IT’S hard not to despair. Plumes of choking bonfire smoke waft across council estates. Scorched black patches have consumed the green parks where children once played.

THE prayers of a tight-knit community are being said for the family of a four-year-old boy who died in hospital yesterday, five days after being run over by a coal lorry.

A WOMAN who went back to school so that her blind son could learn to read was yesterday declared Mum of the Year.