GMTV interview, in full.

whymadeleine wrote:Our hearts go out to you Kate, but the truth is it's time to find
some peace...

By Esther Ranzten
Last updated at 12:11 AM on 29th April 2010
Dear Kate

Can it really be only three years since your little daughter Madeleine disappeared? It feels like a century ago
when her three-year-old face first began to haunt us.
Her angelic expression and solemn eyes engraved themselves on to
our hearts; they reached out to us from posters that went up everywhere,
from airports to village shops.
Even now, the questions remain. Could she still be alive? Worst
of all, is she the prisoner of some twisted individual? I know that must
be your deepest fear - indeed it doesn't bear thinking about - although
of course it must always be at the back of your mind.






Torment: Kate McCann has made a fresh
appeal for help finding her missing daughter Madeleine


Over the years we have shared your nightmares. In those early months,
as news story followed news story, we pored over the events of that
fatal evening she went missing. You must have relived those hours a
million times, and so have we.
So I hope it doesn't sound too harsh to suggest that three years
later, the world has moved on. Not because we have forgotten Maddie, nor
because we have lost sympathy with you and your family, but because the
pain we felt at the time has begun to numb and heal with time.
No doubt that's what motivated you to appear on GMTV yesterday.
To remind us. To shake us into caring again. Clearly you are still in
agony - perhaps, for you, time has even intensified it. As you and Gerry
publicly accuse the police of 'giving up', it is obvious that your
agony is caused not just by loss, but by not knowing if your darling
girl is dead or alive, safe or suffering.




Advice: Esther Rantzen believes the McCanns need
a positive memorial to celebrate Maddie's life

You are still tormented by the fact that nobody can answer your
questions, because Maddie has not been found, and may never be found.
Let us for a moment face the tragic truth. Maddie may not be
alive. How will you feel if one day her body is found? My guess - and it
can only be a guess because no one can truly know how you feel - is
that after the first terrible impact of shock and grief, you may even
feel a small glimmer of relief that at least she is at peace.
That is not in any way to diminish your terrible loss. It is
simply a human response to your current purgatory. No more guessing; no
more false hopes cruelly disappointed. Perhaps the fact of knowing might
bring with it the understanding that, at last, you might be able to
move on with your lives.
For at the moment you are still stuck exactly where you have been
for the past three years. As you say yourself: 'As a parent of an
abducted child, I can tell you that it is the most painful and agonising
experience you could ever imagine. My thoughts of the fear, confusion
and loss of love and security that my precious daughter has had to
endure are unbearable.'
So maybe if you knew the truth, no matter how tragic that truth
is, you might find it easier to bear.
You are not alone. Parents who lose children have told me how
important it is to have something, even a body, to centre their grief
on. I remember interviewing Winnie Johnson, mother of Keith Bennett.
Keith was one of Ian Brady's child victims, murdered and buried
somewhere on the Lancashire moors, the only child victim whose body was
never found.
Unlike you, Kate, Winnie has known for years that her child is
dead. But like you, she is still tormented by not knowing where he is.
Keith's murder took place 46 years ago. Yet only a couple of
months ago Winnie took a helicopter flight over Saddleworth Moor to
search for her boy's body yet again. And to pray for him.
She said: 'I know these moors go on for ever, but I know one day
we will find my Keith. I will never give up hope. I want him back. I
will fight for ever more until I find him and I hope I will find him
before I'm dead.'
Although Manchester police have called off their search for
Keith's body, Winnie is appealing for £20,000 to pay for a special
scanner powerful enough to find buried remains. After nearly half a
century of uncertainty, she still yearns to find him, to be released
from rage and pain, and be enabled to grieve.
Make no mistake, that need to mourn a lost child is one of the
most powerful emotions a mother can feel.




Agony: For Gerry and Kate McCann, pictured
during their interview on GMTV, the torture continues

I once made a television programme about still-born babies. At the
time, it was the practice to try to pretend the babies had never
existed. Fathers were told to go home and redecorate the nursery and
give away the baby clothes. Hospitals buried the tiny bodies in unmarked
graves.
There were no photographs taken, nothing to remind the parents of
their loss. Annihilating every trace of the child was considered the
kindest way to help a grieving mother cope. But it was terribly wrong.
Bereaved parents told me that years later their grief was as fresh as
ever; that they had constant dreams and flashbacks of the baby they had
lost.
So now the practice has changed completely. Doctors and midwives
encourage parents to create memorials, books and gardens for still-born
babies.
Grief, mourning and a carefully created memorial can bring
healing. Which brings me to another family in despair.
Seventeen years ago, when he was a toddler, James Bulger was
brutally murdered by two children, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.
That murder is engraved on our national memory and broke his mother
Denise's heart.
For 15 of those years she has been unable to leave her home
alone. I have visited her there, in the house that had become a shrine
to James. All she had were constant reminders of his terrible death, not
of his life. 'He was such a positive little boy,' she told me, 'I'd
love him to have something positive to celebrate him with.'
'Be assured, we have not forgotten Madeleine, or you'


So I suggested to her that we could create a special memorial to
James, a project on Merseyside, her home town, to help children who have
been badly bullied. Run by the Red Balloon charity, it could be called
James Bulger House.
When Denise visited a Red Balloon project with me and saw their
fantastic work in giving traumatised children their lives back, she
leapt at the idea of a similar project in her son's name. 'I would love
my children to have a positive memory of James,' she told me.
James Bulger House is about to open now; there are already
children on its waiting list. And on what would have been James's 18th
birthday, Denise took 18 red balloons to his graveside.
Why is this relevant to your own terrible heartache, Kate? Well,
what I am suggesting is that you and Gerry need a similarly positive
memorial to celebrate Maddie's life, too. Not because I am assuming she
is dead, but because when we last met I saw how frail you are, and how
unhappy. And no wonder.
I know that you and Gerry are constantly with parents of missing
children who, like yourselves, are lost in the no man's land between
grief and hope.
The work has inevitably immersed you in the hideous world of
child pornography and sexual exploitation, because that is often the
motive of those who abduct children. You say that now you know about
'the unbelievable existence of such a horrifying activity and its
vastness in our socalled civilised and "child-loving" society', your
eyes have been opened to a terrifying new world.
With that nightmare constantly before your eyes, no wonder you
accuse the police of 'giving up' on Maddie. Let no one judge you harshly
for keeping the flicker of hope alive in your hearts.
But alongside your campaign to tighten laws against child
pornography, why not also create a Madeleine McCann charity - one that
would not simply fund the search for your lost daughter, and others like
her, but which would also help children in other distressing
situations?
It could be medically based - perhaps as Gerry is a consultant
cardiologist, it might work for children with heart disease. Or perhaps
it could provide respite for families battling with disability - for
example, the thousands of children who spend their exhausted lives
helping to care for a disabled parent, day in day out.
These are only suggestions. You as a GP and Gerry as a consultant
must already know many other ways in which you could give practical
support to other children, in Maddie's name. And the happiness you
create would surely give you both the strength to heal the past, and
optimism to face the future.
In the meantime, be assured, we have not forgotten Maddie, or
you. But we recognise, in your anger, that time has stood still for you.

And although we would not wish you to lose your commitment, we
would also like to feel that you find comfort in the knowledge that
Maddie's name will live on, and will contribute happiness to many other
children's lives - wherever she is.
Wishing you happiness as ever,


Esther


[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1269641/ESTHER-RANTZEN-Our-hearts-Kate-McCann-truth-time-peace-.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

whymadeleine wrote:Our hearts go out to you Kate, but the truth is it's time to find
some peace...

By Esther Ranzten
Last updated at 12:11 AM on 29th April 2010
Dear Kate

Can it really be only three years since your little daughter Madeleine disappeared? It feels like a century ago
when her three-year-old face first began to haunt us.
Her angelic expression and solemn eyes engraved themselves on to
our hearts; they reached out to us from posters that went up everywhere,
from airports to village shops.
Even now, the questions remain. Could she still be alive? Worst
of all, is she the prisoner of some twisted individual? I know that must
be your deepest fear - indeed it doesn't bear thinking about - although
of course it must always be at the back of your mind.






Torment: Kate McCann has made a fresh
appeal for help finding her missing daughter Madeleine


Over the years we have shared your nightmares. In those early months,
as news story followed news story, we pored over the events of that
fatal evening she went missing. You must have relived those hours a
million times, and so have we.
So I hope it doesn't sound too harsh to suggest that three years
later, the world has moved on. Not because we have forgotten Maddie, nor
because we have lost sympathy with you and your family, but because the
pain we felt at the time has begun to numb and heal with time.
No doubt that's what motivated you to appear on GMTV yesterday.
To remind us. To shake us into caring again. Clearly you are still in
agony - perhaps, for you, time has even intensified it. As you and Gerry
publicly accuse the police of 'giving up', it is obvious that your
agony is caused not just by loss, but by not knowing if your darling
girl is dead or alive, safe or suffering.




Advice: Esther Rantzen believes the McCanns need
a positive memorial to celebrate Maddie's life

You are still tormented by the fact that nobody can answer your
questions, because Maddie has not been found, and may never be found.
Let us for a moment face the tragic truth. Maddie may not be
alive. How will you feel if one day her body is found? My guess - and it
can only be a guess because no one can truly know how you feel - is
that after the first terrible impact of shock and grief, you may even
feel a small glimmer of relief that at least she is at peace.
That is not in any way to diminish your terrible loss. It is
simply a human response to your current purgatory. No more guessing; no
more false hopes cruelly disappointed. Perhaps the fact of knowing might
bring with it the understanding that, at last, you might be able to
move on with your lives.
For at the moment you are still stuck exactly where you have been
for the past three years. As you say yourself: 'As a parent of an
abducted child, I can tell you that it is the most painful and agonising
experience you could ever imagine. My thoughts of the fear, confusion
and loss of love and security that my precious daughter has had to
endure are unbearable.'
So maybe if you knew the truth, no matter how tragic that truth
is, you might find it easier to bear.
You are not alone. Parents who lose children have told me how
important it is to have something, even a body, to centre their grief
on. I remember interviewing Winnie Johnson, mother of Keith Bennett.
Keith was one of Ian Brady's child victims, murdered and buried
somewhere on the Lancashire moors, the only child victim whose body was
never found.
Unlike you, Kate, Winnie has known for years that her child is
dead. But like you, she is still tormented by not knowing where he is.
Keith's murder took place 46 years ago. Yet only a couple of
months ago Winnie took a helicopter flight over Saddleworth Moor to
search for her boy's body yet again. And to pray for him.
She said: 'I know these moors go on for ever, but I know one day
we will find my Keith. I will never give up hope. I want him back. I
will fight for ever more until I find him and I hope I will find him
before I'm dead.'
Although Manchester police have called off their search for
Keith's body, Winnie is appealing for £20,000 to pay for a special
scanner powerful enough to find buried remains. After nearly half a
century of uncertainty, she still yearns to find him, to be released
from rage and pain, and be enabled to grieve.
Make no mistake, that need to mourn a lost child is one of the
most powerful emotions a mother can feel.




Agony: For Gerry and Kate McCann, pictured
during their interview on GMTV, the torture continues

I once made a television programme about still-born babies. At the
time, it was the practice to try to pretend the babies had never
existed. Fathers were told to go home and redecorate the nursery and
give away the baby clothes. Hospitals buried the tiny bodies in unmarked
graves.
There were no photographs taken, nothing to remind the parents of
their loss. Annihilating every trace of the child was considered the
kindest way to help a grieving mother cope. But it was terribly wrong.
Bereaved parents told me that years later their grief was as fresh as
ever; that they had constant dreams and flashbacks of the baby they had
lost.
So now the practice has changed completely. Doctors and midwives
encourage parents to create memorials, books and gardens for still-born
babies.
Grief, mourning and a carefully created memorial can bring
healing. Which brings me to another family in despair.
Seventeen years ago, when he was a toddler, James Bulger was
brutally murdered by two children, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.
That murder is engraved on our national memory and broke his mother
Denise's heart.
For 15 of those years she has been unable to leave her home
alone. I have visited her there, in the house that had become a shrine
to James. All she had were constant reminders of his terrible death, not
of his life. 'He was such a positive little boy,' she told me, 'I'd
love him to have something positive to celebrate him with.'
'Be assured, we have not forgotten Madeleine, or you'


So I suggested to her that we could create a special memorial to
James, a project on Merseyside, her home town, to help children who have
been badly bullied. Run by the Red Balloon charity, it could be called
James Bulger House.
When Denise visited a Red Balloon project with me and saw their
fantastic work in giving traumatised children their lives back, she
leapt at the idea of a similar project in her son's name. 'I would love
my children to have a positive memory of James,' she told me.
James Bulger House is about to open now; there are already
children on its waiting list. And on what would have been James's 18th
birthday, Denise took 18 red balloons to his graveside.
Why is this relevant to your own terrible heartache, Kate? Well,
what I am suggesting is that you and Gerry need a similarly positive
memorial to celebrate Maddie's life, too. Not because I am assuming she
is dead, but because when we last met I saw how frail you are, and how
unhappy. And no wonder.
I know that you and Gerry are constantly with parents of missing
children who, like yourselves, are lost in the no man's land between
grief and hope.
The work has inevitably immersed you in the hideous world of
child pornography and sexual exploitation, because that is often the
motive of those who abduct children. You say that now you know about
'the unbelievable existence of such a horrifying activity and its
vastness in our socalled civilised and "child-loving" society', your
eyes have been opened to a terrifying new world.
With that nightmare constantly before your eyes, no wonder you
accuse the police of 'giving up' on Maddie. Let no one judge you harshly
for keeping the flicker of hope alive in your hearts.
But alongside your campaign to tighten laws against child
pornography, why not also create a Madeleine McCann charity - one that
would not simply fund the search for your lost daughter, and others like
her, but which would also help children in other distressing
situations?
It could be medically based - perhaps as Gerry is a consultant
cardiologist, it might work for children with heart disease. Or perhaps
it could provide respite for families battling with disability - for
example, the thousands of children who spend their exhausted lives
helping to care for a disabled parent, day in day out.
These are only suggestions. You as a GP and Gerry as a consultant
must already know many other ways in which you could give practical
support to other children, in Maddie's name. And the happiness you
create would surely give you both the strength to heal the past, and
optimism to face the future.
In the meantime, be assured, we have not forgotten Maddie, or
you. But we recognise, in your anger, that time has stood still for you.

And although we would not wish you to lose your commitment, we
would also like to feel that you find comfort in the knowledge that
Maddie's name will live on, and will contribute happiness to many other
children's lives - wherever she is.
Wishing you happiness as ever,


Esther


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1269641/ESTHER-RANTZEN-Our-hearts-Kate-McCann-truth-time-peace-.html?ito=feeds-newsxml[/quote]

I think she probably mean't well.....but I wonder if she would feel the same if it were her daughter or granddaughter....