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Normally, I wouldn't even think about writing about the events that happened in West Cumbria yesterday. I don't have the intelligence, insight or articulation to make any kind of meaningful comment. However, this is different and I feel I should try, because West Cumbria is where I was born and raised.

Except 'Newsnight' yesterday, I've tried to avoid the media coverage and will attempt to continue to do so. In recent months the area has taken a real battering, with first the floods and the more recently the bus crash which caused the death of two children. Now Whitehaven, my hometown, is the centre for the media to try to find out the hows and whys of what made Derrick Bird murder 13 people, many at random, before taking his own life.

Doubtless reasons will be discussed and his life put under intense scrutiny. This isn't a surprise, but I fail to comprehend how any reason can even scratch the surface of what makes a man act out such horrors. Perhaps I should be glad for that.

Though I haven't lived in the area of nearly six years now, being a Cumbrian is important to me. When I first heard there had been a shooting, via a text message from a friend asking if my family were alright, I assumed that some idiot had been waving a replica about and had been shot by the armed response unit. It wasn't until I rang my mother that I found out the details.

Whitehaven and the surrounding villages affected (Egremont, Gosforth, Seascale) are the typical Northern towns: people know each other and many will be directly connected to the victims. My mother told me the name of one of the victims as somebody my brother knew through playing rugby.

What West Cumbria also has it that we're stubborn people: over the last 60+ years, the area has been hit hard by job losses in the steel and coal industries, lack of investment from various governments and now this. I'm due to go back to Whitehaven in two weeks and I know life will still be going on. The glare of the media will pass and my town may be filed alongside Hungerford and Dunblane but the people will go on working and trying to bring the spark back to our hometowns.