Lorraine Kelly says 'I thought nothing will be as bad as that - then Dunblane happened'

TV presenter Lorraine Kelly has reflected on her career, saying she never thought anything would be "as bad" as covering the Lockerbie bombing until she reported on the Dunblane massacre.

Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain to mark her 40 years in television, Kelly, 64, shared that as a parent, the Dunblane gun attack, which resulted in the deaths of 16 children and one teacher with 15 others injured at Dunblane Primary School in 1996, "hit particularly hard".

She recalled how during the coverage of the Lockerbie terror attack in 1988, where 270 people died after Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over the Scottish borders town on December 21, 1988, she had to tell herself it "somehow it wasn’t real" to manage her emotions.

When asked about the impact of these events on her early career, Kelly said: "I think Lockerbie, I was very young and very inexperienced, and the only way I think anybody got through that was thinking that somehow it wasn’t real, and you had to almost close everything off and just be very focused on the story you were trying to tell.

"And the reason that I love doing what I do so much, is we’re allowed to have emotions, we’re allowed to somehow try and tell everyone what it was like to be there on a story like that.

"I thought when I did Lockerbie, ‘nothing will be as bad as that’, the worst terrorist atrocity in Europe that there has ever been, and I thought, ‘nothing will be as bad as that’."

The Scottish presenter spoke emotionally about the impact of the Dunblane tragedy, particularly as a parent, saying: "Then Dunblane happened, and I think because Rosie (her daughter) was about two then, and I think when you’re a parent, it hit everybody hard, but when you’re a parent it hit particularly (hard)."

She then reflected on her upbringing in poverty and its influence on her career. "When you grow up like that, that’s your reality, isn’t it? " she noted, adding the importance of her family's support: "And I had amazing parents, I mean, they were so young (18), I thought I was five months premature for ages, but mum and dad had to get married.

"But our house, there was always books in our house, they taught me to read and write before I went to primary school.

"I went to an amazing primary school, the teachers were brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and really encouraged us, but yeah, there was real poverty."

Kelly recounted her parents' struggles and their influence on her: "(My parents) got married, moved into a one-room in the Gorbals with an outside loo and managed somehow, they just were grafters, I’ve learned so much from them."

She credits her strong work ethic and love of reading to her parents, which helped pave the way for her successful journalism career.

Starting at the East Kilbride News after forgoing university, Kelly then joined BBC Scotland as a researcher in 1983, setting the foundation for her distinguished career in broadcasting.

In 1984, she joined TV-am as an on-screen reporter covering Scottish news, and in 1990 she began her presenting career on Good Morning Britain, before getting her own show, Lorraine, in 2010. A special documentary on her career, Lorraine Kelly: 40 Unforgettable Years, will air on ITV1 at 9pm today, while this morning’s episode of Lorraine will also celebrate her career from 9am.