For some, Leicester City’s fairy tale feels like yesterday. The 5000-1 feat ended with Claudio Ranieri’s unlikely lads lifting the Premier League trophy before being serenaded by Andrea Bocelli.

Yet the 10-year anniversary of Leicester’s 2015-16 Premier League title win is also a reminder of how fast football moves.

That astonishing triumph was confirmed on 2 May, 2016, when Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur’s infamous “Battle of the Bridge” draw kickstarted the Leicester party at Jamie Vardy’s house.

Fast forward to May 2026 and the Foxes are on a downward spiral, their finances in tatters and League One football awaiting next season. They nevertheless marked the anniversary with a charity match at the King Power as Claudio Ranieri and Wes Morgan returned.

So what are Leicester’s title-winners up to now? One boxed a YouTuber, another switched to construction, while Christian Fuchs has a huge task as a manager in League Two.

Marc Albrighton

One of the final title-winning players to leave, Albrighton experienced relegation with Leicester and then played in their Championship-winning season before retiring in 2024. He has dabbled with punditry and kept the competitive juices flowing by playing in Baller League.

Danny Drinkwater

Leaving Leicester for Chelsea in 2017, he had loan spells at Burnley, Aston Villa, Kasimpasa in Turkey and then Reading. He opened up about boozy London nights while a Chelsea player on Jake Humphrey’s High Performance Podcast, and after falling out of love with football he started a new career in construction. Responding to trolls after posting a picture in his new job, he said: “Some of these messages, behave. I love being on-site grafting! It’s a choice.”

Throwback to this from Danny Drinkwater on Instagram…

He lived the dream, had a fantastic career and now runs a profitable construction company 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/N9DBE1qmVa

— The Away Fans (@theawayfans) April 1, 2026

Christian Fuchs

Joined MLS side Charlotte FC from Leicester in 2021 and retired two years later. Fuchs is now in Wales, where he manages League Two club Newport County. They are currently fighting for their EFL status, one point above the relegation zone.

Robert Huth

Injuries forced Huth to retire in 2019. He ended his career at Leicester and returned there in 2022 for a two-year stint as loan manager. Now does talks and evening shows on both his time at Stoke City and Leicester, joining Danny Simpson, Albrighton and Morgan on stage to reminisce about 2015-16.

N’Golo Kante

It was one season and out at Leicester for Kante, who was quickly snapped up by Chelsea and won the league there as well. The Frenchman spent seven seasons at Stamford Bridge, and is now at Fenerbahce in Turkey after three years at Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia.

Riyad Mahrez

Unlike Kante, Mahrez resisted the temptation to leave straight away but eventually joined Manchester City in 2018. The winger never quite replicated his 2015-16 campaign but was devastating for City on his day, winning four league titles, three EFL Cups, two FA Cups and the Champions League. He signed for Saudi side Al-Ahli in 2023.

Wes Morgan

Stayed at Leicester until retiring in 2021, bowing out by lifting the FA Cup in his last appearance. Post-retirement sidequests have included punditry, achieving a Masters in Sports Directorship, golf, and the latest fitness craze, Hyrox. Has also been a part-time academy scout for Nottingham Forest since 2024.

Shinji Okazaki

Founded a German sixth-tier side FC Basara Mainz with a focus on developing Japanese players. Could never quite step out of Vardy’s shadow at Leicester and eventually left for Huesca in Spain in 2019. Spells at Cartagena, also in Spain, and then Belgian side Sint-Truiden followed before retirement in 2024.

Kasper Schmeichel

One of Leicester’s best servants, staying with the Foxes until 2022, Schmeichel’s departure was a signal of the club’s increasingly strained financial position. He spent a season at Nice and then Anderlecht, and currently plays for Celtic – initially reuniting with Brendan Rodgers, who was then sacked last year.

Danny Simpson

Kept busy since retirement, and still laces up for the odd amateur game, playing for both Stretford Paddock – a 12th-tier team – and Wythenshawe Vets, who have seen a high-profile list of ex-pros play for them, including Papiss Cisse, Stephen Ireland, Emile Heskey and also Drinkwater.

Simpson tried his hand at boxing – drawing against YouTuber Danny Aarons in 2024 – while last year he opened up a new bar and restaurant in Manchester. Like 90 per cent of the global population, he has also taken up padel.

Jamie Vardy

Arguably Leicester’s greatest ever player, Vardy scored 24 league goals to inspire the Foxes to glory in 2015-16 and stayed to lift the FA Cup in 2021.

The 39-year-old only left last summer after 13 years at the club and moved to Italy to play for Cremonese. ITV will broadcast a series later this year about how Jamie, wife Rebekah, and their four children are adapting to life abroad.

Donald Trump has accused James Comey and Jimmy Kimmel of inflaming violence against him through their use of Instagram photos and late-night television jokes. It’s a remarkable irony. The man whose rhetoric and actions have created an entire culture of intimidation across Washington is claiming that words of criticism are what is dangerous.

But the irony runs even deeper than it first appears. Trump didn’t build this system of fear through government censorship alone: he built it through a mob. And that mob is far more effective at scaring people into “self-censorship” than any presidential order could ever be.

When I revealed myself in 2020 as the anonymous critic from inside the Trump administration, I experienced both forms of censorship at once. Trump’s official response was swift. In retaliation for criticising him, he threatened me with federal investigation. “He should be prosecuted!” Trump bellowed to pitchfork crowds, calling for his Justice Department to investigate me. But those weren’t the threats that did the most to upend my life – it was the crowdsourced violence.

After I came forward, death threats flooded in. Those rallygoers took Trump’s message – that “terrible things” should happen to me – to heart. They fired off emails, social media posts and letters to my house. People demanded that I be hung and shot by firing squad. They posted photos of my family online, pictures of my nieces and images outside my siblings’ homes. It escalated to the point that I had to leave to live temporarily in a safe house and hire armed security.

After stalkers kept finding my location, my security team recommended my vehicle be searched for electronic tracking devices. So I took my car to a location near CIA headquarters, where former intelligence officers helped disassemble it looking for bugs. They didn’t find any. The experts were as confounded as I was about how people kept doxxing my location. The mob was almost omnipotent.

Trump left office in 2021, and it all settled down, but that didn’t last long. When he returned four years later, he opened a federal investigation into me for “treason”. Like clockwork, another wave of threats began. The violent missives were directed against me, my wife and even my infant. We had to upgrade security everywhere we stayed. In some cases, it got bad enough that we’ve been forced to take legal action against people we’d never met in states across the country.

So, you want to know why people self-censor? It is situations like mine. Trump and his acolytes realise they don’t need to arrest everyone, they just need to make enough public examples that everyone else decides speaking up isn’t worth the cost.

And that’s partly the calculation Republican members of Congress are making right now, despite the fact that some Maga influencers are abandoning the President. I’ve been texting with some of those elected GOP leaders over the past few weeks, urging them to follow suit, to speak out.

I know they’re appalled by Trump. When he was threatening genocide, they said so – to me, in private messages. But not one of them has spoken out publicly. In some ways, I understand why, because I’ve seen what speaking out costs.

But what they don’t get is that their silence is making it worse for them, not better. Intimidation is a vicious cycle. As soon as you cower, the current grows stronger. The ones doing the intimidation face less resistance, realise their tactics are working, and double down. Unfortunately, the numbers have proven this to be the case in America.

According to the US Capitol Police, violent threats against US members of Congress have soared from roughly a thousand a year in 2016 to nearly ten thousand annually. Not coincidentally, this aligns with Trump’s tenure in public life. His most extreme followers are being trained that intimidation works. Every Republican who stays silent is reinforcing the lesson that threats get results.

I can pinpoint the exact moment many of these Republicans really lost their nerve: January 6, 2021. Incidentally, that was the same day my car was being searched for tracking devices by former spooks. As it was being picked apart, a mob was storming the United States Capitol. The Republicans who witnessed that day internalised a lesson: Trump not only was willing to threaten them with official revenge if they strayed from his edicts, but he was also able to dispatch violent crowds to do his bidding. So they shut themselves up.

The only way to break the cycle is numbers. When enough people speak out at once, the attack surface diffuses. The threats lose their isolating power, and then the calculation changes. Like any marketplace – as we all learned in economics – the price of dissent goes down the more we increase the supply of dissenters.

Those Republican senators and congressmen now whispering their objections could transform the entire dynamic if they would simply say out loud what they’re already saying to people like me in texts or on the margins of events in Washington. They think their silence is protecting them, but their silence is precisely what’s making it worse for everyone else, including themselves.

It’s possible that the growing number of Maga influencers deciding to break with Trump will be enough to get Republican leaders to find their spines, too. Perhaps they’ll begin to see that Trump’s censorship attacks against public figures like James Comey and Jimmy Kimmel set a precedent that could be used against them in the future by a vengeful Democrat president.

Or maybe – just maybe – they’ll realise that the scariest form of censorship is the one they’re doing to themselves. While short-term silence might bring temporary safety, history tells us it costs us something fundamental: our liberty.

Miles Taylor is a former chief of staff at the US Department of Homeland Security and has served on Capitol Hill, in the White House and at the Pentagon. He is a No 1 New York Times bestselling author, regular national security commentator and democracy reform leader.

Rising living costs, longer life expectancies and uncertainty around future care needs are changing attitudes to retirement savings among those approaching pension age.

An increasingly popular idea, the so-called “U-shaped” retirement, is gaining traction.

This is the idea that you spend more at the start of your retirement – while you’re fit and active – ease off later, and keep a buffer for potential care costs at the end of life.

But experts warn that, while this pattern reflects real behaviour, relying on it too heavily could leave retirees exposed.

Financial planners say the U-shape is useful as a concept, but dangerous if treated as a rulebook. Real life, they stress, rarely follows a neat curve.

Here’s a rundown of how the plan works – and the pitfalls with it.

What is a “U-shaped” retirement?

The theory behind the U-shaped retirement is that spending tends to be highest in the early years of after you finish working, before dipping and rising again later, often due to health or care costs.

This broadly aligns with what planners see in practice. The early years, sometimes called the “go-go” phase, are when retirees travel, pursue hobbies and help family members financially.

Jason Hollands, managing director of Evelyn Partners, explained: “Amongst our clients, it’s very common to see higher spending in what I often describe as the ‘golden decade’ of retirement – typically the first 10 to 15 years.

“As clients move into their late seventies and eighties, discretionary spending usually falls away quite naturally.

“Later in life, spending can increase again, but in a very different way. It’s less about choice and more about necessity, particularly around healthcare or long-term care.”

Why it could leave you short of cash

There are many downsides to the U-shaped retirement, which experts warn about.

1. You can’t predict how long you’ll live

One of the biggest risks is simply not knowing how long retirement will last, making it “impossible” to know how steep the “U” will be, Craig Rickman, personal finance editor at interactive investor, said.

This uncertainty makes it difficult to judge how much you can safely spend early on without jeopardising later years.

2. Overspending early can backfire

Spending more in the early years is tempting and often encouraged. But it comes with trade-offs.

Rickman said: “People should absolutely make the most of their go-go years and spend money doing things they enjoy while they’re in good shape, otherwise they could hit their later retirement years drenched in regret.

“But equally, they should be mindful that retirement can last several decades, and being overly frivolous early on, especially if they’re heavily reliant on their pension savings and have little in the way of guaranteed sources to fall back on – could lead to financial hardship down the line.”

Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell, added that those intending to live “high on the hog” in the early years of retirement should have a clear eye on the impact this could have on their lifestyle later in retirement.

3. Investment risks are greater at the start

Drawing heavily from investments early in retirement can amplify risks, particularly if markets fall and your pension is invested in them.

Hollands said: “Spending more in the early years can be entirely appropriate, but it needs to be balanced against market conditions and portfolio sustainability.”

4. The “dip” in spending may never happen

A key assumption of the U-shape is that spending naturally falls in mid-retirement.

But that’s far from guaranteed, particularly if you become used to a certain level of spending, and find it hard to reduce your outgoings.

Alan Barral, financial planner at Quilter Cheviot, agreed: “The short answer is that the U-shaped idea broadly holds in practice, but it is far messier and less predictable than the theory suggests.”

Health, lifestyle and personal circumstances can all disrupt the pattern, he said, adding: “A client in their late seventies who is fit and socially active may spend more than they did at 65.”

5. Care costs are unpredictable – and often underestimated

Selby said preparing for care needs is particularly difficult because how much care you might need and what it might cost are “inherently uncertain”.

He continued: “Many will prefer to keep some money set aside just in case, although those with property assets can also choose to use these if they need to pay for care – either through downsizing or equity release.”

The unpredictability makes it risky to rely on a neat spending curve.

6. Inflation and policy changes can derail plans

Even well-planned retirements can be thrown off course by external factors.

Travel, care and energy costs have not moved in line with general inflation – which currently sits at 3.3 per cent – over the past decade, which distorts any simple curve based on historic averages.

There are also tax considerations, Rickman said. He added: “As any pension money you haven’t spent by the time you pass could be walloped with tax, it might make sense to spend more while you’re fit and healthy.”

Acting on this too aggressively could still create problems later though.

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that retirement planning should not be rigid. Instead, experts stress the need for adaptability.

Rickman noted: “From market performance and economic shifts to health changes, there are several variables that can affect your future income requirements.

“You might plan for a U-shaped retirement, but if things change, for example new rules or regulations are introduced, it’s important to have the flexibility to switch tack.”

Hollands added that good retirement planning is less about fitting clients into a predefined curve and more about building a flexible, resilient strategy that can adapt over time.

Nike apresenta-se como uma empresa que vai além da venda de roupas esportivas. Não é, claro, mas quer que as pessoas pensem que é.

A empresa prega pontos de discussão de esquerda como “inclusão”, “diversidade”, “positividade corporal” e outros chavões vazios (enquanto o único objetivo continua sendo vender o máximo de mercadorias possível).

Em seu website, a Nike possui uma página intitulado “Celebrating Each Woman’s Physique”, onde diz que o esporte deve celebrar “a beleza única e a diversidade de nossos corpos”, alerta sobre uma “definição restrita de beleza”, critica mensagens que incentivam “comer pouco e treinar demais” e exorta os adultos a criarem “zonas livres de conversa corporal”. Em outra página da Nike, “No Satisfaction, No Sport”, a empresa afirma estar comprometida com “pertencimento LGBTQIA+ e visibilidade no esporte” e afirma que sua visão é aquela em que “todos são convidados a jogar”.

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Portanto, as pessoas podem ficar chocadas ao descobrir que quando chega a hora de pagar endossantes para vestir roupas da Nike (novamente, para vender mais roupas da Nike), não se trata exatamente de garantir que “todos estejam convidados”.

É isso que torna o novo livro de memórias da ex-corredora do Nike Oregon Mission, Mary Cain, um verdadeiro problema para o gigante do vestuário esportivo. Promovendo o livro no podcast de Sarah Spain, Cain descreveu o que ela chama de “contratos de garotas gostosas”, basicamente dizendo que a Nike contrataria abertamente algumas mulheres porque elas eram “gostosas”. Enquanto isso, ela enfrentou rumores de um “corte de salário” ou “demissão” de acordo com os padrões de desempenho, apesar de ser mais rápida do que alguns dos atletas mantiveram para valor de advertising.

O livro de Cain, “This Is Not About Working”, não é interessante porque revela que a Nike quer ganhar dinheiro. Claro, a Nike quer ganhar dinheiro. É uma empresa americana e esse é sempre o objetivo.

O que é interessante é a lacuna entre o sermão e o comportamento. As memórias de Cain destacam o contraste entre a linguagem de positividade corporal da Nike e seu advertising actual. Em um trecho publicado pela “Exterior”, Cain escreve que ela colocou “pesos de pulso da Nike de cinco libras” e fez longas caminhadas porque Alberto Salazar (ex-técnico do Nike Oregon Mission) disse que ela tinha “gordura additional” para perder após uma pesagem hidrostática.

Cain afirma pesar 115 libras na época e diz que ela mesma não conseguiu acessar o arquivo de pesagem e simplesmente foi informada do resultado. Isso soa como uma história em que um funcionário da Nike está incentivando a “alimentação insuficiente e o treinamento excessivo”, exatamente o oposto do que a empresa afirma promover.

Salazar negou qualquer irregularidade, e o The Guardian relata que ele e a Nike resolveram uma ação movida por Cain em 2023, alegando abuso.

O lançamento do livro de memórias piora a partir daí. Em O GuardiãoNa entrevista de Cain vinculada ao livro, Cain descreve um ambiente da Nike onde as pessoas supostamente sabiam o que estava acontecendo e deixavam que continuasse. O artigo relata que o chefe de Salazar e então vice-presidente de advertising da Nike teria dito a Cain que cortar o cabelo poderia ajudá-la a perder peso. Também relata que lhe disseram que não poderia porque “não ficaria bem” e que precisava de um sutiã diferente porque as pessoas podiam ver o tamanho de seus seios.

Vamos voltar ao próprio website da Nike e ver como isso se enquadra nas virtudes que eles afirmam ter. Essa história parece que a Nike está “celebrando o corpo de cada garota” ou uma história em que eles querem que esse corpo tenha uma determinada aparência para vender mais tênis?

E se tudo isso parece acquainted, deveria. Porque as memórias de Cain não são a única vez que a postura de virtude pública da Nike se chocou com questões básicas sobre o que a empresa está realmente fazendo.

Como o OutKick relatou pela primeira vez em 2025, as evidências sugeriam fortemente A Nike estava ajudando a financiar um estudo sobre jovens atletas transgêneros de apenas 12 anos. Em nosso relatório, duas pesquisadoras ligadas ao projeto, Dra. Kathryn Ackerman e Joanna Harper, disseram publicamente que a Nike estava financiando o estudo. O New York Instances também informou que a Nike o estava financiando e, mais tarde, disse à OutKick que estava confiante na precisão dessa reportagem.

Então veio a resposta da Nike, e foi um clássico subterfúgio corporativo. No início, a Nike não respondeu perguntas repetidas. Então, depois que a pressão pública cresceu, um executivo da Nike disse ao OutKick que o estudo “nunca foi inicializado” e “não estava avançando”. Mas quando OutKick perguntou se Ackerman e Harper estavam errados ao dizer que a Nike financiou, o executivo teria dito que “ninguém estava errado” e sugeriu que havia “lacunas na cadeia de informações”. A Nike escondeu-se atrás de uma linguagem vaga porque não queria explicar-se.

ZERO besteira. APENAS DAKICH. LEVE O PODCAST DON’T @ ME NA ESTRADA. BAIXE AGORA!

OutKick também descobriu que a edição de inverno de 2024 do Revista do Hospital Infantil de Boston descreveu o projeto como “apoiado em parte pela Nike, Inc.” e disse que a pesquisa foi projetada para responder perguntas sobre mudanças fisiológicas e atléticas resultantes de cuidados de afirmação de gênero. Então agora o público tinha pesquisadores dizendo que a Nike financiou o estudo, uma grande publicação hospitalar dizendo que a Nike o apoiava, e o New York Instances aguardando informando que a Nike o financiou. Mesmo assim, a Nike ainda optou principalmente pelo silêncio e pela evasão.

Então a história mudou novamente. Meses depois, Harper disse ao Outsports que a Nike desistiu depois que “os odiadores souberam disso”, o que, é claro, só tornou a coisa mais obscura porque minou diretamente a ideia de que o estudo simplesmente “nunca foi inicializado”. Por outras palavras, a Nike estava aparentemente disposta a deixar outras pessoas falarem publicamente sobre o seu apoio quando o movimento transgénero period uma política well-liked, mas assim que o escrutínio chegou (à medida que os americanos se tornaram conscientes do que realmente estava a acontecer no mundo do “cuidado de afirmação de género”), a empresa subitamente ficou quieta.

E é por isso que o relatório do estudo trans pertence à mesma coluna das memórias de Mary Cain.

Estas não são duas histórias separadas da Nike. Em vez disso, ambos são evidências do mesmo problema central dentro da empresa.

A Nike quer aplausos do público, mas quer especialmente agradar aos esquerdistas radicais que dominam as redes sociais. É por isso que seu website contém uma página dedicada à confiança corporal; é por isso que usa palavras como “inclusividade” e “diversidade”; é por isso que existem tantos slogans fofos sobre pertencimento, pronomes e quem pode jogar.

Mas quando chega o verdadeiro escrutínio, seja uma ex-estrela publicando um livro de memórias sobre como o corpo de uma atleta feminina foi realmente tratado dentro de um programa vinculado à Nike, ou repórteres fazendo perguntas básicas sobre um estudo politicamente explosivo sobre atletas jovens, a Nike de repente se torna uma mestre do silêncio, dos comentários de fundo e da imprecisão estratégica.

Essa é a parte que vale a pena martelar, não que a Nike seja gananciosa ou calculista. Claro que é.

As empresas deveriam ganhar dinheiro. Eles deveriam querer atenção, participação de mercado e relevância. Não há nada remotamente escandaloso no fato de a Nike tentar vender mais tênis ou apoiar causas que acredita que ajudarão a marca. O problema é fingir que tudo isto é esclarecimento ethical em vez de estratégia corporativa. Isso faz da Nike uma máquina hipócrita de fazer dinheiro. Isso nem inclui como a empresa em grande parte mantém a boca fechada sobre a China (uma vez que alguém tem de fabricar esses sapatos e há 1,4 mil milhões de potenciais compradores no país) enquanto clamam por “justiça social” na América.

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A Nike é livre para ganhar tanto dinheiro quanto puder; isso é capitalismo. Ninguém se ofende com isso. Mas muitas pessoas estão fartas das palestras. Poupe a todos do pablum da positividade corporal quando trechos de memórias públicas descrevem uma corredora adolescente sendo enviada para caminhadas com peso no pulso depois de ser informada de que tinha gordura para perder.

Cain também alega que a Nike pagou mais dinheiro aos atletas menos talentosos porque proporcionou um advertising melhor. Ela falou publicamente sobre essa dinâmica como “contratos de garotas gostosas”, descrevendo as discussões da Nike sobre contratar algumas mulheres para comercialização enquanto ela enfrentava cortes de pagamento ou negociações de demissão, apesar de ser mais rápida.

Novamente, duh. Pessoas com melhor aparência geralmente vendem mais produtos.

Mas poupe a todos da conversa sobre inclusão, porque quando chega a hora de ser “inclusivo” sobre quem recebe os cheques de advertising, acontece que se trata de um grupo muito exclusivo.

Pare de dar sermões aos americanos sobre “pertencimento LGBTQIA+ e visibilidade no esporte” e depois bloqueie questões básicas sobre um estudo envolvendo jovens “que se identificam como transgêneros” e transição médica quando o OutKick bater à sua porta.

As memórias de Mary Cain e as reportagens de OutKick não provam que a Nike seja exclusivamente má. Eles provam algo muito mais comum e muito mais útil: a Nike é uma empresa gigante que adora sinalizar virtude quando isso é bom para os negócios. O que parece não amar tanto é a simples responsabilidade.

É por isso que o livro de Caim é importante. Não porque diga a todos que a Nike quer dinheiro. Todo mundo já sabia disso. É importante porque lembra às pessoas que quando a Nike começa a dar sermões aos americanos sobre corpos, inclusão ou justiça, a primeira resposta deve ser muito simples: venda os sapatos e poupe-nos do sermão.

A OutKick entrou em contato com a Nike para comentar esta história, mas a empresa não respondeu ao nosso pedido.

The email from my childminder came through on a Sunday night. It was nearly 8pm and I’d only just sat down after an hour of wrestling my two young sons into bed. February half term – and a week of no childcare – loomed and I remember feeling apprehensive about how we’d manage without the term-time support our wonderful childminder provided for us.

Then I checked my inbox. The email itself was kind but nonetheless devastating. With a heavy heart, and for personal reasons, our childminder had made the decision to close, forever, in a month. I bawled. For two hours. After which, exhausted and puffy-eyed, I retired to my bed, anxiety twisting in my gut.

We first heard of Abbie – who ran her childminding business for nearly two decades, ably supported by a selection of wonderful staff members – from a friend who also used her. “She’s brilliant,” this friend enthused over dinner one night. “You won’t find anyone better.”

We’d always assumed we’d find a nursery. Childminders, after all, are on the decline as people opt, instead, for larger settings or well-known franchises. The number of childminders in England fell to 25,000 in 2025, according to Ofsted figures, down from almost 48,000 in 2015. Experts have even warned that childminders could completely disappear by 2033.

In the end, we didn’t look elsewhere. Arriving at Abbie’s house, from which she ran her business, when my now four-year-old, Fabian, was still in utero, I didn’t know what to expect; poised on the precipice of parenthood, the concept of childcare was alien to me. I noted the fees were significantly lower than nurseries – £6.50 per hour for seven and a half hours a day (a total of £48.75) – but my abiding memory is looking around the setting, and feeling this was a safe space: the garden was expansive; the nap room calm; and Abbie herself a magical mix of kind, generous, and meticulously – almost unnervingly – efficient.

She had around five families in her care while we were there – a total of eight children, although not all at the same time: some did different days, others only required wraparound care before and after preschool. Sometimes my son would be there with just one other, getting almost undivided attention. I knew she’d take care of my son, but I also suspected she’d take care of me, too.

She did, of course. Just as she had with every family that had crossed her threshold, Abbie welcomed us into her home and treated our children (a second son, Inigo, arrived two and half years after Fabian) with a kind of familial love. When I collected Fabian after his first day, she told me, casually, that at naptime she’d rocked him to sleep in her own arms before placing him in his cot.

According to parenting specialist Kirsty Ketley, who started out as a childminder, childminders typically build strong relationships with the families they support. “They often provide continuity of care – one consistent carer – which helps build strong emotional bonds,” she says. “They offer a very home-from-home vibe, which many parents love.” Childcare association Corom Pacey, in England, says an individual childminder may care for a maximum of six children under the age of eight. Of these six, a maximum of three may be young children (a child is a young child until 1 September following their fifth birthday), and there should only be one child under the age of one. Exceptions can be made for wraparound care or care of siblings, if a childminder is able to demonstrate they can meet the children’s needs.

Ours certainly did. Abbie became so essential, so fundamental to our lives, that her name wormed its way into our family lexicon: we had Abbie days and non-Abbie days. And when I was planning who would look after Fabian while I gave birth to Inigo, I was very clear it had to be Abbie. Fortunately – be it by luck or, somehow, design – I went into labour on a Monday, an Abbie day, and that night, she messaged me to let me know she was thinking of me.

She taught them both to walk, to talk, to share, to play. She took care of the physically messy – helping toilet train Fabian – and the emotionally messy, watching over him closely in the days after my grandad – someone he adored – died. She comforted me when my mum was diagnosed with cancer.

All of which is to say that, of course, she minded my children. But, more than that, she minded our whole family. She was a member of our proverbial village, so utterly integral that when she announced she was closing forever, it wasn’t just the anxiety around what came next (nursery, it turns out, and fees five times more expensive) that had me sobbing into a pillow, but heartache at what we were losing.

The news felt like the breakdown of a relationship and, in the weeks that followed the email, I worked my way through the seven stages of grief, hovering, for some time, in denial, convinced she would email saying she’d made a mistake. In fact, this period felt so akin to a break-up, I found myself getting upset with friends and family who – quite reasonably – started sending me websites of other childcare settings. I wasn’t over Abbie; I didn’t want to think about anyone else. I couldn’t understand why this was happening.

Abbie’s reasons for closing were personal but, Ketley says, many other childminders are quitting the profession because of money: they are fundamentally undervalued. “Childminders are self-employed,” she says. “Low pay, rising costs, and so much admin, plus the government funding for parents doesn’t make the work financially or emotionally viable.”

It was a hard month of drop-offs as we awaited the final day. We collected messages from families she had supported over the years and collated them in a book, complete with photographs of children in her care. We made cakes and bought John Lewis vouchers and flowers. Nothing, really, seemed like enough.

On the last day, we knew we couldn’t say goodbye on the doorstep, as we always had, so, with her permission, we planned an afternoon picnic in the village, on the grassy hills she’d taught countless children to roll down, opposite the preschool Fabian now attends, the one she had dropped him off at and picked him up from for a year. We posted a message on the local Facebook group, too, wanting to give other families the chance to say goodbye. And they did, turning up with flowers, cakes, and words of thanks.

Unable to find another childminder quite like Abbie, we’re using a nursery now and, of course, it is fine, albeit staggeringly expensive at £86 a day, including over school holidays: we’ve had to adjust our hours to afford it. Inigo is settling and the staff are kind, enthusiastic, and committed to his care. Fabian attends wraparound care at his preschool which is brilliantly practical, but feels somewhat impersonal. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t long, wistfully, for my past relationship.

Good childminders, it is now clear to me, are the unsung heroes of a childcare system that, too often, feels transactional. What a shame it would be if they did disappear for good. I am, without a doubt, the mother I am today because of mine: she didn’t just change nappies, she changed lives.

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Cinco estudantes e um segurança foram levados ao hospital após o ataque na Foss Excessive Faculty.

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