FURTHER news from The Times’ Scotland-based columnist, Melanie Reid, who broke her neck and back after falling from a horse last month…
Writing from her hospital bed for The Times Magazine on a weekly basis – under the title, Spinal Column – Melanie amusingly reveals this weekend that she is expecting VIP visitors.
“Word reaches me that the Royal Navy search and rescue helicopter crew that airlifted me, based at HMS Gannet at Prestwick, want to come and visit me in hospital. This is terribly flattering, if a little ironic, because as a news reporter in Scotland I have been writing up accounts of their celebrated rescues at sea and in the mountains for years. All they had to do was land in a flat field in broad daylight to get me.
“I tell the nurses, who immediately demand I give advance warning of when the guys are coming so they can arrange to be on shift. Honestly, isn’t it utterly ridiculous how men in uniform with a big powerful machine can turn women’s head to mush? I ask you.”
Melanie was an award-winning columnist and senior assistant editor on The Herald before joining the Scottish staff of The Times.