ABSTRACT
Letters flooded into Lockerbie in the weeks following the disaster. They offered sympathy. They offered prayers. Often, they offered help, even when the writers clearly had very little money themselves. “It was very distressing, some of the letters we got,” said one of the women who spent several hours a day at the library, writing thank-you notes on behalf of the community. “For some of the people who sent in donations, you felt it was their last pound.” Especially touching were the letters from children. “Some would have sales in the garden — just wee tots doing all this, and their mums or their dads would write the letter and they would sign it.” they said they would help me. But it just got bigger and bigger,” he told reporters after he arrived in Lockerbie. A major challenge of public relations is to recognize that an action or communication may be viewed differently by different audiences.
