To Sophie; a love letter

I was taller than every other child in my primary school; gawkish, speccy, bright. I got on better with the teachers than my peers.  I was odd & a little lonely.  I had books as friends - that is not to deride my closest friends at the time, but I was never the kind of child to have a wide and attentive social  circle. By the time I hit secondary school, I didn't even listen to the same music as anyone else - in a personal pre-emptive time travel, I listened almost exclusively to the Beatles, Stones and Tamla-Motown.  For some ridiculously obtuse and arguably attention-seeking reason, I started to speak in a Liverpudlian accent. I grew out of this *slightly* by the age of 14 and started to listen to The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxie and the Banshees, the Smiths, Billy Bragg. I went on holiday to my Granpas in Herne Bay during the summer holidays, found some dog clippers and gave myself a mohawk.  I wore Victorian nightdresses and army boots.  I discovered hair dye and embraced the full spectrum of possibilities.  I went to Brixton market, bought weave (baby pink!) and constructed elaborate plaited Princess Leia buns.  My wardrobe was solely based on jumble sale finds and charity shop rummaging.  Nifty little forties suits and arse-scraping sixties psychedelic prints.

The worse thing that ever happened to me for looking a bit odd, was a ill-mannered woman loudly declaring to her pre-pubescent daughter that she would dis-own her if she ended up like me. In retrospect this is quite amusing as whilst I do not wish the future-girl ill, I think she would be pretty content to have a kick-ass job, wonderful friends,a lot of books and three incredible kids. ;-)

Other people who are unconventional or 'different' are not as lucky in the attention they attract. Some of that is not solely down to how they choose to present themselves to the rest of the world, simply how they are. Although, arguably an element of the fashions we adopt, our gravity defying teenage haircuts and how we express ourselves is not necessarily a choice, an urge to repress, but how we have to be.   It would be easier to conform and blend into the mainstream.  An element of us finds belonging in our sub-cultures and we are not *so* individual that we do not conform in our ways to our little groups- but they are sub-cultures precisely because they are not the majority.

Sophie Lancaster died four years ago today.  20 years old, a life in front of her that is now unrealised.  Sophie was attacked alongside her boyfriend, for how she looked. She was kicked repeatedly in the head and died some days after the attack.  Her mother now runs the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, which mainly works in schools to promote peaceful co-existance and understanding between different groups.  She displays such courage, grace, love, understanding and forgiveness that I hope I can be the kind of mother she obviously is without the terrible grief that must sit alongside her actions.  I hope I never find out and hope that I have brought my children up to not despise people because of how they choose to express themselves or who they are.