For Victor

It wasn’t the sight of Ancient Dame Edna Everage chewing her acerbic way through Micky Flanagan’s crackling.

It wasn’t the sublime James Corden’s rousing speech as an inspirational Smithy.

It wasn’t Jack Whitehall’s turn as Jonathan Ross’s much funnier son.

It definitely wasn’t the painful sight of Davina McCall and an eager John Bishop, hopping around like a child waiting for sweeties, both dangling the vile carrot of a sponsored snog in front of an audience cringing with apprehension. (She’s known as “Shut up Davina” in our house. As soon as she appears on screen, ruining my view of Ashley on Got to Dance, I yell those words at the screen.)

It was one film, of a baby called Victor, who had been rushed to hospital by his desperate parents. They knew they were watching him die in front of their eyes. We were feverishly hoping that the tone of the voiceover would change, the uplifting music would start, his parent’s faces would flood with relief, and a healthier, smiling Victor would be shown to us as he got the blood he needed and grabbed his life back. But that wasn’t what happened.

These simple and devastating words appeared instead:

Victor died at 10pm.

Tears streamed down my face. Each one of us in the room felt the senseless, unfair, devastating loss of that little boy who had only ever known hunger and suffering. It was so stark. So simple. So wrong.

I confess I had been watching Comic Relief with cynical eyes. The sight of millionaires demanding money from us is something I find hard to swallow sometimes, especially when they’re flogging something, a new show, a new single. They get something out of it I thought, even if they’re giving their time for free. During Peter Kay’s sitdownathon he had even kissed a cardboard cut-out of Lenny Henry which clearly demonstrated that he was kipping in the budget hotel that Lenny has put his face to. Is there any such thing as a truly selfless act?

Many viewers may have been feeling a bit of “compassion fatigue”, when so many people are struggling these days. When faced with rich celebrities asking for more it can be easy to switch off. But I looked around me, at my home, my healthy children that aren’t dying for want of a meal or a mosquito net, safe in the knowledge that there’s food in the cupboards and fridge and there will be tomorrow, that there’s water in the taps that won’t kill me.

Victor’s parents, and millions of other parents, have lost their children through famine, poverty and preventable disease. Many more will. Comic Relief, Sport Relief, Children in Need, all of those telethons staffed by gossip mag fodder – they may make some of us want to throw our slippers at the screen but those devastating films that show us the truth of it do still remind us of the horror of life, and death, that others suffer everyday.