Friendship

A reflection.

I’ve been thinking about friendship for a while now. It’s a strange thing… When you have good friends it feels as though you can face the world and when you go through times of friend famine the world seems like a desert.

A Solitary Child

I remember, as a child, my Mum asking me if I would like any friends over for tea. I said no to her offer and one of the reasons behind this refusal was that I was a solitary child. I lived, much of the time, in my mind, my imagination. There was nothing better, nothing more real for me than spending hours at the top of our garden making believe. The world I created in my head was far kinder, far more colourful than reality.

The other reason that I declined her offer was that I didn’t have any friends.

I spent much of my day at school hiding in the toilets. I was ‘other’ in my little village school. Daughter of a local doctor I not only came from a more privileged background than many, I had also made the error of being bright and enthusiastic about lear…