At intermediate school my wife was upbraided by a teacher when she used ‘happenstance’ in a sentence. The teacher told her that there was no such word, that she had made it up, and that she should cross it out and replace it with ‘coincidence’. At the time my wife was unable to prove that the word did exist, and the teacher’s false accusation has remained with her ever since.

By happenstance, the day I read Emma Neale’s ‘Androphobia’ I watched Playground, a stunning film by the Belgian director Laura Wandel. Although its subject is bullying, not molestation, like the poem the film places you smack-bang straight back at school. Everything is seen through the eyes of a seven-year old girl, overwhelmed by her first days at school. As time goes on, she begins to find her footing, only to discover that her older brother is being relentlessly bullied. The film’s French title is Le Monde, which is also appropriate; the playground as the world; school as a microcosm of society. And what happens there can imprint us for the rest of our lives.

This brings us to ‘Androphobia’. It is a hard poem, as in hard-hitting, and also compassionate, confronting us with what is unpalatable but, sadly, all-too believable. Not bittersweet but a bitter sweet. We see the world not, as Blake did, in a grain of sand but in a gritty sweet, abrasive against the tongue. And it’s difficult to speak out, especially when those who abuse us are in control and far more eloquent, able to dissemble in a setting where ‘deceit turns into truth’. However, a writer can give voice to the vulnerable, to one who has been preyed upon by an individual and silenced by an institution. Emma does just this. Her words ring out clear as a bell, in the early morning. Cutting through the murkiness, the ‘muddy tide’. Clear as a school bell.

richard von sturmer