IT’S SCARY HOW LIFE-CHANGING A SPLIT SECOND DECISION CAN BE

Our lovely cover star today is model Holly Carpenter, who’s taking part in this year’s Dancing With The Stars on RTÉ. I sympathised greatly with her when I read of the gruelling toll that the training was taking on her – I did ballroom dancing myself for eight years as a youngster and I remember well the physical demands of it. But my sympathy is mainly reserved for her dance partner Curtis Pritchard, who was badly beaten alongside his brother AJ in an attack by eight men in England on St Stephen’s Day. It’s sickening to read the details of the beating the two men took and it brought home again how quickly lives can change because of the idiocy of violence. You read time and again about death or serious injury caused by so-called ‘one-punch attacks’ – it’s scary how life-changing a split-second decision can be. Curtis now faces an anxious and uncertain future, with the career he’s spent his whole life cultivating hanging in the balance. Mindless violence destroys lives and has no place in our society. Nobody wants to get to a point where people are afraid to go out for fear of similar attacks. We join Holly in sending our best wishes to Curtis for his recovery, hopefully we’ll see him back on the dancefloor very soon. On page 38, Olympic champion Kelly Holmes tells of the horrendous mental health difficulties she faced that left her crippled with anxiety and fear. It’s hard to believe that a woman as successful and strong as Kelly suffered in this way but it just goes to show that you can’t always believe what you see on the outside – people from all walks of life could be battling their own inner demons. She tells of how vital it was that she spoke out and sought professional help, emphasising that oft shared sentiment that ‘it’s ok not to be ok’. We all need to be more understanding and kind to each other and with people like Kelly speaking out, hopefully that will help that message to spread.