A prayer for missing Maddie

For six summers Kate and Gerry McCann have relived the horror of the moment their three-year-old daughter Madeleine vanished.

But they have now been given a glimmer of hope that perhaps she’s still alive.

Could she one day be united once again with the family who have never stopped longing to have her back safe with them?

The Metropolitan Police announced this week that their own investigation has revealed there are 38 people across Europe who they want to talk to. Twelve of them are British citizens who may be able to throw some light onto what happened to Madeleine on that summer night in 2007 when she vanished from her bed in the villa in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

As parents it’s impossible for us to imagine the emotions Kate and Gerry have endured.

As the weeks, months and years rolled on Kate and Gerry have tried to create a happy childhood for their son and daughter, Sean and Amelie, but all of us know there won’t be a birthday or Christmas when they do not long to have Madeleine home with them.

The disappearance of a child must be a pain beyond description. Kate and Gerry have determinedly clung to the hope that Madeleine is still alive. In that hope lies the possibility they will hold and cuddle their little girl again.

It is all they want in life.

Now this summer, thanks to the painstaking work of the Met, which has trawled through reams of paperwork and paid close attention to detail, there is a chance fragile though it may be that their investigation may lead to a positive result.

All of us who have children and grandchildren can only shudder with fear as we imagine what Kate and Gerry have been through. Their courage and dignity has been extraordinary.

There will not have been a day when they haven’t hoped that, against all the odds, they might just have the chance to be re-united with Madeleine.

They have prayed, worked, lobbied and pursued the goal of keeping her name and her image in the public ey.

Being a news junkie I have often played a game with myself thinking what would be the one headline I would most love to read?

And I know it is quite simply this: “Madeleine McCann found safe and well.”