Monday, November 1, 2010

Madeleine's final gift for grandma before she disappeared

Last updated at 11:04 20 October 2007

Madeleine McCann's grandmother has revealed the final gift she received from her granddaughter before she disappeared in Portugal.
Susan Healy, 61, who spoke of the heart-shaped plate which Madeleine decorated with her palm prints - an unbearably poignant reminder of the affectionate little girl.
Given to the Healys shortly before she disappeared, the plate is the last present Madeleine gave to anyone in her family.
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Madeleine plate
She made it at her nursery school, dipping her tiny hands into pink and purple paint to produce the palm prints before a teacher added the message in black ink: "I love you Grandma and Grandad, From Madeleine. 2007."
Mrs Healy told how the plate is so precious to her that she dare not hang it on the wall in case it gets broken. Instead, it rests, wrapped up in tissue paper on the piano in the front room of her home in Liverpool.
"It was done in April about a month before they went on holiday to Portugal," she said.
"It was literally days afterwards - I think it was four or five days afterwards - that Madeleine went missing.
"It was my last gift from Madeleine. It is very, very precious because of that fact.
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Madeleine plate A gift to Madeleine's grandparents that she made shortly before she disappeared
"I feel like locking it up in a safe rather than displaying it because I couldn't bear anything to happen to it.
"We've got Madeleine's photographs all over the house, obviously, in every room, and they have always been there. But this is different. This is so special.
"The only thing that I can accept as a possibility is that we get Madeleine back. In the meantime the handprints on that plate are the nearest thing to a physical reminder."


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-488694/Madeleines-final-gift-grandma-disappeared.html#ixzz142KOpGTC