What the papers say

Journalist Malachi O'Doherty takes a look at what is making the headlines in Tuesday's morning papers.

Mark Henderson's release from captivity in Colombia is the main lead in the Independent and the Daily Telegraph.

The Independent, like most papers, concentrates on the young man's good humour.

He was two stone lighter, had a bigger beard but he had lost none of his old spark, says the paper's north of England correspondent, Ian Herbert.

Quoting his first words to his mother as he waited for the helicopter, the papers says, "I'm still stuck up a bloody mountain.."

"Thank God You're Safe" - The Express headline - is his mother's reaction.

"Sorry Mum, I forgot your present." The Mail has him joking with his parents.

The pilots of the helicopter are heroes because they fought to avoid houses and came down on a rugby pitch The Mirror

The Daily Telegraph, by contrast, says that Mark Henderson was "close to breaking point".

The rescue of a hostage is a big story in the front of the Irish News, but it is not the hostage the other papers are talking about.

The paper has the story of Tommy Devlin, who raised money for lepers in Nigeria and got kidnapped by a taxi driver from Lagos airport.

The driver tried to rob him, then negotiated a price for taking him back to the airport, which he did.

"It's Boom Time," declares the front page of the News Letter, with tills ringing in millions of euro, now that there is a favourable exchange rate, in this direction.

Wreckage

Sainsburys in Newry has had to bring in extra staff and other towns are reporting a huge influx of cross-border shoppers.

Below this a picture of the horrific helicopter crash near Londonderry, in which two soldiers died.

That Derry crash features as prominently on the front of the Irish News, where eyewitneses are reported saying that the wreckage would not have been identifiable as a helicopter.

Family life has perhaps never been holy but that has never stopped it from being kind of sacred The Irish Times

In the Mirror the pilots of the helicopter are "heroes", because they apparently fought to avoid houses and came down on a rugby pitch.

Nine thousand people have been waiting more than a year for hospital treatment in the Irish Republic, a statistic shocking enough to warrant being the lead story in the Irish Times on Tuesday.

Fintan O'Toole takes the holy family as a possible model for the diverse forms of family he believes we have always had.

He concludes that family life has perhaps never been holy but that has never stopped it from being kind of sacred.

The News Letter reports that David Trimble intends to stick to his post though admits that there could be moves now within the party to retire him.

The party's honorary treasurer Jack Allen has denied reports that he was unhappy with Trimble's leadership.

He says these are "inaccurate, misleading and without foundation".