Community that cares

It is every mother's nightmare to turn around and find her child is nowhere to be seen.

That is exactly what happened to panic-stricken Marian Grenham yesterday when her two-year-old daughter was abducted by two 12-year-old girls in Hove.

Happily, toddler Lois was reunited with her parents nearly four hours later. She was unharmed.

The ordeal brought out the best in the British police and public, who joined forces in a show of community spirit to search for little Lois.

The police were at the scene on the double to comb the area thoroughly, backed up by youths on bikes and neighbours in cars, while bus drivers were alerted by radio to keep an eye out for Lois.

Everybody rallied round, which was magnificent.

We leave the last word to Marian, who said: "I just want to give a big thank you to the neighbours and police. They were brilliant."

Still no answers

Pensioners who feared their eyes had been seriously damaged in a medical blunder are still waiting to find out why - nearly eight months after the Argus revealed their plight.

The findings of an independent report into the mistakes were expected to be released in the summer after patients were wrongly injected with eyedrops before cataract surgery at the BUPA Gatwick Park Hospital.

We are now bordering on winter - and still there are no answers.

East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Health Authority described the delay as unfortunate and said the report would be published in a few weeks.

Let's hope so for the sake of the patients, some of whom still don't know whether the eye damage they suffered is long-term.

Break from norm

Carina Marong from Brighton went on holiday to the Gambia and ended up marrying a hotel worker she met there.

To celebrate their wedding, villagers sacrificed a chicken in her honour which went into a stew and was served up with spices and onions.

It certainly makes a change from

cutting the wedding cake and dancing to Agadoo.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.