My Love My Life 1/12 - Shady Characters

The "Letter's to my Daughter" blogging circle calmed down for a bit because the girls were busy with various things, but it seems with a little persuasion from Evy we have a few more girls on board and are starting a new project for 2014 called My Love My Life. I'm not a professional photographer but like them, I understand how life can just pass you by. It's important for me to take photo's of Daisy, not just for future generations to enjoy but for me to look back on with her.  I get warm fuzzy feelings from looking back on photos from the past.  It brings you back to that time in history all over again.  This month I will be linking to my good friend Evy, with her blog My Love My Life, without her I know I wouldn't be blogging like I am now.

My Miracle Flower,

It’s hard writing about trust from an adult perspective because by the time you get to adulthood you’ll probably have witnessed a lot of examples of people you thought you could trust but it turned out they were no good.  All you have to do is watch the news to see that even the most trusted looking people can turn out to be very shady characters indeed.  I must say that I take pride in the fact I am a, what you see is what you get type of person.  I used to think that because I was open and truthful, albeit causing offence at times, that everyone else was too; but that’s not the case.  It’s horrible to say but you need to be on your guard growing up, because some people are not what they seem, even if they make you feel like you could tell them anything.  I guess I’ve learnt the hard way, nothing bad has happened to me but I wished at times I listened to gut instincts with silly little things.  In life we are constantly learning and evolving.  

I was speaking to one of my old school friends on Facebook back in 2012 about someone coming to my house to try on something that I’d advertised for sale on ebay.  We were just casually talking about nothing in particular and I told him about this man that was coming to see the item I was selling, because he worked in the area and wanted to avoid postage costs.  Straight away my friend was warning me saying, what are you thinking having a strange man coming to the house when you are at home on your own.  It struck me that there I was, trusting this person that I’d never met to come into my home.  What if he was dangerous?  We joked, I said I’m sure it will be fine and he said, he could be Buffalo Bill!  It was at that point I started to panic and was catapulted into reality.  Just the thought of the film, The Silence of the Lambs brought chills to my spine.  The guy I went to school with had a theory of his own about trust and it was this, trust no one, think everyone is bad, (although he used a naughtier word) and that they have to prove themselves otherwise that they are not a “insert your own naughty word”, then you won’t be disappointed.  Seemed fairly straightforward.

I think growing up I always thought that if you were going to come to any harm it would be from someone grabbing you from the street and throwing you into a car.  Sometimes the kids in class would talk of a stranger hanging around the school gates offering sweets or it would be a man in a van asking you to go with them on the promise of seeing puppies.  Not a week went by when I was a youngster that I didn’t see the Charley say's advert on TV, which was a scary reminder of the crazy people that were out there.  When you are young it’s hard to analyse people for yourself and not all bad people are dressed in baddie clothes or look like baddies that you see in movies or on kids TV shows.  I recently watched this chilling experiment on daytime TV as a reminder of how normal these people can look.  In order to gain the trust of a child, you would really have to be nice and charming a give a good impression for them to feel like they could go with you.

It’s important not to scare our children about strangers because not all strangers are bad people.  In situations where our children are out and about in public I think it’s a good idea to let them know that they can always approach people in uniform like Police Officers and Community Wardens or staff in public buildings.  If we go to a community event I’m always telling Daisy that if we get separated, she should ask for help from event organisers, usually wearing fluorescent overalls or another Mummy.  In really busy places like airports and places we don't know very well, I just don't take the risk and still use her baby reins which were originally mine! Prevention is better that cure as they say.

I guess the thing to make them understand is don’t go away with anyone without first asking, even if you know them.

One from the archives since I haven't been out photographing recently.