Missing?.............

I have been reminded recently of the agony my parents went through when I went missing as a 12 year old. I wasn’t really missing, I knew exactly where I was, but unfortunately my parents didn’t!

It was a normal day at Secondary School but during my P.E. lesson I somehow managed to hurt my ankle so badly that I couldn’t walk on it at all. The teacher in charge of First Aid had me sitting with my foot in cold water for a couple of hours until it was decided that I needed to go to the hospital for an xray. The hospital was literally five minutes down the road from my school, so one of the teachers was enlisted to take me and a sixth form student to look after me.

I’d been at the hospital from about 2 p.m. and by 6 p.m. my fractured ankle had been plastered up and I was sitting in a wheelchair waiting to go home. The sixth-former took her leave and so I waited, and waited, and waited. By this time I was getting a bit frightened. The hospital staff asked if my parents had been informed but I didn’t know. We didn’t have a telephone, though my aunt (who lived next door) did, but I didn’t know her number. I presumed the school had the number and had taken the responsibility of letting my parents know where I was.

Meanwhile, when I hadn’t arrived home by 5.00 p.m., half and hour later than my usual time, my mother had frantically got in touch with my father’s employers to tell him to come home. Mum had tried ringing the school but there was no reply. As soon as my father got home he asked my uncle if he would take him to my school, which was about 15 minutes away by car, and help him search for me, which of course he agreed to do.

I was getting more and more upset that my parents hadn’t come to get me, I had no idea that they didn’t know I was at the hospital, and at 7.30 p.m. when my Dad walked into the A&E department I just burst into tears with relief, as did Dad and uncle.

Once we got home Dad told me how he and uncle had driven around in the vicinity of the school hoping to find me, then Dad noticed a couple of girls wearing the same uniform as me and stopped to ask if they knew me. It was this chance meeting that gave Dad the news that I’d been taken to hospital with an injured ankle, and brought him to my rescue.

Needless to say the next morning my mother was waiting outside the Headmistresses’ office demanding to know why they hadn’t informed her I’d been taken to hospital. I don’t know what excuse was given but obviously it wasn’t enough because Mum made a formal complaint against the school. What the outcome was I’m not sure and we moved house and school not long afterwards, so obviously there were never any more problems as far as that school went.

If only all cases of missing children were that simple.