Knitting paradise, buying a beard, and Strep B: what we learned

Five things we learned across the last seven days.

1. An act of kindness can change someone’s life.

Our readers’ hearts were warmed by our story about a woman who suffered burns in a fire almost 50 years ago and stunned mourners when she turned up at the funeral of the man who saved her.

Audrey Cameron was a baby when John Hunter rescued her from a burning flat.

When she heard John had died she went to pay her respects at his funeral uncovering a family secret that had been lost for years.

At the wake the family were stunned to read the articles revealing how John had dashed into the blazing flat three times, managing to pull Audrey to safety on the third attempt.

And if Audrey hadn’t gone to tell them, many in John’s family would never have known.

2. There is a place called Knitting Paradise, where crocheters and wool-lovers meet and it’s our new favourite name for a website.

Our techie guys noticed that we had readers getting to our stories via a website we had never heard of knittingparadise.com.

They had been kind enough to post our story about a knitter who secured an American book deal after trekking across Scotland making sockson one of their forum threads.

That and their name was enough to encourage us to have a look at their site.

And the verdict? They know a lot of stuff about knitting!

Definitely our favourite website name of the week!

3. The dangers of Strep B that most people know nothing about.

Many of us had never even heard of Strep B which is pretty incredible since it accounts for 75 baby deaths in the UK each year.

Our reporter Tracey Bryce changed all that when she wrote about Jackie Watt’s heart-breaking experience of the bacterial infection which is carried by one in five pregnant women.

And once the story was published online, plenty of our readers got in touch to talk about their own Strep B stories.

Hopefully the raised awareness will save lives.

4. Our decision to publish the Glasgow bin lorry picture was a divisive one.

It was always going to be a controversial decision to publish this image of the bin lorry crash in Sunday’s paper.

And so it proved.

Many got in touch to criticise and applaud the decision and it’s one we stand by.

It sparked a healthy debate about the role of the media, decency, and censorship.

5. There are people willing to part with £6,000 for the chance to have a beard.

For some men, having to shave is a grind. For others it is an impossible dream.

But no longer private clinics across Scotland say there has been an explosion in the number of men coming through their doors asking for a face fluff boosting tufty transplant.

“Some want patches added and others want a bit of definition and shape to their existing beards. We also have customers who want a beard transplant for religious grounds. Some cultures see it as a symbol of strength.”

Who would have thought!