Small Stories
It's a little book we are working on together -a series of stories and reflections from our engagement with our community as youth workers and teachers over the past 25 years. We plan to post extracts from the book over the net few weeks and would appreciate your feedback...

Another Saturday morning

April 1984 (Anthea and Lloyd)

The remains of breakfast, dishes and toys litter the cheerful chaos of an unhurried Saturday morning. As parents with small children know, relaxation doesn’t really come into it. A furtive knock and I open the door to Mere and Pauline from club.

They peer in anxiously, seem to be checking for something. Mere is a tall girl, long straight hair frames a freckled and earnest face, Pauline is shorter and quieter, with a bob of thick hair. They are both about 14.

‘We’re on the run’ Mere announces loudly, ‘our parents aren’t here are they? You won’t nark will you?’ They look at me anxiously but don’t seem to expect an answer. ‘On the run’, I haven’t heard the expression before, it doesn’t sound like a sports event, and no one seems to be chasing them down the street.

We invite them in. ‘We’ve been sleeping under the school for the past few days’ Pauline explains as they sidle past us in the hallway, and a stale smell confirms their story. We settle around the cluttered kitchen table, feeding them tea and toast as we listen to their story.

‘Things are bad at home, we had a big argument’ Pauline begins, they emphasise the drama, skirt around the details and invite our sympathy. It sounds like the novelty of running away is wearing a bit thin and they are hinting at an invitation. As beginning youth workers we listen gravely and are impressed. Now what do we do? It’s a classic youth work dilemma.

‘You can’t stay here unless your parents know’ Anthea explains -a safe answer.

‘Oh no’ Mere protests, ‘we don’t want to get you into trouble. We just wondered if we could have a shower’.

It’s a good compromise, and Anthea persuades them to part with their clothes so she can put them through the wash. They sit at the table in Anthea’s dressing gowns and work their way through the rest of the loaf as we keep the toast and tea coming. The girls take turns at holding Rhys (our baby) and play with our son Josh, who is persuaded to tell them that he is nearly three. Mere keeps up a steady commentary about their adventures over the week as our other plans for the morning fade away.

There is a loud bang at the door. Mere and Pauline exchange a stricken look as I go to answer it. Curiosity instantly outweighs fear, and they peek down the hallway modestly clutching their dressing gowns to their throats.

Two angry men stand on the doorstep (people always seem bigger when they’re mad at you), they glare past me down the hall. It is Saturday morning, and they have just found their missing daughters, in dressing gowns, both standing behind a man who claims to be a youth worker. Explanations form on my lips and are dismissed, none of them are going to work. I even begin to feel guilty.

‘Are you Lloyd Martin?’ they demand aggressively. Obviously they like to know who they are about to punch.

It sounds like a pretty stupid name when they say it that way, but I own up to it. We all pause briefly as they consider how to begin the violence. At that moment Anthea shows up with Rhys on her hip.

‘Hello, are you Mere and Pauline’s Dads?’ She asks brightly, fully aware of what is going on. My chances begin to look better, I even feel less sleazy. They admit that they are, and tell us how worried about them they have been about their daughters. Why have we taken the girls in without letting them know? Anthea briefly explains the situation, and invites them in. The girls slink back in shamefaced as their fathers take their places around the kitchen table.

I make more tea and Anthea takes charge of the situation, she has a way of putting everyone on their best behaviour. Further explanation is provided, their anger shifts from us to their daughters, tempered by our presence. I think if we weren’t here they might be getting a hiding right now.

More talk and the atmosphere lightens, we even manage a laugh or two. The girls ask if they can stay a few more days, and to our surprise their fathers agree, insisting only that they go home and sort things out with their mothers first.

They assure us several times that we are ‘obviously good people’.
No one pauses to ask what we think about it.

A few days later I (Anthea) go down to see the girl’s parents, after some initial embarresssment I strike up a friendship with Mere’s mum Theresa. Later on in life I will get an idea of what it feels like to ‘not cope’ as a parent in front of strangers. Before you want answers, you want understanding. We chat and share some laughs as we compare notes on living with Mere. The awkwardness is overcome and a friendship develops.

Days turn into weeks, and we realise that this was not an institutional arrangement, we have simply become part of an informal network of support for these girls, an honorary uncle and aunty. They regularly come over, eat, help with our kids and stay over, it relieves tension at home. In the informal world of the local community children often drift from home to home within an extended family network. It’s a healthy approach that is located in Pacific and Maori cultures, which treats parenting as a shared task, and often acts as a safety valve to relieve the tension of relationships within the pressure cooker of a nuclear family.

Other young people in their networks hear about us, their parents hear about us through the social networks of the pub and the house slowly begins to fill up.

Becoming present in the lives of other people has begun as a nice idea. In time we move beyond the pleasantries and begin to discover that becoming present means more than just physically moving into the neighbourhood. The realities of becoming present in someone else’s comfort zones create tensions as we try and figure out how to actually do life together.