Pity the celebrity who underestimates Lorraine Kelly, the original and best queen of morning telly. Behind that breezy “Only me!” exterior is a news reporter who covered two of the most harrowing events in recent memory.
Two years ago she made the documentary Return to Dunblane. This week she followed that with Return to Lockerbie with Lorraine Kelly (STV, Wednesday).
As Scotland correspondent for TV-am, Kelly was one of the first reporters on the scene. In the company of a police officer on duty that night, she revisited the field where the nose cone of Pan-Am Flight 103 lay. The ex-policeman recalls the dreadful sights of that evening, but Kelly doesn’t remember seeing any bodies at the same spot.
Like many, Kelly had blocked out the past as a way of coping. Not many spoke about what had happened, but the GP recalls the trauma surfacing in other ways. Problem drinking, for instance, and children wetting the bed.
But these were locals, they had to go on living with the tragedy while Kelly could return to normal life. Yet the fact she had not been back in 35 years, her reactions when she did, and her continuing flashbacks, showed that Kelly had unfinished business with Lockerbie. As one psychiatrist said, it would be abnormal not to have PTSD after such an experience.
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Even then, Kelly had trouble accepting she had a “right” to feel traumatised. She acknowledged feeling guilty that the story had been her big break, that she had benefitted from something so awful. Few reporters would admit such a thing to themselves far less broadcast it on prime-time television, but that’s Kelly.
Like any community in the media spotlight for all the wrong reasons, the people of Lockerbie have kept their distance since the disaster. Granted we did not see anyone refusing to talk to Kelly, but that so many did was to her credit.
Never judge a programme by its title is one of the things they teach in TV reviewing school. That, and how to open a packet of chocolate digestives with one hand while taking notes with the other.
Take the new documentary series, Secrets of the Aquarium (BBC2, Tuesday). At first glance a try-hard title probably disguising a lack of excitement. Sure, aquariums are nature’s lava lamps, relaxing to watch for a while, but repositories of secrets?
As it turned out, the first in a six part series set at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth was one of the most thrilling watches of the week. Sort of.
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Mac the Knife was playing as we were introduced to the day’s first task - rehoming a shark that had been, according to narrator Joanna Scanlon, “kicked out of a previous aquarium for bad behaviour”. It was the age-old story: boy shark loses girl shark, becomes aggressive, starts biting. The problem shark’s name was El Diablo, which was frankly asking for trouble, but we won’t judge. Unable to survive if he was let loose in the ocean, the National Marine Aquarium was his last chance saloon. First, he had to be moved from the ground floor to a bigger tank on the fourth. How do you move a shark up four floors? Very carefully.
El Diablo was sedated, placed in a sling, and maneuvered up the steps by the whole team. It was like moving a grand piano, a grand piano that could kill you.
Having managed that successfully it was on to Friday the turtle and Larry the lobster. Friday was a visitor favourite. Emma, who looks after him, said he could be a bit of a *bleep*. He had bitten her on the bottom, which must have been sore. Sticking your fingers in his seemingly harmless gub would, we were told, be like shutting them in a car door.
Just when you thought it could not get any more exciting, Marcus the aquarium boss decided to clean the tank that was now home to El Diablo and others of his ilk. “I don’t like the word dangerous,” said Marcus, “but it’s probably our most dangerous tank.” Sharks can to become very annoyed, very quickly, apparently, which made them sound like Glaswegians.
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Some fine examples of that breed were on show as The Scotts (BBC1, Tuesday) returned. Written by and starring Iain Connell and Robert Florence, The Scotts breezed through the usually tricky second series and now looks happily at home in the third. Connell and Florence write for the characters as if they have known them forever but there is nothing tired about their takes on family life and the universe that is Glasgow.
This week, the unstoppable Colette (Louise McCarthy) took to busking to get her singing career back on track after the baby, only to find herself out-razzmatazzed by dancing cats. All that and Barbara Rafferty as matriarch Moira, known for her lethally sarky pep talks starting with the words, “Nae harm to you.” Connell and Florence - to paraphrase Barbara Dixon and Elaine Page, they know us so well.
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