Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Wife reveals heartache at air ace death
THE widow of the US fighter pilot who crashed in the North Sea has told of her pain at losing him four months after they wed.
First Lieutenant Kenneth “Kage” Allen’s F-15C Eagle went down off East Yorkshire on Monday during a training flight.
His body was found 85 miles from Flamborough Head, along with wreckage.
Hannah, who married Kenneth, 27, in February, described him as “the love of my life”. She said: “No words to express how shaken I am. Kage was perfect, never been treated with more love and respect. He was my best friend.”
Lt Allen had served with the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, since February. A probe into the crash is under way.
THE Salisbury Poisonings, the BBC’S new three-part series, has been airing this week and has received rave reviews from audiences and critics alike.
The show tells the story of how a small English city became gripped in a public health crisis after the release of a poisonous nerve agent designed to kill a former Russian military officer and double agent.
And it depicts how essential workers quickly reacted to the real-life emergency in March 2018 before it was able to spread.
The series was written by two former journalists from Northern Ireland, Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn, who both previously worked for the BBC.
The pair had made attempts at getting into screenwriting before but their big break came when they were asked to tell the tale of the Salisbury poisonings.
Speaking to the Mirror, Declan said: “Adam and I had written two previous spec scripts, both of which were based quite heavily on true stories. One of them was based in Northern Ireland in the 70s.
“Those never got made but they’d made their way around production companies in London and had quite a good response.
“And so, a few months after the Salisbury poisonings happened, a man named Toby Bruce got in contact with us, who’s part of the production company Dancing Ledge.”
Declan and Adam were initially worried the media coverage had been so comprehensive there was nothing left to say.
But after visiting Salisbury, they decided to take up the tale.
Declan said: “We heard stories about the crisis health response and a lot about what the local agencies had done to lock it down. Once we delved into that, we found we had an amazing story there.
“We had a real sense, when we met people like Tracy Daszkiewicz, DCC Mills, Supt Minty, that these were people who were committed to public service and who’d done a really amazing job which hadn’t been fully recognised.”
And Declan admitted the timing of the broadcast could not have been more relevant due to Covid-19. He said: “The confluence of events has been astonishing. We told the story of a health response and now it’s being aired as we live through a health response. “We originally made this for BBC Two for what we thought was going to be a smaller and more niche audience. We just wanted to make something we all loved and could stand over and be proud of.
“In a world of fake news, it’s a real story where you can empathise with the people involved.”
The Salisbury Poisonings is available now on iplayer.
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