From Manchester to tiny Barra, evil terror affects us all after tragic deaths of Eilidh MacLeod, 14, and Martyn Hett, 29
BARRA is stunningly beautiful, very friendly and so safe you could leave the keys in your car and your front door wide open.
Today the people on this jewel of an island in the Outer Hebrides are in deep mourning.
One of their own, 14-year-old Eilidh MacLeod is dead — butchered by a hate-filled cretin.
She was at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester to celebrate her birthday with her best pal, 15-year-old Laura MacIntyre, who is in hospital with severe burns and whose life will never be the same.
I cannot even begin to imagine what their families are going through right now.
This will have ripped the heart out of Barra, a place of just over 1,000 souls where everyone knows one another. Every single person on the island will be utterly distraught.
It is one of my favourite parts of Scotland — and a world far, far away from hatred, bombs and security threats.
Up until this terrible tragedy, Barra was best known for having the only airport in the UK whose schedule is subject to tides, because the runway is a gorgeous flat, white, sandy beach.
People go there to relax and unwind and to enjoy spectacular scenery and incredible hospitality.
Now it has been violated by the exponents of evil and these are dark, dark days indeed.
Because I feel a connection to Barra, the fate of these two young girls has been preying on my mind ever since the news broke that they were among the missing.
As we learn more about the 22 victims it brings home the scale of just what has been lost.
Martyn Hett, a veritable force of nature who was such a Coronation Street superfan he even had a tattoo of Deirdre Barlow.
He would spend hours creating hilarious video compilations of top Corrie moments.
Look him up on YouTube and you will chortle with delight at his fabulous sense of humour.
And little Saffie Roussos, who was just eight years old and who looked so heartbreakingly like my own daughter at that age, with her bright eyes and cheeky smile.
All of those who died were cherished by their family and friends and will be oh so sorely missed.
We must also not forget the injured who are in hospital fighting for their lives and battling serious wounds and burns normally only seen on the battlefield.
In this time of trouble, when we needed someone to step up and unite the nation, there was a dearth of real statesmen and women to reassure us and to help us come to terms with yet another terrorist outrage.
The one person who truly caught the mood of the people wasn’t a politician, but charismatic Mancunian poet Tony Walsh, who gave a blistering reading of his passionate work This Is The Place that summed up the spirit of the city.
His words helped enormously, allowing people to grieve and cry and comfort each other.
She is a symbol of stability and unity and the very epitome of “Keep Calm And Carry On” and that’s vitally important right now.
After all of these appalling outrages our security services inevitably get a barrage of criticism. I think this is horribly unfair.
These unknown and unsung heroes avert mayhem every single day and simply don’t have the resources to cover all bases.
It’s easy to be wise after the event, but they cannot arrest someone for a crime they haven’t yet committed.
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They need our help and vigilance as well as the help of Muslims equally sickened by the atrocities inflicted on Manchester and London, and in the European cities of Berlin, Nice, Brussels and Paris.
We cannot be frozen in fear, we need to get on with our lives but also always be on the lookout for anything suspicious.
While this evil might have occurred in Manchester, it affected us all — especially those living on the tiny, remote island of Barra.
Their genuine strength of community and friendship will help them come through this, but it will be unbelievably tough.
My thoughts are with all of them, and also with everyone who has lost someone they love and are now in mourning, as well as those sitting in hospital waiting rooms in quiet despair.
Their lives are shattered and we have to do whatever we can to help put them back together again and we must never, ever, forget.
Manchester Appeal
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WHEN Kelly Brook fans heard she wanted to go back to nature there was much cheering at the prospect of more saucy photoshoots.
But the bad news is that she’s keeping her prize assets under wraps, as Kelly has discovered the joys of gardening.
So from now on it’s giant marrows, cucumbers and plump strawberries for the girl with the hourglass figure.
After a stint on The Chelsea Flower Show she wants to present a programme that will do for gardening what Nigella did for food, with lots of pouting, double entendres and gratuitous boob and bum shots.
She’s a sweet girl and I wish her well, but British people take their gardens very seriously and I don’t reckon their begonias or lupins actually need to be sexed up – even by the voluptuous Kelly.
Dancing remake a bad move
THERE really is nothing new under the sun and movie- makers seem to have run out of original ideas.
Hence the silly number of remakes that will be hitting our screens, including a totally pointless new take on Dirty Dancing.
Nothing will ever hit the heights of this fantastically cheesy movie that was perfectly cast – starring as it did Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey – and beautifully done.
There is no reason for an updated version.
It would be like remaking Gone With The Wind, Singin’ In The Rain or The Godfather – a complete waste of celluloid as well as everyone’s time and trouble.
THE latest lunacy from trendy hipster land, where people clearly have too much time on their hands, is to serve coffee in avocado skins.
Apart from being stupidly messy, it’s just another way hapless kitchen staff can hurt themselves – thanks to the growing number of avocado-related accidents which have led some doctors to call for warning labels.
We really do have to draw the line as this is all getting out of hand, so let’s just stick to coffee mugs.
THE late Bob Hoskins would have loved this photo of his grandson Charlie, which was posted on social media by his daughter Rosa this week.
Bob died of Parkinson’s in 2014 and always told Rosa to “appreciate beauty, take pictures and make memories”.
The cute baby pic ticks all of those boxes.
Bob was a brilliant actor and a top human being and at least Charlie will have his splendid films to remember the grandad he never met.
I also think that Charlie is a chip off the old block and has a real look of Bob about him, something that would have pleased his sentimental grandad a very great deal.
Salute Jolly Roger
NO one had a bad word to say about Sir Roger Moore, a gentleman who gave us such a smooth and suave James Bond after the muscular brooding of Sean Connery.
The stories of his kindness and generosity are legendary.
He would actually BE James Bond for the many small boys who went up and asked him for his autograph, and he loved working for Unicef and animal rights charities, something he was actually far more proud of than any of his acting roles.
We won’t ever see his like again and some of the more intense and self-absorbed modern thespians should learn from this down-to-earth actor with the dry sense of humour.
Roger never took himself terribly seriously, believing acting to be ever so slightly silly, and he enjoyed a full, happy and long life.