When the Cheshire emerges...

This story should've gone national because it's totally shown how awesome the community of Dubbo is. And of course because it's terribly terribly sad.

The Blunt family had moved to Dubbo for Allan's work, using their life savings from Sydney to make it happen, but his job was made redundant two weeks after getting here. Then one night little Ashley was taken to hospital because of strange symptoms but got sent home. She died the next day. True story.

Through the Daily Liberal, an appeal was formed where a local bank account was voluntarily set up. I put in $10 because I felt terrible for the parents and they couldn't really afford her funeral. In the last 5 days or so since, there's been over $10,000 pledged to help them pay for the owing costs. They don't know anyone here and it was terribly hard for them to approach the paper for help, it's heartbreaking.

Have a read of the full story, the front-pager from November 24 written wonderfully by one of our senior journos Heather Crosby. I seriously cried reading this, it was terrible. Here's a follow-up too.

In other Dubbo-related stuff, the news a cop was shot while hunting for alleged murderer Malcolm Naden outside of Tamworth this afternoon has got the state buzzing. He's one of NSW's most wanted and been on the run for six years after two women were killed. One body was found in a closed room and the other was never discovered. Grisly stuff.