Madeleine McCann: Gerry and Kate Have Had Enough
SAYS Madeleine McCann’s father Gerry: “In the first few weeks when I slipped into dark moments of despair I was finding it quite easy to emotionally switch a light back on, but I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to do that.
“More importantly I don’t want to do that any more. I want to be able to grieve and let those emotions out.”
In “Maddie: Exhausted parents put campaign on hold,” the News of the World listens as Gerry and Kate McCann explain their next move.
Says Kate: “I find when I am alone I feel a lot of anxiety. When I’m speaking to people it takes my mind off things. I’m not thinking, ‘Where is Madeleine, how is she feeling?’ It’s a distraction and it helps, but it’s time to step back from that.”
No Parents: no News
But without the parents around, what news of Madeleine is there? The tabloid press has focused all its energies on telling us about Kate and Gerry’s pain, their heartbreak, the fears.
Instead of news of the case, we have seen Gerry and Kate on the TV and papers, appealing to us for help in finding their daughter. While the McCanns appealed for all eyes to look out for their missing daughter, all eyes were on them.
The McCanns have become the story, unwelcome fame culminating in a BBC headline that, as Mick Hume noted, delivered the Lloyd-George-knew-my-father moment, “Pope meets Madeleine’s parents”.
But now with the McCanns taking a backwards step, allowing themselves to grieve for “our Maddie”, what will the tabloid press do?
Were not the McCanns destined to be those parents of that girl who went missing, still popping up in TV shows years from now as the faces of distraught parenthood?
“We have to ask ourselves whether this is a long-term campaign,” says Gerry. “We never wanted it to be one, we want her back as soon as possible.”
So that’s it. The police will continue to look for Madeleine McCann. She is still missing. The heat and light generated by the media feeding frenzy was for nought, at best a welcome distraction to the McCanns.
Still Looking
Madeleine’s face is not everywhere. Posters of Madeleine are not in every Mediterranean resort, at every airport departure gate. Anorak has yet to see anyone wearing a yellow ribbon. Did one of the Sun’s official yellow balloons land in your garden?
We hope Madeleine McCann is found. We hope her parents’ pain ends. But we are unchanged by events. Soap opera stories shifted. Celebrities, politicians and footballers offered help and displayed how much they cared. Parents hunted paedos. Empathy was all.
But Madeleine McCann is a story, one with a single thread. And now that has been broken…
Posted: 10th, June 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (32) | TrackBack | Permalink
