonably intelligent 8 year old. But I cannot promise her it won't come near us. It already has. and when we returned from our walk, my husband was watching the rolling news programmes compulsively so she was bombarded with images of shattered glass and fire.

In the end, knowing that there was no way to reassure her, we decided to be part of a solution, to be part of a community pulling together. In another part of the borough, the local MP was organising a Respite Centre for police and volunteers to come and have a cuppa and some cake (a LOT of cake actually..think a lot of people felt as we did, better for contributing something positive). So we went with some tea, coffee and biscuits to donate and offered our (well my) services to man the urn if needed. Tomorrow we are going to go through her wardrobe and her toy storage for things we can donate to a collection for the families made homeless in the first night's rioting in Tottenham.

I don't know how much she will have absorbed of the impromptu politics and history lesson, but she really wants to give things to children who have lost everything so I hope that she is taking away a very important lesson about who she is and her place in society.