EDITOR'S PERSPECTIVE: When people just disappear

I remember an art class, someone saying she stank of pee. There was a reason for that and she burst into uncontrollable sobs. A teacher removed her from the lesson and another came in as a replacement for the half hour or so that remained of what was for us a fairly fruitless but inconsequential attempt at painting a country scene or something, but for her potentially life-changing.

She definitely didn’t come back into the the lesson and, as far as I can remember, never returned to the school.

It didn’t strike me at the time that bullying was the issue – she wasn’t particularly bright, was on the large side, prone to outbursts and, well, not obviously good at anything. She didn’t have a lot going for her and that was fine by, it seemed, everyone else.

I don’t remember her having any friends or people to talk to and, if she did, they weren’t much help.

In fact, bullying wasn’t the issue. An issue, yes, but the issue, no. All it served to do was make her situation, whatever that was, even worse.

I suspect there was something serious going on in her private life, an issue that teachers would be more than likely on red alert to spot these days, but back then she was just a “problem child” or a child with problems. I think there’s a difference.

Maybe the teacher that took her out of the lesson spotted this and did something about it. I like to think she wasn’t simply thrown out, but actually removed with an aim of finding something for her. Something she could connect with.

Was it an illness? Had there been a death of someone close to her at such a young age that had crushed her spirits? Or was it something altogether more sinister? Something that school, with all its horrors, actually served to provide respite from? Or should have done.

I will never know and I assume most others who were in class that day won’t either. I don’t have any recollection of anyone talking about her or questioning her whereabouts or well-being after the initial incident.

She will forever remain one of the disappeared, but hopefully only from our lives – maybe she or the system, whatever that was, turned things around and she went on to have a successful and fulfilling life. I doubt it though. The odds seemed stacked against her.

There are no traces of her on social media – though there are people of the same name, but there would be as it’s not that unusual. Maybe she changed her name to escape her old life, possibly she just doesn’t want to be reminded of her time at school, or, and it’s not that unlikely, she is no longer alive.

When I look back on it and give a reasonable amount of consideration to those who disappeared so suddenly – most would announce they were moving elsewhere or their parents had got a new job out of the area, one I remember emigrated to Australia, another left for Burnley! – I come up with a good few names and Google them. Nothing. I try various social media platforms. Again nothing.

It’s not that I particularly want to find them, and they may not even have been lost or want to be found, but like so many you meet in life they came and went. Who knows or cares where? No-one, it seems.