The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Community has shown the way
It’s hard to feel anything other than impotent rage as we end this week. The national news was, of course, dominated by questions over just how many Downing Street parties were held last Christmas.
You remember last Christmas? That’s the one that went ahead with the country in lockdown and families arranging sociallydistanced funerals for people who had died alone from Covid-19.
In all that din you might have missed the stories about the Electoral Commission finding the Conservatives had failed to report a £52,801 donation towards the redecoration of Boris Johnson’s flat.
And all of that quite overshadowed the fact that, while the PM’s former adviser Allegra Stratton was falling on her sword over the Christmas party row, the government was pushing through its Nationality and Borders Bill, which gives it the right to strip people of their British citizenship without informing them.
What’s the slogan? If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention.
So yeah I guess we’ll toe the line and cancel our Christmas parties again while the Omicron variant runs rampant.
And let’s hope for their sake the cameras aren’t running while they laugh in our faces this time round.
But it’s the weekend. And until people higher up the Westminster food chain than Allegra Stratton are held accountable they don’t deserve a second of your time.
So instead I’m going to reflect on a different week in news.
One that paints a brighter picture.
On Monday The Courier told the story of Perthshire woman Ashlie Lamb who was 39 weeks pregnant when doctors discovered a tumour in her brain that was threatening her own life and that of her unborn child.
She gave birth to her daughter Amelie by emergency caesarean section straight away and had the tumour removed six days later. But the surgery left her on life support for weeks and unable to walk or talk.
Ashlie found her feet with the aid of Perth Strathtay Harriers and managed to complete a 2k unaided walk which has now raised £5,000 for equipment for disabled athletes.
She is slowly relearning how to talk and is now writing a book about her experiences in the hope she can inspire other people.
On Tuesday we spotlighted Lily Douglas, the teenage dancer from Perth whose courage and determination earned her a shout-out on I’m A
Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
Contestant and former Strictly Come Dancing judge Dame Arlene Phillips praised the youngster, who has a rare form of cancer, in her exit interview with Ant and Dec, saying: “One of the bravest girls I know is a little girl called Lily Douglas.
“She’s so fearless and I thought here am I afraid of so many things, what way better can you push yourself than to do something like this?”
Champion dancer Lily, 14, has Ewing sarcoma, a type of tumour found in the bone and soft tissue, and Dame Arlene presented her with a teenager of courage award at the Pride of Scotland awards this year.
On Wednesday we reported on the clean-up after Storm Barra swept across Tayside and Fife.
Gusts of up to 60mph damaged buildings, felled trees and caused traffic chaos.
It came just days after Storm Arwen left a trail of even worse devastation in its wake and once again members of the emergency services worked tirelessly to keep people safe, alongside council staff,
transport workers and countless other unsung heroes.
Thursday brought us Paul Boggie – a Fife man whose story of kicking a seven-year drug habit is inspiring prisoners across Scotland.
Paul, from Ballingry, wrote a book after overcoming addiction and forging a successful career in the Scots Guards.
The 42-year-old has now recorded it in audiobook form with the help of inmates at Perth Prison, and will give proceeds from the sales to charities tackling homelessness in
Scotland. Prisoners read some of the chapters and Paul hopes this will encourage them to realise their potential.
He told them: “When you come out and you see how much money has been raised – you have been a part of that. You can be proud of yourself.”
And yesterday we looked back on the life of Harry Gillan, following his death aged 93.
The former depute rector of St John’s High School, Dundee, was an inspirational figure in his home city.
But it turns out he also helped save an estimated 2,000 children from starvation during the Biafra war while teaching at a boys’ secondary school in Nigeria in the 1960s.
For a lot of us it’s been an upsetting, enraging week.
Those we elect to lead us are not always the best of us. Sometimes they’re the worst.
But it’s also been a week in which local people proved it’s possible to make a difference in our own community – and wider world – in a hundred different ways.
Thank goodness we have them to look to.