CCTV, Istanbul bus station, in transit, en route, On The Road. Maybe married off by now (10 days later), the three girls taken, taken in, ‘jihadi brides’ late of Bethnal Green.

Earlier, still at Gatwick, they present as modern girls in skinny jeans, retro-specs, hintof a headscarf. Three faces tilted down, either shy of being apprehended on videotape, or apprehensive at erasing their own previous life.

Precious life, your parents would say.

How to spend those hours at the bus station? Ticketed to ride another thousand to thecity nearest the Syrian border, Gaziantep – your giant step to IS.

Sunlight then strip light on white tiles and hard benches; but no smoking and furiously writing and falling in love with Mexican Girl, as Jack Kerouac just had to.

Still it might have been your existential moment – should I stay or should I throw it all away? Get back to East London or go, go Greyhound to the promised land?

Land of piety and devotion; land of godless barbarism.

Three girls taken, they’re on TV again this week.Take Three Girls was a BBC drama series, first broadcast in November 1969, set among the young women of Swinging London, single or separated, sharing a flat, making a meaningful life.

Young meteors who rose to the occasion, not always enjoying their independence but not having it any other way.

Flying light and airy above the grey squares of London, never having to touch down in old town because their freedom fuelled itself.

True to the spirit of their times, these fictional characters were younger sisters to Jake,the fittingly flittingly fulfillingly free spirit of Iris Murdoch’s Under The Net.

Bet the babes of Bethnal Green didn’t know these role models were there; still less theirs for the taking. How could they, with hardly a single freedom sign hereabouts? read more