November 23, 2006

Charlie Thompson and her schoolfriend were killed by an oncoming train. A month later, Reg Thompson began writing heartbreaking letters from a father to his lost daughter. Now, they've been collected into an anthology about a family struggling to cope with life and aching loss

At around 6:30am on December 3, 2005, I walked quietly into my daughter’s bedroom. She was asleep, curled up on her side, her face towards the wall. I leant forward to kiss her on the forehead and as I did so she rolled over on to her back. As my face came towards hers, her eyes opened, a brief moment of incomprehension replaced by a slow smile.

“Bye-bye sweetheart,” I said. “Be careful in Cambridge. Take care crossing the road and don’t speak to strangers.”

“I love you, Daddy,” she said and with that she rolled over again and disappeared back into her dreams. On my way out of the house I looked in on my two sons, Robbie, 16, and Harry (or Horsey), 12, both soundly asleep and beyond disturbance.

Charlie had made me promise the night before that I would say goodbye to her before I went to work. Charlie planned to leave on the 10:42am train from Elsenham station with her friend Livvy and travel to Cambridge. Of all the dangers that our vivid and overwrought imaginations could predict, the perils of the station lay disguised and overlooked.

In attempting to catch the 10:42am Cambridge-bound train, Charlie and Livvy had been struck by the south-bound Stansted Express. According to the police, both girls died instantly. It was not their fault. They had not been ‘messing bout’. They had not attempted to run in front of an oncoming train.

They bought their tickets from the office on the London-bound platform and then crossed through the unlocked wicket gates with the idea of catching the train standing at the northbound platform. The miniature warning lights were still flashing, which we now understand to mean the imminent arrival of a second train. The reports into the accident suggest that the girls thought that the lights referred to the train already in the station. There was no ‘Fast train approaching’ sign and no guard to warn them. Moreover, the oncoming train was hidden from view by the train standing at the platform. The Stansted Express hurtled through the station at a speed in excess of 70mph. Charlie and Livvy had no chance.

I find it very difficult to write about what happened that day. More than 10 months on, we are still trapped in the surreal nightmare that descended upon us on that fateful morning. For the first month after the accident we were never alone. Friends, relatives, kindly strangers, all manner of people, beat a constant path to our door. The madness was kept at bay by a miraculous outpouring of love.

In early January, quite naturally, many people had to resume their normal lives. What had been a torrent of people reduced to a trickle. Hilary disappeared into a well of misery, barely able to speak or function but still able to show the courage needed to support our two wonderful sons. For me, then, as it is now, and as I know it will always be, I must find a way to keep a connection with my daughter. I began to write to her, keeping her up to date with the small events of an ordinary life. Above all I wanted to tell her how much I love her, how much I will always love her. It became and remains an obsession. When I write I am with her, surrounded by her presence, immersed in memories of her.

The letters were never written for publication. By the middle of April I had completed more than 50,000 words. My mother was aware of my writing and, gently but persuasively, she prevailed upon me to let her read what I had written. Very soon afterwards, I gave the incomplete letters to another friend, known affectionately to us as Mel C. She read nearly 200 pages in one three-hour sitting and then rang me straightaway. ‘Publish them,’ she said. ‘They will help others.’

I do not know what is right and what is wrong. I know that suffering is universal and that it is more common to be touched by tragedy than to escape it.


January 2, 2006
Hello Charlie,
Not much has happened today. mummy is washing the kitchen, throwing away some dead flowers and picking out live ones to make up new bunches. She hasn’t said very much. I cuddle her as much as I can.

I can’t talk about you as if you aren’t coming back. I can’t say ‘used’ or ‘loved’ or any word ending in ‘d’. You are alive to me although I know I won’t be able to hug you again.

Mummy lies on your bed sometimes or stands in the middle of your room. Nothing has been touched. Robbie won’t let any of his friends even go into your room. He is quiet in his grief, but desperate.

Horsey seems to have abandoned the few social skills he once had. He never talks about what happened and he seems, on the surface, to be fine but he has built around himself a wall. I watch him all the time just in case. He has seen too much for a boy of nearly 12. I love you, darling. Daddy


January 7, 2006
My Sweetheart,
Last night mummy talked to me for the first time. We were sitting in the kitchen. She was just gazing at the picture of you in Brighton in the summer. Your hair is literally dancing and your mouth is wide open, your eyes sparkling. It is a picture of pure happiness.

Mummy cries silently. She suffers in terrible silence. She stroked your picture and turned to me. “There are pockets,” she said. “Pockets of time when I can bear it. Watching television for a little while or a conversation. The rest of the time is madness.”

I said that we have a purpose. We have to make sure that Robbie and Horsey grow up to live full lives. They have a right to be happy. They mustn’t grow up in an atmosphere of misery.

Your soul, the thing that made you you, is indestructible. You can’t destroy energy. Do you want to know a secret? I love you. Daddy


January 20, 2006
Hello, my darling,
We went to see the psychiatrist today. He asked mummy to talk about her feelings and mummy said that all she can do is focus on that day and relive the horror over and over again. It is the same for me although I can sometimes push it away. It is a physical thing.

Dr Hunt felt that we had to try to reintroduce some kind of routine, however mundane. Sleeping upstairs instead of in the sitting room. Cooking simple meals at prescribed times. I didn’t like to tell him that we have never done that. He was worried about mummy not eating and said that he would need to see her again if her weight drops any further. As for the rest, there is no short cut, no easy route. How can there be? It is a life sentence, but one that we may get used to in time. I am going to try to sleep.

Even though the psychiatrist said we had to sleep upstairs, we are not ready. I love you, darling. Night, Daddy


February 3, 2006
My darling,
It is Friday. I haven’t written for a couple of days although I have been thinking only of you. Andy has been painting the house and I have been trying to help him. I didn’t realise what a lousy painter I am. While Andy has painted the entire hall, the stairs and the upstairs landing, I have managed 10 cupboards in the kitchen. Everything is brilliant white now and much brighter. I think you would like it. We are going to lay a new floor in the kitchen using the fake wooden planks mummy bought nearly a year ago. When it is all done we will put the house up for sale. I will write more soon. I love you. Daddy


February 5, 2006
My angel,
It is Sunday evening. Yesterday we were lucky. John Keeling, Paul and Mel, and Jill Wiggett all came to see us. Paul and Mel brought three bottles of wine and I think we drank them all.

Inevitably we all drank too much and mummy went to bed at half past 12. She says that only red wine allows her to sleep, but she did not eat anything and she looked as ill as I have ever seen her. We both have hangovers today, dull, throbbing headaches to complement our misery.

I love you. Your Daddy


February 6, 2006
Darling Charlikins,
I ended up going to the doctor on my own. Mummy was asleep and I did not want to wake her. The doctor has prescribed some more pills. He asked me whether I thought they were working. I said that I had no idea. It is hard to imagine feeling worse and yet I am able to function. On that basis maybe they are working. He is coming tomorrow to see mummy at home. I am becoming increasingly worried about her. She eats so little and has no energy and no wish to do anything. She rouses herself to wash shirts for Robbie and Horsey and she cooks for them more often than I do now, but that is all she does. I had hoped to persuade her to help me paint, but she is not up to it. Bless you my sweetheart. Daddy


March 2, 2006
Darling one,
The night before last I suddenly thought that I could smell gas leaking from the fake coal fire in the living room. I rang the gas board first thing in the morning and with remarkable efficiency a small light blue van pulled up within an hour. A barrel man of Italian descent pronounced that the gas levels were within acceptable limits and that there was nothing to worry about.

As he was leaving he saw your pictures lining the mantelpiece and there was something about him that led me to tell him what had happened. He told me that his son had been just 16 when he had been knocked down and killed by a hit-and-run driver. That had been 15 years ago. He asked me how you had died, as I talked the man’s eyes filled with tears. And so I found another brother, another member of this awful club.

It is my curse that I can only love you. Your Daddy


April 4, 2006
Hello again, poppet,
Spring has definitely sprung, as they say. I have discarded my winter sweater.

I saw Dr Taylex yesterday at the surgery. We have been on the pills for at least two months and I told him that neither mummy nor I can tell whether they have any effect or not. He fears that we may be turned into zombies and perhaps it is better to feel the pain than spend our days staring blankly into space. Your Daddy


May 28, 2006
My darling,
Nearly a month has passed since my last letter. So much has happened. I have been writing to you in my head everyday, making sure not to miss anything out. It is Sunday morning.

It was six months yesterday. Six months since I last saw you. Life on the surface has resumed a kind of routine normality. Mummy has been back at work for two months. I have completed five lectures at the County High. Robbie has started his GCSEs. Horsey has already played three times for the Thaxted under-15 cricket team. I laugh, I tell jokes and my mask, for the most part, stays firmly in place, but what everybody else sees is not my face. I feel that I am about to cry at any moment and sometimes, when I am alone, I take the mask off and the tears come and my real face twists in agony. Your Daddy


June 6, 2006
Hello poppet,
Dr Tayler and I have become friends of sorts. I have made an appointment for mummy to see him on Friday. I asked him whether he thought 48 was too old to have another baby. He said no, but there is a one in 50 chance that the child could have Down’s syndrome.

I was terrified even mentioning the idea of a baby to the doctor and on the odd occasion that mummy and I have talked about the possibility, I have been unable to leave unsaid the terrible thought that trying to have another baby might in some way be an attempt to replace you. Nothing could replace you. I said the same to the doctor. I am ashamed of the thought, but others may think it and I feel compelled to scream that you are irreplaceable. Regardless of what Dr Tayler said, we may be too old anyway. Your Daddy


June 19, 2006
Poppet,
Yesterday was Father’s Day. I bought the papers as I always do on a Sunday and positioned myself at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a cigarette. I arranged your photographs in a semi-circle I could see you from every angle. Like a moth to a lighted candle.

I love you. I long for you. I will keep writing. I promise. Sleep well. Your Daddy


July 23, 2006
Hello sweetheart,
I have let another two weeks pass without writing to you. I think of you all the time, but our new house has had a strange effect on me. There are no memories here. I am not frightened of the house or frightened of looking up and not seeing you. It is just a place to eat and sleep.

Something else happened last week. I have a letter on my desk from the chief executive of Network Rail, a man named John Armitt. In the letter he says that Network Rail has agreed to pursue certain actions to make Elsenham station safer. A ticket machine is going to be installed on the Cambridge platform, together with a ‘Second train coming’ warning system with an experimental voice-over. They are going to launch a local awareness campaign including a briefing to local schools.

I am glad that now there is much less chance that any others will suffer as you have. How can I be glad, though, when this is a confirmation that the station could have been safer?

I will never stop writing to you. Never stop thinking of you. You are the wind in the trees, the sunlight playing across the surface of the water, the rain, the snow and the clouds. You are every blade of grass and the heart of every flower. Sometimes I feel you so strongly that I can believe that you are a part of me. Bless you my darling. Your Daddy. — Dawn/Observer Service

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