OUT of darkness comes light. Separated by several thousand miles, two horrific events, one of them drawing worldwide attention, the other, sadly, little-reported beyond our own North-East, have prompted responses that display the best in the human spirit.

In Fallujah, Iraq, four American civilians were savagely murdered by a primeval mob. (The mob, incidentally, runs unchanged throughout history. Ourselves abandoning the civilised plot, it is the enemy we must always fear most.)

Anyway, charred and mutiliated, the bodies of two of the murdered Americans were slung up on a bridge like sides of meat. Photographs showed the barbaric scene, complete with jubilant crowds.

How would relatives of the butchered men react? A conclave of angels would be hard put to condemn a desire for revenge. And some relatives might have felt that. But the only one I heard interviewed didn't. The brother of one of the slain men, he said he had looked at the faces in the crowd. His voice still trembling with emotion he remarked: "I felt sorry for them. They are sad, sad people."

On the cusp of Easter here was a 21st-century version of "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The brother's response was good answering evil and triumphing over it.

Meanwhile, on Tyneside, the parents of Michael Temperley, the 15-year-old from Low Fell, who died horrifically in an enclosed skip set on fire by another teenager, had endured the second ordeal of the court case arising from the appalling tragedy.

Prank gone wrong though it was, mercy would probably not have been high in the minds of most parents who lost a much-loved son in such circumstances, not least since Michael's initial imprisonment in the skip was an act of bullying. But Michael's mother, Linda, wrote to the judge saying that she and her husband had no desire for a severe custodial sentence to be imposed. Presumably they felt the boy who caused Michael's death, also 15, had learned his lesson.

Sentencing him to four years' detention, the judge took a different view, probably rightly since the message needs to go out that irresponsible acts with grave if unintended consequences for others cannot be viewed lightly. But the humanity of Michael's parents should be an example and inspiration to us all.

WHAT hypocrisy! In Another Newspaper the other day appeared a walk of loving homage to the Farndale daffodils by that notorious daffodil hater, Harry Mead.

But, hey, if Farndale's daffodils (at their best right now, incidentally) are the North's finest expression of that "host of golden daffodils", what might be the worst? I give you Ripon bypass, thickly plastered with blooms almost from end to end. The terms "garish", "vulgar" and "in-your-face" don't quite convey the sickly effect. Ah yes, that's it: floral vomit.

SO the Flying Scotsman is to be saved for the nation, as urged here when the crisis over the future of the historic locomotive broke. First task on her arrival at York's National Railway Museum - the perfect home - must be the removal of the wind-deflectors added in recent years. In establishing her records and making herself a much-loved national institution, the proud loco scorned such aids. And she would have surrendered herself for scrap rather than wear the Southern Region blinkers that at present mar her classic good looks.