Yours truly is very hard to please. Four decades of wading through humanity as a journalist and three decades as a soldier have given me a tough skin and a bitter cynicism which I can only compare to that of other similarly experienced beings.

I’m a ‘lead, follow or get out of my way,’ kind of guy. Sometimes my candour offends. But, hey!

Yet this curmudgeon has been heartened this week with some amazing pieces of local news.

Helensburgh’s wheelchair tennis star Gordon Reid has won a remarkable record-equalling 16th Grand Slam title at the Australian Open and local businesswoman Kathleen Young is about to sell her sandwich shop and head to the Poland/Ukraine border to work for a charity.

Her quote that people there needed her more than people here need a roll and sausage, brought a tear to this glass e’e.

It’s not the submarines, the Clyde view or the Hill House which makes this place special. It’s the people.