To set in motion. To send something out into the world, such as a ship into the ocean, or a rocket into space. We don’t talk about launching babies, but there are times in a child’s life where it feels as though launch could be the right verb. When they start school. When you wave them off at the train station or the airport for the first time. When they leave home to study. And, of course, publishers and authors launch books. I have held a couple of my own and been to numerous other book launches, drunk many glasses of mediocre red wine, standing on one leg in the corner of the bookshop wondering why everyone else there looks so at home. I usually enjoy the reading and I know that just by turning up I am supporting the writer on what is often a very important day. I go through the ritual of getting my copy of the book signed, although I am not sure why. I understand the commercial potential of drawing attention to a new book and also the desire to celebrate that moment when your ‘baby’ finally takes its first steps into the big, bad world of bookshops and online sales. But I was not sure in what way I wanted to ‘launch’ A Child in the Middle.
This is an intensely personal book, but it tells and touches on many people’s stories, not just my own. So I have decided that this launch will be more of a thank you than a please and I have invited as many of those as possible who have directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly contributed to the book. There are too many of them to fit into the venue, so here goes: thank you to those in education who I have worked alongside, who taught me a lot and who continue to teach children so that they may become the best people they can possible be. Thank you to those in Social Care who were there supporting the children and families who I was also involved in helping. Thanks also to those in the NHS, particularly in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, in community and inpatient services, who continue to work unbelievably hard to meet the ever growing needs of young people with poor mental health; they were great colleagues and great professionals. And thank you to those who I worked with in the charity sector: long hours, low wages, high dedication and significant impact. Nor must I forget the colleagues on Adoption and Fostering Panels who I still work with. Behind each of these services are the children. Not behind. At the forefront of the work they do. No children or families are named in the book, but I hope if any child I have ever worked with stumbles across A Child in the Middle, they will know that they mattered to me, and still do.
All this before I even get to the writers who have inspired me, or – of course – my own friends and family who have supported me.
So yes, there will be mediocre red wine, but no bookshop. I’ve chosen The Old Fire Station in Oxford because it is an Arts venue which works with Crisis to try to end homelessness and I have asked the brilliant women of the Damascus Rose Kitchen to make some eats: delicious Middle Eastern food made by arabic speaking refugee-women in Oxford. This is a book about a baby who needed a lot of help to be launched into the world; it is right that the launch is a time to give back and say thank you.