In March 2012 I received a phone call out of the blue from Miss Shackleton, who was the deputy head at Gemma’s school, Kennedy High School in Eastbourne. She was also head of child safeguarding at the school, and it was in this capacity that she was contacting me.
She told me that Gemma had recently confided in a teacher that she was bulimic and had been self-harming. My first reaction was one of total disbelief: Gemma didn’t have any problems with eating and was totally healthy. As for cutting herself, that was just ridiculous. Gemma never made any attempt to hide her body from me and, anyway, surely I would have noticed if she had any marks on her? Gemma and I have always been really close and she would have told me if she was upset about anything. She just wasn’t that kind of girl.
I assured Miss Shackleton that I would make an appointment for Gemma to have a check-up with the doctor and talk everything through with her. I accepted the fact that my daughter might have wanted to talk to a teacher as she was under so much pressure to do well in her GCSEs. I could understand that she might have been struggling with all the extra tuition, as the school had such high expectations of her, but surely the idea of bulimia and self-harming was a misunderstanding?
During the conversation Miss Shackleton also mentioned that Gemma had been seen holding hands with Mr Forrest, the teacher in whom she had confided, on the flight home from a school trip to America in February. My first thought was that, like me, Gemma is terrified of flying and perhaps Mr Forrest had been trying to calm her down, but I wasn’t happy about the idea of a teacher holding hands with my daughter. I pressed Miss Shackleton, but she told me it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. She said she had already investigated and reassured me that it was nothing more than a supportive gesture during the flight. She just wanted me to know that the matter was in hand and that all was well; there was nothing untoward to be worried about.
When Gemma returned home from school that night I sat her down and we had a long talk. She told me that there had been stupid rumours going round about Mr Forrest holding her hand, but that it was just because she was so scared of flying, and she insisted that the self-harming thing was ridiculous. As for the bulimia, well, yes, she had been sick at school, she admitted, but it had been because she was so worried about getting through her exams.
I told her that she shouldn’t put pressure on herself; if she didn’t get the results she was aiming for, she would always have the option of doing re-takes at college. I didn’t want her to become ill for the sake of her GCSEs and I also wanted her to understand that she wasn’t under any pressure from anyone at home to get results. In my opinion, Kennedy High School was way too demanding. Instead of inspiring the pupils, the school just put them under huge amounts of stress.
Gemma and I hugged each other and during the weeks that followed we were closer than ever. She duly went along to see the doctor, who confirmed that physically she was perfectly healthy, and the whole drama seemed to blow over. Nonetheless, over the next few weeks, I made sure to look out for any telltale signs of an eating disorder, and I asked the older members of the family to be watchful and let me know if they thought Gemma was ever acting out of character. I wanted to keep a close eye on her, so I reminded her to make sure that she carried on texting me regularly when she wasn’t at home. On one occasion, when Paul and I were visiting his family in Somerset and Gemma was staying with her nan, I virtually had hourly updates from her, telling me everything was fine.
Around three months after that first call from Miss Shackleton, on 11 June 2012, I gave birth to my beautiful baby daughter Lilly by C-section. On the same day, Miss Shackleton phoned again, but this time the call went to voicemail. There were a few complications with Lilly’s birth and so it would be another three days before I was able to get back to her, and I left her a message with the receptionist. I asked Gemma if there was anything I needed to know, but she assured me there was nothing to worry about. I wondered if it was simply a courtesy call to check everything was back on track.
Miss Shackleton and I then played a bit of phone tennis. When she didn’t get back to me I just assumed everything was fine now.
How wrong I was …