Living With Uncertainty

As terror and violence seem ever closer to home, newscaster Sian Williams, an expert on trauma, writes about facing an unknown future

- Sian Williams

SIAN, 51, has two adult sons from her first marriage, a stepdaughter of 19, and a son and daughter aged ten and seven, from her marriage to journalist Paul Woolwich. The family live in Kent.

This Christmas will be chaotic. I know it is for most of us – the usual few days full of squabbling and tears, laughter and hugs. Paul preparing a massive lunch, spending hours by the oven, wine glass in hand, Radio 4 blaring. Meanwhile by the tree, the adult children feigning excitement when they get yet another jumper, the “babies” ripping the paper off their gifts, barely looking at the one they’ve just been given. So yes, the usual happy, messy, mad Christmas. With the added complication that we have all five children with us this year and only two single beds.

We’re in a short-term holiday let, booked because our house needs fixing and the builders... well, you know how it is. So all seven of us are in a tiny cottage in a sleepy village with very little space. A potential pressure cooker of emotion. And yet – what a joy to have them all under one roof. The relief I feel when I look around the room and there they all are. Safe.

Because it’s been an appalling year of terror and fear. Shocking events in Europe; a truck being driven through a crowd of people watching fireworks in Nice, killing more than 80, injuring over 300. Islamists storming a French country church and slitting the throat of the elderly priest. Horrific, inexplicable, ghastly acts of violence and ones when your brain can’t help but start racing – is my family OK? Where are my children?

In fact the chances of being caught up in a terror attack are tiny. One study a few years ago suggested you’re more likely to be killed by a bee sting.