Mary Wakefield

As the Coalition forces prepare to pull out, other Brits commit to real ‘nation-building’ — educating the next generation. Mary Wakefield reports from rural Afghanistan Snow melts in the Hindu Kush, trickles through the foothills, sluices across flood plains scattered with pink anemones then runs noisily through Worsaj district down to the village of Qanduz, where it is drowned out by the sound of children shouting, ‘I love you!’ They’re either side of a dirt track, the children, throwing glitter, clapping, waving plastic flowers. In front of me, Sarah Fane, the object of their devotion, shakes hands and accepts so many garlands that soon only her eyes are showing above the frills.

The evening is laid out above the houses, behind Mr X’s head. Pinkish clouds collide then slide apart, exposing jigsaw shapes of darkening sky. A thumb smudge of moon appears over Westminster as Mr X gets to the point: ‘A new space age is about to begin,’ he says. ‘The question is not “will it happen?” — it will. The question is whether we want to be part of it.’ The light fades. The shadows on Mr X’s face deepen and his mood swings between elation and resignation. Mr X is a brilliant rocket scientist, excited about the dawning of a new era. But he also knows that there’s only a brief window of opportunity for us to get involved. ‘It’ll soon be too late,’ he says sadly. But we all love the moon landings, I say.

Mary Wakefield talks to a courageous woman who blew the whistle on the deep systemic failures in the foster care service — and whose only reward was to be hounded and vilified I spotted Sarah immediately, though I’d never seen her before and she was tucked in among the commuter crowds ebbing and flowing through Marylebone station. She walked differently from the rest, less preoccupied, more determined, and she carried, as she had said she would, a big black folder under her arm.

Because I spoke to him on the phone, not in person, you’ll have to share my mental picture of William P. Young. There he is in a hotel room in Texas: 53, balding, with bright eyes and a greying goatee. He’s ironing as he talks (he says so), his sleeves rolled up (I reckon), with a snowy pile of pressed shirts beside him. On the table beside his bed is a photo of his wife, Kim, and the six young Youngs back home in Gresham, Oregon. On the floor: piles of his extraordinary book The Shack. It’s extraordinary because of the subject matter — a man called Mack meets God in a shed — and also because of its phenomenal, inexplicable success in the face of what should have been certain book death. Though it was much loved by his friends, William P.