Fire at The Mac

Only one story today and I can't stop thinking about it.
Tonight, the beautiful Mac building - designed to the minutest detail by Charles Rennie Mackintosh - and home to Glasgow School of Art for over 100 years - is a smouldering shell of its former self.
It was desperately sad to see pictures around lunchtime today of flames belching out of the vast picture windows in the studio spaces which were being prepped for degree shows.
The library, which was the jewel in its crown, has apparently been decimated.
I first saw it as a schoolgirl and so wanted to come and study in this magical place.
My dad put the kibosh on the idea. What kind of job, he said, would I get after art school?
Years later, I got to come and write about the work students had made in this place after four years training. It felt a wee bit special to be given the run of the place.
Many of my Facebook friends are GSA alumni. There was a sense of tearful shock as the news started to spread.
One artist, Lesley Banks, said she was struggling to articulate to her children why she was crying. Another friend, Alastair Cook, told a similar story. He and his wife met here, he said. He was trying to explain its significance to their children.
A seen-it-all journalist pal whom I've know since school days and who has reported from trouble spots all over the world, said we should get things in perspective. Nobody died.
In a sense though, something very tricky to pin down was snuffed out as the flames licked through the famous corridors of the Mack today.
From Mackintosh to Fra Newbery to Eardley to Alasdair Gray to the the night porter who used to take the mick out of Steven Campbell, the building was in their blood.
That's why people with the remotest connection to this beautiful building were quietly weeping all over the real and virtual world today.

Just as I finished writing this, a statement was released by the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service which said the incident was 'under control' and that 'more than 90 per cent of the structure is viable and protected up to 70 per cent of its contents - including many students work'.