Lorraine Kelly reflects on Dunblane and Lockerbie tragedies during her 40-year TV career anniversary
Lorraine Kelly has recounted her experiences, sharing with ITV’s Good Morning Britain that she never anticipated covering an event as harrowing as the Lockerbie bombing until she reported on the Dunblane massacre.
Reflecting on her 40 years on television, Kelly, aged 64, expressed that the tragic gun attack at Dunblane Primary School in 1996, which resulted in the death of 16 children and one teacher with 15 others injured, struck a particularly deep chord as a parent.
She revealed that during the coverage of the Lockerbie terrorist attack in 1988, which claimed 270 lives after Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb over the Scottish borders town on December 21, she coped by telling herself "somehow it wasn’t real" to keep her emotions in check.
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When discussing how these traumatic events influenced her early career, Kelly described how she had managed those initial reports: "I think Lockerbie, I was very young and very inexperienced, and the only way I think anybody got through that was thinking that somehow it wasn’t real, and you had to almost close everything off and just be very focused on the story you were trying to tell."
She further discussed her approach to journalism, citing the value she finds in being emotionally present: "And the reason that I love doing what I do so much, is we’re allowed to have emotions, we’re allowed to somehow try and tell everyone what it was like to be there on a story like that."
Kelly also touched upon the profound impact of these tragedies on her perspective, stating: "I thought when I did Lockerbie, ‘nothing will be as bad as that’, the worst terrorist atrocity in Europe that there has ever been, and I thought, ‘nothing will be as bad as that’."
Discussing the impact of the tragic Dunblane shooting, the Scottish presenter shared her emotional response as a parent. She reflected, "Then Dunblane happened, and I think because Rosie (her daughter) was about two then, and I think when you’re a parent, it hit everybody hard, but when you’re a parent it hit particularly (hard)."
Delving into her background, she spoke about the influence of her upbringing on her career, stating: "When you grow up like that, that’s your reality, isn’t it? " Acknowledging the positivity in her early life despite economic challenges, she continued: "And I had amazing parents, I mean, they were so young (18), I thought I was five months premature for ages, but mum and dad had to get married."
She went on to appreciate the enrichment her home environment provided, "But our house, there was always books in our house, they taught me to read and write before I went to primary school."
Praising her educational experiences, she added, "I went to an amazing primary school, the teachers were brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and really encouraged us, but yeah, there was real poverty."
Reflecting on her parents' resilience, Kelly said: "(My parents) got married, moved into a one-room in the Gorbals with an outside loo and managed somehow, they just were grafters, I’ve learned so much from them."
Emphasizing the values instilled by her family, she concluded: "I’ve learned that work ethic, that you work hard, you’re decent to people, you treat everybody the same, and as I say taught me a love of reading, which has allowed me to do this job."
Launching her journalism career, Kelly began on the East Kilbride News, opting out of university to join the paper and subsequently entered BBC Scotland as a researcher in 1983.
In 1984, she became part of TV-am as a reporter for Scottish news, and by 1990, she had embarked on her presenting journey with Good Morning Britain. This led to her own show, Lorraine, which started in 2010.
A documentary titled 'Lorraine Kelly: 40 Unforgettable Years' is set to broadcast on ITV1 at 9pm today (October 2).