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From Canon Ann Easter, Chaplain to the Queen:

I took part in a conference last week with three hundred girls and young women – it was called Girls Allowed - and loud we were! The Metropolitan Police organised the day and we talked about hate crime, knives, bullying and problems with social media. The girls were curious and clever and the police officers, almost all of whom were women, were lively and inspiring. There was also the hope that the police force would be viewed as an interesting and worthwhile career - I desperately wanted to be a detective!!

By comparison, my teenage years in the sixties were a bit bland. Then, we’d spend Saturday afternoon meandering up East Ham High Street meeting our friends and making one milk shake last an hour in Woolworths. The highlight of Sunday was the Girls’ Bible Class, made very exciting by a sort of confession time which, I have to say owed more to rich imaginations than reality, I think – it was what they’d thought about doing, rather than what had actually happened…. we’d all end up in a weepy heap – it was great!

Afterwards, we would hang about on the corner in the hope of ’casually’ meeting up with the boys from the Roman Catholic football team, and, if they came along, we’d stand there for ages, chatting, laughing and flirting like mad. And then we’d talk all the next week about who’d said what to whom – and what it might mean.

I looked for references to girls in the Bible and there are almost none - but then I remembered that Mary was probably thirteen or fourteen when a visit from an angel took her right out of her comfort zone, and Christians believe that her readiness to risk going along with God’s plan allowed God to become human in Jesus.

So I reckon that God thoroughly approves of girls these days, trying out new ideas and developing into courageous and interesting women – God knows the world needs them!