Dear AmyI am well aware that Amy isn't your actual name. But it is the name I will use for you, hopefully to keep your true identity a secret, and provide a small modicum of protection.
It was another gloriously sunny day on the beach. We walked along, looking for a place to sit. I thought I had found a place that was suitable, but my husband wanted to move on further, so we did. Plodding on, with chair and rucksack, until we picked the space on the beach within sight of your family group.
We had no way of knowing what we would see or hear. Perhaps if we had known we would have avoided that spot. The only comfort I can take, is that because we picked this place I can tell your story - or a small part of it. Though I would much prefer that there was no story to tell. However, circumstances chose me to be a witness.
I will try and stick to facts, and not muddy the water with emotion. I am also well aware, that those reading this account may judge me harshly for my lack of action, but I know that any intervention would not have been appreciated and could have made things worse. The adults concerned would not have listened to anything I could say - for their normality is not mine.
I also feel uncomfortable taking the moral high ground, being well aware of how far short I fall from perfection.
I have agonised over writing this account, but it is all that I can do, not knowing where you live, or the rest of your story. Maybe someone somewhere will be in a position to be your advocate and protector. Meanwhile, I pray there is someone in your life who loves you, looks out for you and stands up for you, because I didn't see any tenderness or affection shown towards you that sunny day on the beach.
Admittedly, I do not know what may have taken place before we arrived. All I know is that my attention was drawn by a tussle over a bucket between you and another child, with an adult intervening. Yes, adults sometimes get involved in tussling with children over toys. Usually in order to give something back to a younger sibling, after reasoned requests have failed to achieve the desired outcome. and the adult concerned is at the end of their tether.
It isn't ideal, or pretty, but it happens.
Anyway, you lost the battle and gave up and went and busied yourself on the beach.
That I expected to be the end of it.
I didn't expect the adult to fill the bucket with seawater, march up to you, and pour the water over you, lifting your head to make sure the water went over your face.
I tried not to gasp too loudly.
You cried and they were satisfied.
Your spirit was broken again.
Yet an observer knows that they only see part of the story.
There was another child, streetwise, who instinctively knew how not to be a victim.
Who understood how to laugh with the adults and not show fear.
I wish you had her confidence, but how can you? You are just a vulnerable child.
A younger child wanted her own way and was tenacious, until a male adult gave in and sorted her world to her satisfaction.
Amy, I wish you had her tenacity, but how can you? You are just a small vulnerable, wounded child.
As the day was hot, two of the female adults went down to splash in the sea, pushing each other over and laughing loudly. Normalising physical behaviour. Another child got splashed and splashed back.
You were quietly minding your own business, digging happily in the sand.
One of the female adults left the sea, picked you up, and marched relentlessly towards the sea.
You knew what is going to happen and you protested loudly.
Your cries were irrelevant to them.
It was clear from both your body language, and the look on your face, that this is happening against your will.
If they noticed, they choose to ignore it. To them, it was just harmless fun.
They took hold of an arm and a leg each, swung you several times like a pendulum before they released you to land in the sea with a splash. You left the water crying.
They laughed, satisfied that they had won again.
A group of bikini-clad girls in their late teens with eastern European accents appeared, to take selfies for Instagram. They preened and pouted for numerous photos before running into the sea.
A friend recorded the moment.
They returned, laughing, to the beach, to review the pictures, before they walked back into the sea together, arms linked. Friends having harmless fun.
Incredibly, under direction from the female adults, a boy from the family group follows the girls out into the sea, fills a bucket with water, and throws it over them. They scream and run deeper into the sea, where they were going anyway. The adults cheer and roar with laughter.
The young lad tried his luck again aiming a bucket of water at a group returning from a boating trip, but they were already wet, and dismissed his attention-seeking behaviour, as if swatting away an irritating fly.
Later another boy in the group filled a bucket with water and charged up the beach towards the adults. His aim was inaccurate and impulsive. The contents of the bucket ended up in the bag of a member of the beach party. The child is not told off. Instead, recriminations rebounded among the adults as to whose fault it was, who had egged him on.
Then I realised that the two dominant members of the beach party are both females and it is members of the same sex that they were antagonistic towards: -
The child who cried.
The toddler who will not give in.
The bikini-clad teenagers with beautiful bodies.
They were all targets.
No allowances were made.
No forgiveness offered for any fault, whether genuine or perceived.
No love or respect shown.
It was their own gender they are jealous of and at war with.
Boys, however, are supposed to behave badly, so that they grow up to be men with no boundaries.
Look out for the Amy's of this world. The quiet kids that can do no right. Be their advocates.
The summer holidays are endless when you feel that the world is against you.
Meanwhile, Amy, stay as safe as you can.
A beachgoer
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