Life in Soham

'This shop will be closed for one day only on Monday 10th November' it says on the window of the greengrocers on the High Street.

Substitute the word 'shop' for the word 'town' and you will get an idea of how Soham, the reluctantly famous market town in east Cambridgeshire, feels this week. The town has been taken over for the second time in eighteen months by media, cameras, police…and now jurors from the Old Bailey.

The town was deathly quiet when Court Number One relocated to Soham on Monday. Many of the shops were shut and schools were devoid of the usual noisy children, taken out of town to avoid the trauma of being reminded of what happened to their friends last year. Nobody wanted to venture into the town centre, not keen on the thought of being confronted by the entourage of officials that were solemnly retracing the steps of two ordinary school girls back on August 4th 2002.

Eighteen months ago, if I told you I lived in Soham, you would have immediately asked me 'Where's that?' I would have explained that Soham is a small town close to the Suffolk/Cambridgeshire border, where nothing remarkable ever happens, and you would probably have forgotten about it. Not now. Since last summer there has been no request for me to spell Soham out to people on the telephone — it's been splashed over the front of so many newspapers both home and abroad. Unfortunately, like 'Dunblane', or '9/11' Soham is one of those words that conjures up images of something you’d rather not think about, but can't quite forget.

Last year, Soham town centre was under siege for almost two weeks. There was a palpable sense of shock that seemed to engulf the place. A town that nobody noticed before 4th August was suddenly the focus of the world's media.

It was the summer holidays — but there were no children playing outside having fun. Soham was unnervingly quiet. The TV was permanently tuned to the news channels for two weeks, everyone waiting for a miracle. Then, that hot Saturday afternoon in August, the inevitable happened and all our vain hopes of a happy ending disappeared in a ditch in Lakenheath. My own tears welled up as I walked through to the back garden to tell my boyfriend, 'They've found them.' I had never met the girls, but by 17th August I felt as if I knew them.

The congregation at St Andrews Church was probably bigger that weekend in August than it has ever been before or since, full of normal, everyday people looking shell shocked, trying to make sense of why something so terrible had happened to their neighbours. We watched it on television, as the ominous thunderclouds burst and rained violently down on the those who couldn’t squeeze into the church.

After the arrests of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr, the reporters and cameras left, leaving nothing but a hollow feeling and the distinct impression that the town was yesterday's news. The police presence was tangible for some time, as fences were erected around that house, and a van was constantly in attendance outside. Even the police seemed to drift away after a while, and Soham returned to a sense of resigned acceptance, life carried on, the children went back to school. The acres of floral tributes were distributed to good causes, and the cards were collected. I still found it hard to enter the Ross Peers sports centre, cross that car park, or pass the caretaker's house without thinking of the girls. I still do.

Fifteen months later, and the trial we dreaded but needed has again focussed attention on Soham. Once again, the town is all over the news, photographs of a house that I no longer recognise (what does it look like now, behind those barricades?) dominate the front pages, and on Monday 10th November, I stayed indoors. All day.

As forty plus strangers walked the deserted streets and wondered what actually went on here, people like me shied away from the glare of the cameras, avoiding a reminder of the overwhelming attention of last year. Where last year the press attention was, at first, a novelty, it's all too familiar this week. Locals don't really talk about what happened last year, or what's happening now. At least, not in public. In private, conversations between neighbours and friends inevitably drift to 'that subject' Soham is not a large town, so as if in some kind of six degrees of separation sense, it's difficult not to know someone who knew someone else who has a personal connection to the tragedy. I certainly do.

Call it the small town mentality, but it's definitely harder to distance yourself from something of this magnitude when it happens so horribly close to home. I admit I'm as interested as everyone else in the proceedings. I read the trial reports in the newspapers, watch the TV coverage, and wonder exactly what the outcome of the next few months will be. Thinking about last summer still brings a lump to my throat.

Soham has been irrevocably changed by the events of August 2002. It's a town that has lost its innocence, and is now characterised by reports of police searches and murder trials. Maybe one day I'll be able to tell people where I live without feeling slightly apologetic, and without being asked inane questions about whether I knew the old school caretaker. I'm not holding my breath.