I won’t name her as I’m sure her family don’t wish to publicly revisit such a tragic event, but she had been missing for more than two weeks.

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What I saw that day has never left me and, hand on heart, I still think of her often.

Particularly as the inquest verdict of “accidental death” has always played on my mind.

Naturally, it was a big local story, I covered it extensively (and, I hope, sensitively) from the start and the police had invited me to watch the search, perhaps because they felt under pressure to show the public they were working hard to find her.

She had been drinking in a rural pub with her family, said she was going to the toilet and never returned.

Remember, there were no mobile phones or CCTV cameras then.

Her father told us that, at first, he assumed she had met a friend outside, got distracted and gone elsewhere.

She was in her early twenties, an independent young woman, and this wasn’t entirely unusual.

So it wasn’t until the next day that he reported her missing.

It was winter, and the nearby canal was iced over, making it tricky to search.

So initial police inquiries started door-to-door in the village. Had anyone seen or heard anything?

At one house, they got a lead.

The young woman had knocked on their door late at night — one and a half hours after she had left the pub — to say her family had gone home without her and could she use their landline to call them?

They said yes, but — my memory is a little hazy on this — whoever it was she called didn’t answer.

So she thanked the couple for their help and walked off into the night, never to be seen again until the canal search around two weeks later.

Toxicology tests showed she had a significant amount of alcohol in her system, she died from drowning and there was no evidence of other injury, so the conclusion was that she had accidentally fallen into the water.

But her family described her as a “biker girl” who was used to drinking pints and held her alcohol well.

Also, and most crucially in my view, the couple whose door she knocked on 90 minutes after last being seen described her as lucid, steady and not seeming the slightest bit drunk.

To my mind, there were the unanswered questions of where she had been in the interim 90 minutes.

Internet sleuths

Was she with someone and could she have been pushed into the water?

But I didn’t have an opinion column then, there was no social media nor rolling news, and as her family seemed satisfied with the conclusion, I left it that way.

If it had happened today, it would undoubtedly have been subjected to the same level of “armchair detective” speculation we have seen surrounding the heartbreaking case of Nicola Bulley, whose body has been found in the River Wyre more than three weeks after she went missing while on a dog walk.

Her family would have been trolled despite all having alibis to prove they had all left the area by the time she turned up at the couple’s house, the police divers would have been publicly pilloried for not checking the canal sooner despite the thick ice and there would have been internet sleuths flocking to the sleepy village for little more than their own shameless self-promotion online.

Would any of that have resulted in a different outcome?

I doubt it, because evidence of foul play just wasn’t there.

It’s entirely natural that we all sit at our breakfast tables and share theories about high-profile stories such as the disappearance of Nicola, but when that interest becomes spurious theories played out on public platforms or, worse, directly aimed at a heartbroken family, it is beyond the pale.

Perhaps the young woman of 40 years ago did accidentally fall into the canal. Or perhaps she didn’t. We’ll never know for sure.

But technology and forensics have moved on considerably since then, so let’s hope that Nicola’s family get an unequivocal answer about what happened on the sunny day she dropped her kids off at school, went on a dog walk and ended up dead in the river.

Then, not only can she rest in peace, so can they.

Isn’t she a bit old for him?

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Sitcom is jest deserts for Meg ’n’ Harry

US cartoon South Park’s superb takedown of Harry and Meghan on their “worldwide privacy tour” proves beyond doubt that in the face of such hypocrisy and delusional self-importance, rational and evidential alternative viewpoints are largely futile.

The best counter-argument is complete and utter ridicule.

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Bruce’s familly have done the best for him

GOING public with something so private and painful for all concerned is never easy.

But Bruce Willis’s family have done the right thing by announcing he has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.

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For not only will it put an end to the continuing speculation about his behaviour on movie sets over the past couple of years, it will also raise invaluable awareness of a disease that, in all its forms, affects millions of lives the world over and is still often misunderstood.

But best of all for his close-knit loved ones, putting it out there will make the world a far nicer place, in which he, and they, will feel understood and protected.

Going public was a decision Scott Mitchell wrestled with for at least three years after his beloved wife Dame Barbara Windsor was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Initially, she functioned well and any symptoms remained undetected by everyone but those closest to her.

But eventually her forgetfulness and repetition became more obvious and, while out and about, Scott noticed certain people giving him “a look” he described as empathetic and suggestive that, perhaps, they too had experience of a loved one living with dementia.

They said nothing, but clearly understood the signs.
Scott knew it was time to go public with Barbara’s diagnosis, so she/they could continue to enjoy life without fear of someone taking her often unusual behaviour the wrong way.

And to this day, he’s glad he did. He likened the public reaction to stepping into a warm bath of understanding and support.

I saw this for myself when we took Barbara to the theatre and, during the interval, we joined the back of an extremely long, snaking queue for the toilets.

Within seconds, the women clocked someone in need in their midst and what followed next was a Mexican wave of heart-warming loveliness, as we were propelled straight to the front.

When we emerged from the cubicle, one lady helped Barbara to wash her hands, another dried them.

Their kindness moved me greatly.

Another time, as we walked to a restaurant near her home, people stopped to say hello every few paces and just went with whatever tangent she threw in to the conversation.

I hope that now Bruce and his family have gone public, they too will experience the very best of human kindness.

Here’s hoping Patsy

ACTRESS Patsy Kensit is to marry for a fifth time.

Millionaire property developer Patric Cassidy, 58, proposed on a beach somewhere (I’m guessing it wasn’t Skeggy) and he handed 54-year-old Patsy a huge sparkler.

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“I said yes,” she says, after earlier professing she would never marry again.

Good luck to her.

As a triumph of hope over experience, it’s hard not to admire.

According to a new poll by the Centre for Social Justice, 75 per cent of Brits think this country is “broken” and around half have their eye on moving to Australia or New Zealand.

No country is without its own fair share of problems, of course.

But at least the weather would be better.

Cut to her walking the Baftas red carpet in a vampiric outfit that sparked a thousand memes and veritably screamed: “Look at me!”

Contradiction? Discuss.

One imagines it matters a great deal to his/her/their (take your pick) victims.

Oh, the irony.