11 December 2006
DailyRecord
SCOTLAND'S loneliest schoolgirl landed a Christmas treat after Big Brother winner Cameron Stout heard of her plight.
Kind-hearted Cameron was touched by the Record's story about Caroline MacKinnon, nine, who is the only pupil at her school on the Hebridean island of Sanday.
So he asked bosses at Glasgow's Pavilion Theatre, where he is starring in Peter Pan, to invite her to the panto as a guest of honour.
Caroline was overjoyed to meet Cameron, who comes from Orkney, and stars of the soap River City who are also in the panto.
She and and her mum were brought to the city and put up in a top hotel before watching the show on Saturday.
They were also given backstage access to meet cast members, including River City stars Stephen Purdon, who plays Shellsuit Bob, and Laura McMonagle, who plays Zoe.
The pair are playing Michael and Wendy in Peter Pan.
The cast also includes comedian Dean Park as the Naughty Nanny and radio presenter Cat Harvey as Tinkerkat.
Pavilion manager Ian Gordon said last night: "Cameron read Caroline's story in the Record and it really touched him. He spoke to me about bringing her down to see the show and I agreed it was a great idea.
"We were proud to have her as guest of honour and she seemed to have a great time."
Each day, Caroline walks a mile from her home on the island of Canna across a causeway to the neighbouring island of Sanday, where her school is.
She has no one to play with at breaktime since her elder sister Kathryn started school on the mainland.
But there is hope on the horizon for her. The National Trust for Scotland, who own the island, are looking for two families to join the population of just 15.
Of those, Caroline's sister Kathryn and cousins Mairead MacKinnon, 15, and Sinead MacKinnon, 14, board at Mallaig High School, taking the population down to just 12 during term time.
Two hundred years ago, 430 people lived on Canna.
A shortlist of six families was drawn up last week from the 350 who applied to live on the island.
