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Appendix Four: Note on the Authors
SARAH NELSON is a writer and researcher on child sexual abuse and author of Incest: Fact and Myth. Topics of her published research papers, book chapters and reports include mental and physical health effects of CSA; sadistic organised abuse; community and schools prevention of CSA; the Orkney child abuse case; national and international campaign issues in CSA. She was Senior Research Officer at health in mind until March 2005. From 2006 she has carried out a research study on the needs of men abused in childhood, and has also worked with the Scottish Government on implementation of the National Strategy for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse.
SUE HAMPSON was appointed Training for Trainers ( CSA) Co-ordinator at the Scottish Association for Mental Health ( SAMH) in 2007. The training programme is 'Safe to Say'. She has worked as a person-centred counsellor, trainer and supervisor for 14 years. She has a background in work with homeless people and refugees, and as a lecturer in further education. She has worked as a counsellor in the NHS, in GP practices and in a mental health team. She has a great deal of experience of working with people who self-harm and who survived CSA. She was Beyond Trauma National Training Officer at health in mind, Edinburgh, until 2006.
Who Are These Men?
Who are these men who would do you harm?
Not the mad-eyed who grumble at pavements
Banged up in a cell with childhood ghosts.
Who shout suddenly and frighten you. Not they.
The men who would do you harm have gentle voices
Have practised their smiles in front of mirrors.
Disturbed as children, they are disturbed by them.
Obsessed. They wear kindness like a carapace
Day-dreaming up ways of cajoling you into the car.
Unattended, they are devices impatient
To explode. Ignore the helping hand
It will clench. Beware the lap, it is a trapdoor.
They are the spies in our midst. In the park,
Outside the playground, they watch and wait.
Given half the chance, love, they would take you.
Undo you. Break you into a million pieces.
Perhaps in time, I would learn forgiveness.
Perhaps, in time, I would kill one.
Roger McGough
With grateful thanks to Roger McGough 1993. Defying Gravity. London, Penguin
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