Rachel Moore

Whenever a scandal breaks involving a married public figure, my first thoughts always go to the wife and children.

Humiliated, cringing with embarrassment and dreading eye contact, they have to face the world, at work, school, in the supermarket, walking the dog and swerving gossiping parents at after-school clubs drop off.

However unaware and uninvolved in whatever made their family the focus of salacious fascination, they, as victims of the piece, feel every bit of the shame and carry the burden as the person who has put them in this position.

“Think about them,” I chunter as the public lasciviously laps up details of a juicy story.

They caused none of it but must pay a high price going about their daily lives with the eyes, and judgement, of the world on them.

Yet these women hold their heartbreak with such astounding dignity. 

Who didn’t want to stand and applaud Matt Hancock’s wronged wife when she stepped out of her front door on a Saturday morning to face the paps in her green dress and white trainers after the release of that snogging and bum groping lockdown CCTV footage?

Huw Edwards’ wife Vicky Flind carried more than most on Wednesday when she courageously, lovingly and transparently outed her husband and father of her five children as the BBC presenter involved in the biggest “Who is it?” since Who Shot JR? 

What a woman.

Amid enormous personal pain, with her partner of decades hospitalised with what sounds like a breakdown, she took it on herself to end the guessing and take the step into the next chapter.

“I am doing this primarily out of concern for his mental well-being and to protect our children,” she said, going on to address her husband’s “serious mental health issues”, saying he has been treated for severe depression in recent years.

Immense emotional intelligence to issue a pitch and word-perfect statement with strength and insight, and most of all, love. 

She faced the situation by looking it in the eye and dealing with it, ready for what comes next.

Her words brought a handbrake turn in the tone and content of the serial tweeters.

Twitter instantly morphed from a baying mob to sympathetic huggers wishing Edwards a speedy recovery and return to work.

No illegality, no story, they spouted indignantly. Shame on the Sun for even starting this non-story.

The hypocrisy was appalling. On Sunday, the titillation – who is it? what had he/she done? – nearly broke the web.

Everyone desperate for the identity of the star accused of sending eye watering amounts of money to a young person for explicit photos despite being their parents’ begging the star to stop because it was feeding a spiralling crack cocaine habit.

Then, when the story subject was revealed as a national treasure, the consummate professional we trust to be the voice of our greatest and gravest events, Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, the King’s Coronation, who appears to have had an aberration in the grip of the Black Dog, everyone wants to embrace him (no mention of wife and children again) and shout down The Sun.

Flind’s statement shaped Edwards’ alleged activities into the context of mental illness.

We’ve seen what media hounding can do amid mental illness.

Edwards is, without doubt, the supreme broadcaster of our age. His illness deserves our sympathy. He also has a right to be angry to be outed for something that is not illegal.

What people do in their own time should remain private.

However, the story of a prime-time BBC presenter allegedly being begged by the parents of a young person to stop paying for explicit images because it was paying for a drug habit, that had been reported to the BBC in May with no action until last week, is in the public interest.

Our licence fee funds the BBC, which pays Edwards nearly half a million each year.

At least, the accusation would be a safeguarding issue involving a young person and drugs.

No none knows about family arrangements behind the scenes, but Flind has opened a new chapter.

But like in the case of Philip Schofield, can we think about the extraordinary wife and children trying to piece their lives back together.

Better off staying at home
We all know the world is hotting up. The Cerberus heatwave is gripping Europe, with reports of tourists collapsing in temperatures in the 40s.

This can only be good news for the ailing UK holiday industry. Brits can’t handle extreme temperatures.  

Suddenly unpredictable forecasts for a week on the Norfolk coast look far more appealing than a hot as hell beach in Spain.

Why do women take their partners clothes shopping? 
On a fantastic fun day shopping with my oldest friend, enjoying the wares of Norwich’s wonderful independent department store Jarrold, where shopping can be punctuated by wine and grazing boards beside a cheese room in the basement, we were saddened to watch a woman in her late 60s emerge from the changing room looking youthful and beautiful in a bright and breezy summer frock.

Her grumpy husband looked up and grunted “no.”

She turned on her heel back to the changing room, shoulders hunched and miserable.

My friend told her she looked lovely. She looked tearful.

We worried about her all day.