With the tenth anniversary of the Soham murders coming up this week, feature of the day must surely be the interview with the parents of Holly Wells. 
One reader’s comment on this article by Sarah Oliver, which appeared in the Mail on Sunday’s Review section describes it as ‘well written and profoundly moving.’ And that just about sums up our sentiments too.
In this piece, which is illustrated by wonderful personal photos of Holly from the family’s own album, the parents describe their journey over the ten years since their daughter was killed by Ian Huntley.
‘Time doesn’t heal, someone got that wrong,’ says father Kevin Wells, ‘It anaesthetises. Grief does not diminish, but you can manage the intensity and learn to live with it.’
Incredibly, despite the nightmare they went through, the couple, who also have a son Oliver, did manage to stay together. It is well documented that under such stress, many couples do not grow together but find their grief pushes them apart. Here, however, in their first interview since Huntley was convicted of their daughter’s murder, they reveal how they all coped and how positives have come out of the tragedy.
Their interview ties in with the ITV1 programme – A Parent’s Tale – to be screened on Friday August 3rd at 9pm. Meanwhile, an e-book – Dearest Holly – Ten Years On by Kevin Wells will be published and made available on Amazon on the same day.
A second instalment will be printed in the Mail On Sunday next week. But if you missed this first article, you can find a link to it here: Parents of Holly Wells speak out a decade after she was murdered.
Bikini season begins…
As the going on holiday season gets into full swing, Fabulous magazine (the glossy supplement with the Sun on Sunday) featured three readers who wanted to lose weight to get into bikinis. They were put through their paces in the gym (the sort of incredibly hard work exercises I often see trainers at the gym making middle aged women do – strangely you rarely see these women at the gym again.) At the same time they followed a diet which consisted of tasty meals such as 100gram chicken breast with roasted mushrooms and spinach (which must be all of 150 calories, if that, so it’s hardly surprising they lost weight although what is a surprise they had enough energy to do any exercise at all!) Of course, as with all these horrible diets, these poor women were told by the nutritionist to cut out all starchy carbs (so no bread, pasta, potatoes) and of course any evil takeaways. Yes they all lost weight and do look fabulous.
One woman, who lost over a stone, says: “I still miss my takeaways … but it’s all been worth it.” But the question is: Will she be able to stick to such a bland diet where the most exciting morsel as a ‘snack’ she was allowed was ‘low-fat cottage cheese on 1 oatcake.’ What do you think…? And what a shame so many of these nutritionists push these unrealistic diets – unrealistic because we live in a world of culinary delights and no normal person wants to eat like that for six weeks (is it possible?) let alone for the rest of their lives!
More reading: How I lost weight eating normal food
School’s out for summer!
India Knight, writing in her column in the Sunday Times talks about the joy of the summer holidays – but also how the children ‘have to be entertained until September..’ It reminded me of when my own kids – now 24, 22 and 20 broke up from school. Not being a morning person at all, I was never very good at delivering them on time to lessons so the lie-ins came as a huge relief. I was also not that good at organising days out so apart from the annual two weeks away and a week to my parents (who so fortunately live in glorious Devon) we all did precisely nothing for most of the time. And yet bizarrely, it’s those days doing nothing which my grown up children have the fondest memories of. They frequently talk of days when they ran riot in the garden pinging squishy damsons at one another while I dozed in a deckchair, the times they created bonfires on the compost heap (what was I thinking of! Still they were fine!) and the times the week’s outing consisted of an ice cream in the park (I read the papers while they rampaged on the slides). Yet rarely do they mention those times when I made an extreme effort and out of guilt that they hadn’t been out for days on end, took them to museums, an aquarium or a theme park.
There must be a message in there somewhere!
