Soham: A shell-shocked town

Soham residents are banding together to help find the girls

By Matt Maclean BBC News Online, in Soham

In many ways Soham is an old-fashioned kind of town.

It is the kind of community where everyone knows everyone else, and people stop to talk to one another in the street.

Sleepy, rural and very quiet, the casual visitor might be forgiven for thinking that nothing very much happens around here.

I think everyone's just shell-shocked at the moment

Town butcher Paul Constant

But for the last two days, the town's quiet reverie has been shattered - the buzz of helicopters a frequent reminder that all is far from well in Soham.

The news that local girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman have gone missing has left the town, in the words of one resident, "shell-shocked".

	:	Holly and Jessica
Maps showing focus of the investigation

High Street butcher, Paul Constant, 52, said the girls' disappearance had affected everyone in the town.

"They [the Wells's] are a well known and well liked family.

"Kevin used to have a [grocer's] shop next door. Everyone knows him and the children go to the local school.

Paul Constant: Locals rallying around

"Everyone's got some connection with every family. Not necessarily by marriage but often through work.

"Kevin's father is a bricklayer and has worked on loads of people's homes. Kevin was a postman for a while and delivered to everyone's houses too".

Mr Constant said he was not surprised by the reaction of local people, 500 of whom volunteered to aid in the search for the girls.

His own son and daughter, both in their 20s, had "grabbed their wellies" and gone out to join the search party as soon as they heard.

"Even the manager of a nightclub in Newmarket and some of his staff joined in," he said.

And, buoyed by the news that the girls may have been sighted near Little Thetford, some eight miles from Soham, he said: "One feeling is that perhaps they were out on an adventure".

Naïve

But he added: "I think everyone's just shell-shocked at the moment."

He said he feared the sleepy nature of Soham may have worked against the girls.

"I think round this way children probably are more naïve than elsewhere. Things like that don't happen in Soham."

It is very hard to act normally but you try to carry on for your children

Soham mother Claire Rowe

Mother-of two-Claire Rowe, 31, who has lived in Soham for nearly three years, said every mother and father in the area sympathised with the parents of the missing girls.

She said her eldest daughter, aged five, knew Holly and Jessica from school, but added she was trying to keep her own children's lives as normal as possible.

Search

"If you have kids, you have to keep yourself busy otherwise they pick it up as well as see things on the news.

"It is very hard to act normally but you try to carry on for your children."

Mrs Rowe, who joined locals searching Soham on Monday, said: "We were all up there. Everyone just seems to have jumped in to help.

"We even met a couple from Newmarket who didn't know anyone, but had just seen it on the news and wanted to help."

Little Thetford: Place of last sighting

Pensioner Elsie Fuller, 76, who lives in nearby Fordham, said there was only one topic of conversation in both towns.

"Everybody is talking about it. It does makes you wonder if anyone is safe out. If I had young ones I would keep them in.

"Everyone is hoping they are found and they are safe."