#April jones

In Memory of April Diane

Rest in Peace April, spouse of the 1980s. April was River’s first wife, and mother of Dustin and Heather. She was a hardworking wife and mother, as well as being a doctor.

April was indoctrinated into the second-wave feminism expectation that she should have and do it all - the family, the house and the career. She ultimately found herself burnt out and disillusioned with a life that looked perfect from the outside but made her feel resentful and neglected within. She found the courage to end her unhappy marriage and rediscovered herself and her self-worth in her relationship with her new life partner Angela, all the while continuing to support and raise her children as single parent.

In her lifetime April reached the top of the Doctor career, maximised her fitness and cooking skills, and achieved her lifetime aspiration of Bodybuilder.

I really enjoyed telling April’s story, and rewriting the housewife narrative in a way that saw her liberated from a gendered system that made her miserable to a new life.

April is survived by her children, Dustin and Heather, and her grandchildren Cody, Kayla and Kyle.

I can understnad this interpretation of April as being a bit… selfish? Hypocritical? She definitely is, and from the sentiments in comments about April on recent posts I get the feeling that others feel the same way about April (which is valid! not devaluing that at all).

BUT I want to counter this with a different interpretation (long post sorry!)

For all her faults, April isn’t meant to be seen as unfeeling or callous. April is a product of her own upbringing and time period, and if anything she is a victim of changing societal norms in the 70s/80s with second wave feminism. Her parents gave her a great education and expected big things from her with college and a career - she became a doctor. But society also expected her to have the husband and the house and the babies. And she did all that, she played her life by the book as it was laid out to her - and ultimately found that cumulatively, over time in was a burden. It made her burnt out and unhappy. She was expected to uphold her own career, raise the kids, look after the house, have dinner on the table for them all. That’s a huge burden to bear, and at a time when men weren’t expected to pick up any of the slack to allow women to enter the workforce and become more than homemakers (and let’s be real, plenty of men still don’t do this in the 21st century). River in that sense did not make it any easier for April - he was playing his own role, one that didn’t expect him to share that burden of homemaking and childreading beyond hanging out with the kids on the weekend and doing the odd handy job. He was blind to the burden that April was bearing.

April was also running in the rat race from college, to career, to wife, to mother. She didn’t get time to stop and check in with herself on whether she was having a good time. In fact I don’t think April could pinpoint when it started to go wrong either. It was the wearing down over time of a person who was expected to do it all and be everything for everyone.

I do feel like everyone comes out in defence for the heir (which, hey, is fair - its their story!). But I’ve tried to portray all my characters as having flaws and negative traits, making mistakes and not being perfect. River was far from perfect as a husband and Dad. He just slid right on into the breadwinner male role without question because in the era he lived in, that was what husbands did. He grew up in a non-traditional household and was always subconsciously rebelling against that. He grew up poor and got himself to college. He was given a career opportunity that would make him a lot of money and he genuinelly wanted that. He wanted to have material wealth to show for himself after having grown up with no electricity, eating home grown vegetables and wearing thrift clothes. Ultimately he didn’t realise the cost of the lifestyle he sought, or why ultimately his parents rejected it - they were happier people, even though they had less.

It’s not entirely April’s fault that River went down a path that didn’t make him happy. Being with April presented opportunities and a lifestyle that River bought into. But as time went on, and they had a house and kids, River became trapped in the cycle of upholding that lifestyle.

River and April were only 20 when they met. They got locked down too young thanks to societal expectations and familial pressures and ultimately they grew up during that marriage into different people. I think the beauty of their separation - even thought hurtful for all involved - was that they were finally able to explore who they really wanted to be.

That’s not to say that they didn’t learn their lessons. April tries to tolerate Dustin’s apathy, but probably finds it hard considering the pressure her parents put on her, and the sacrifices she feels that she made to give him a great upbringing and feeling taken advantage of - after all, she was full time Mum and and a full time doctor.

When writing the character of April, I thought a lot about my own Mum and my Grandmothers and other Mums I have known in my lifetime. And I thought about how they all did double shift, coming home from their paid work to do the unpaid work of being a wife, Mum and homemaker. I wanted April to have her liberation from this system, so that was what I gave her.

I worry that April’s character hasn’t come across the way I intended, and that makes me feel like I haven’t done her justice. If anything that’s a lesson to myself in storytelling! But I hope this essay-like response can give others a different way of thinking about April 😊

I need more of April being a big sister, especially to Leo. Leonardo is so touched starved and in need of someone to be the older sibling to him. He deserves a big sister and someone he can talk to. 

April Sue-Lyn Jones was a 5-year-old girl from Powys, Wales, she was last seen getting into a vehicle near her home. A huge search for the girl began and the Prime Minister issued an appeal for information on her whereabouts.

On 2nd October 2012, less than 24 hours after April went missing, Mark Bridger, a 46-year-old local man, was arrested. On 6th October he was charged with child abduction, murder, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

April’s body was never found however at trial the jury heard that fragments of human bone consistent with a ‘younger individual’ had been found in the fireplace of Bridger’s cottage. Blood found in several parts of the cottage was matched to April’s DNA and was enough to show April had suffered injuries which she could not have survived from. Bridger claimed he accidentally ran over April and could not remember disposing of her body. The prosecution accused him of being a 'pathological liar,’ and 'a paedophile,’ evidence included an extensive collection of child pornography found on his computer. Bridger was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. After the verdict it was revealed that Bridger claimed to have disposed of April’s body in a fast flowing river, police stated they doubted this claim and believe he scattered April’s remains throughout the countryside near his home.

Actor’s Theatre Brings The Mountaintop Down to Earth – So It Can Soar

Review:  The Mountaintop By Perry Tannenbaum

Barely a minute before the end of his final speech at the Masonic Temple in Memphis, supporting striking sanitation workers and hurling defiance at injunctions against their protest marches, Rev. Martin Luther King grew famously prophetic. He told his people, hours before he would be assassinated that, like Moses, he had climbed to “the mountaintop”…

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A causa di un #virus dimentica la #morte della #figlia: la moglie deve raccontagliela

La scomparsa di April Jones, la bambina che allora aveva solo 5 anni, ha dato il via ad una delle ricerche più grandi nella storia della polizia britannica.

Purtroppo la storia di April non ebbe un lieto fine: fu arrestato, per il suo omicidio e rapimento Mark Briger. L’uomo fu poi condannato all’ergastolo. La storia di questa bimba scosse l’intera Inghilterra. Scomparve il 1 ottobre del 2012.…

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“Si me odias ¿porque me quieres?”

Hit me Cupid - kissingBooth

On October 1, 2012, 5 year old April Jones was playing with her friend in her hometown of Machynlleth, Powys, Wales, when she suddenly walked over to a car, being seen willingly getting in. April was known to suffer a mild case of cerebral palsy.

On October 3, 2012, April’s mother made an appeal for information about her daughter. The next day, Prime Minister David Cameron also made an appeal to the public, saying “clearly having this happen to you, and the fact that she suffers from cerebral palsy, something i know a little about from my own children, only make this worse. My appeal would be to everyone. If you know anything, if you saw anything, heard anything, have any ideas you could bring forward, talk to the police.”

The days following her disappearance, there was a large search operation for her in and around the Machynlleth area, involving police and search and rescue teams using specialized equipment, as well as hundreds of volunteers. On December 12^th, police said the search for April would go into 2013, but on March 27, 2013, the police revealed they would call off the search by the end of April, and on April 22, police confirmed that the search was officially ended. The police stated that “a reactive team of specialist officers are available to respond to any new information that is received. This was the largest missing person search in UK police history.

The day after April’s abduction, a local man named Mark Bridger, 46, was arrested. He became a suspect in the case because he matched the description of the man in the vehicle which an eyewitness had seen April entering, following a conversation with him.

On October 6, 2012, Bridger was charged with child abduction, murder, and attempting to pervert the course of justice. He appeared before magistrates at Aberystwyth on October 8^th, where he was additionally charged with the unlawful concealment and disposal of a body. He was reprimanded into custody and held at HMP Manchester pending an appearance at court, which happened on October 10^th, via video chat.

On January 14, 2013, Bridger pleased not guilty to the charge of murdering April, but accepted that he was “probably responsible” for hear death.His trial began on April 29, 2013.

At his trial, a forensic expert told the court that bone fragments consistent with a “younger individual” had been found in his fireplace of Bridger’s cottage. Blood found in several parts of the cottage matched April’s DNA. Bridger’s defense was that he accidentally ran over April with his car, not remembering to dispose of her body due to alcohol and panic.

On May 30, 2013, Bridger was found guilty of abduction, murder, and perverting the course of justice.  Later that day, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole-life tariff, having been called a “pathological liar” and “a pedophile” by the judge.

In July 2013, while serving his sentence, Bridger was attacked by fellow inmates with a shank, resulting in facial and throat injuries. Mark Bridger is still serving his sentence today.

Omarion Drops Music Video ‘Distance’ Ahead Of UK One-Off Show

R&B singer Omarion drops an african inspired new music video for ‘Distance’, with hopes of breaking the commercial international market.

While on name alone you may now think VH1 reality star, good father, nice hairstyles, good dancer – well anything but music… The truth is Omarion has a long sting of hits from his music with teenage boy band B2K, to his single successes Ice Box, Touch and the…

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Today’s #election2016 issue feature is “My America”, a poem by April Jones! Enjoy!

Today’s ‪#‎orlandoissue‬ feature is “To Live”, a poem by April Jones: