The genie grants you a wish. What is it?

It’s one of those questions that sounds wonderfully simple.

You rub the lamp. The genie appears.

Three seconds later, you’re suddenly faced with the biggest decision of your life.

And I’m guessing most people would go for something fairly obvious.

£100 million in the bank. A mansion. Fame.

Maybe becoming a bestselling author, a world-famous photographer, or whatever else happens to float your particular boat.

And don’t get me wrong, I’d quite happily take the £100 million, but there’s a problem. If I became a successful poet or photographer because some magical blue bloke handed it to me, I’m not sure I’d want it. I want to know that I earned it.

Every poem. Every photograph. Every little bit of progress.

The mistakes. The failures. The hours nobody sees.

That’s where the meaning comes from.

So if the genie stood in front of me today and said: “Bob, you get one wish. Anything you want.” My answer would probably surprise you.

I wouldn’t ask for money. I wouldn’t ask for fame. I wouldn’t even ask for anything for myself. I’d wish for one thing.

I would wish to eliminate child sexual abuse.

Completely. Everywhere. No exceptions. No child ever having to experience it. No teenager carrying a secret they’re terrified to tell anyone.

No adult waking up decades later and realising that something that happened in childhood has somehow followed them through and affected their entire life.

Because I know what it’s like.

I’m a survivor of child sexual abuse.

It happened more than forty years ago.

Forty.

Years.

And yet here I am, all these decades later, still thinking about it. Finally talking about it. Still understanding that something that lasted for a relatively small part of my childhood managed to leave fingerprints all over the man I became.

That’s the thing about abuse.

People sometimes imagine that when the abuse stops, the damage stops too.

It doesn’t necessarily work like that.

The perpetrator might walk away.

The child grows up. Life moves on. People get married. Have children. Build careers. Take photographs. Write books. Stand on beaches. Have therapy.

Laugh. Love… Live.

But sometimes, the past comes along for the ride. It sits quietly in the passenger seat. You might not notice it for years. Then something happens: A smell. A place. A memory.

A conversation.

A particular feeling.

And suddenly that little passenger taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that it’s still there.

That’s why my wish wouldn’t be about making me rich. It wouldn’t even be about erasing my own past. Because if I could magically remove what happened to me, I’d also remove part of the journey that made me who I am today.

And despite everything… I don’t want to erase myself, now.

I want to erase the reason children need to become survivors in the first place.

That’s the difference.

I don’t want a world where we become really good at helping people pick up the pieces.

I want a world where fewer people have pieces to pick up.

I want children to grow up knowing what safety feels like.

I want survivors to know that they will be believed when they find the strength to tell someone what happened, or is happening.

I want them to understand that their bodies belong to them.

That saying no means no.

That adults are supposed to protect children, not exploit them.

And perhaps most importantly…

I want survivors to know that what happened to them wasn’t their fault.

Not then. Not now. Never.

Because shame has a nasty habit of attaching itself to the wrong person: The child carries it. The teenager carries it. The adult carries it. Sometimes, to their grave.

Meanwhile, the person responsible may carry absolutely none of it.

That’s backwards. The shame belongs with the person who caused the harm, not the person who survived it.

So yes, if that genie ever does turn up, lamp in hand, waiting patiently for my answer… I know exactly what I’ll ask for… I’d simply look him in the eye and say:

“Make sure no child ever has to become a survivor of sexual abuse again.”

And if that sounds like an impossible wish… perhaps it is.

But I’ve spent enough of my life being told that some things are impossible. Sometimes impossible just means we haven’t tried hard enough yet.

So until that genie turns up, perhaps the rest of us have a part to play.

Listen. Believe. Protect. Educate.

Speak when silence would make things easier for the wrong person.

And when a survivor finally finds the courage to say those words:

“This happened to me.”

Don’t ask them why they didn’t tell someone sooner. Don’t brush it off with a throwaway comment. Don’t ask what they were wearing. Don’t ask what they did to cause it. Don’t ask why they didn’t fight or scream.

Just listen.

Believe them.

And do remind them of something they may have spent years struggling to believe themselves:

It wasn’t their fault.

Forty years later, I’m still here. Still writing. Still taking photographs. Still telling stories. Still trying to turn some of the darker parts of my life into something that might help somebody else. Perhaps that’s the closest thing I have to magic.Not changing the past, but using what happened to me to try to make somebody else’s future a little safer.

And if I only ever get one wish… That’s the one I’ll choose.

Every single time.

Stay safe,

BC