THE dark clouds that circled our skies parted to allow an array of sunshine and hope to penetrate the doom and gloom of this depression.

A shot was fired that skimmed above the calm surface of the soothsayers of disaster, like the rolling bomb of the dam busters. We waited with bated breath.

There was an air of nervous anticipation that hung perilously close to bristling, but alas, it was not to be. It was something far more humane.

A gesture that is very often lacking in our politicians – those whom we describe as two-faced, lying, cheating dehumanised robots – compassion! Ms Jade Goody asked and she was granted. Mechanical robots would acclaim in the affirmative that this trait, indeed, belongs only to humans.

Dr Francis Apaloo, Shear Bank Road, Blackburn.