Britain was stunned last night by its first direct experience of a celebrity murder - the "unspeakably dreadful" death of BBC "golden girl', Jill Dando, by a single gunshot at her south London home.
A "shocked and saddened" Queen Elizabeth led tributes to the popular presenter whose professionalism and versatility, natural beauty and "girl next door" charm had won the hearts of millions of television viewers throughout the country and beyond over the past decade.
The Prime Minister, Mr Blair, interrupted preparations for a Commons statement on the NATO summit to express his shock "that anybody could do such a thing". And in the Commons, the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, told MPs the former presenter of Crimewatch had made a huge contribution to the fight against crime, "which makes her death all the more poignant".
The Conservative Party leader, Mr William Hague, joined the political tributes, saying: "Our first thoughts are with Jill's family on this tragic day. Jill Dando made a great contribution to popular broadcasting. She will be missed by millions."
The BBC's director of television, Mr Alan Yentob, said the loss would be felt by everyone: "She was a natural television performer, an incredibly warm human being. People really loved her. There are not that many people in television whom people warm to, and who feel approachable in the way that Jill was."
And Nicholas Wytchell - Ms Dando's co-presenter of BBC Breakfast News for five years - spoke of the death of a friend as well as a colleague: "She was such a genuinely nice person - the person you saw on the screen was the same as the person off screen. That lack of affectation came through and was part of the reason for her success." Mr Wytchell continued: "She brought energy, enthusiasm, warmth and sincerity to her work. Jill was always a down-to-earth person, which is not always the case with people who have achieved the kind of spectacular and deserved success she had." The manner of her death, he said, was "unspeakably dreadful". Nick Ross, Ms Dando's Crimewatch co-presenter, heard of her death soon after it was confirmed and said it hit him "like a bolt from the blue". Still struggling to come to terms with the news, he said: "I have been working in and around crime for 15 years, and I am very much more aware than most people of how unusual and bizarre these events are. When it happens close to you, it does strike how bizarre it is, it is such a bolt from the blue."
At such times, said Mr Ross, people tended to say "treacly" things: "But the truth is that everyone got on with Jill. She was just a generous, open, friendly person, there was no side to her at all. She was charming to everyone, everything you could wish for in a colleague and a friend."
And Mr Ross reflected the acute sense of her friends that Ms Dando's professional success was to be matched by fulfilment in her personal life - aged 37, she was to be married to gynaecologist Alan Farthing this autumn. "Everything seemed to be going so well for her. She was in bubbly spirits, and looking forward to getting married this year. The one thing that had been missing from her life was real romance leading to marriage, and that was about to happen with Alan," he said.
It fell to Mr Farthing yesterday to identify the body. And Ms Dando's future father-in-law told PA News of the family's grief. Mr John Farthing, a retired doctor, said: "For this to happen at this stage of Jill's life is almost indescribable. Myself and my wife were talking to Jill only last night [Sunday] to congratulate her on the first episode of Antiques Travellers, and to discuss the wedding plans. My son was called out of a clinic to be told the dreadful news and then he had to go and identify the body. Needless to say he is in complete shock, as we all are. The fact that the Prime Minister has already paid a tribute to her shows the influence she had. She was an absolutely lovely girl, as genuine as they come."
Ms Dando had featured on the front cover of the current issue of the Radio Times, announcing the new Antiques Travellers programme, after making her last appearance earlier this month on the Holiday programme, of which she had been principal presenter since 1993.
Always determined to have and demonstrate a range of skills, she had been widely tipped to front the relaunched Six O'Clock News next month, but pulled out of the contest, apparently on hearing that some executives at the corporation did not consider her sufficiently hard-hitting. Declaring herself "relieved" to be out of the running, Ms Dando had said: "Just because I've got blonde hair and haven't been to Bosnia doesn't mean I'm a bimbo. I am still a serious journalist."
And the woman whose stunning looks often drew comparisons with Princess Diana spoke modestly of the time she did not enjoy the glamour for which so many will remember her. As a youngster she recalled she was "rather an ugly little girl with canine teeth, glasses and an extremely old-fashioned dress sense". A perm and contact lenses apparently worked a transformation in her image in 1978: "Suddenly nobody recognised me. I couldn't believe it when the heart-throb at the church youth group asked me out," she later recalled.
Ms Dando retained her deep Christian faith, and her sense of her roots. There was shock at Broadoak Sixth Form Centre yesterday at news of the former head girl's murder, as at Worle comprehensive in Weston-super-Mare, where staff had followed the former pupil's rise from the Western Mercury to national stardom.
Born with a hole in the heart, Ms Dando had been an enthusiastic supporter of the British Heart Foundation. And Mr Leslie Fake, of the Weston Hospicecare, last night recalled her unpublicised visits to patients, the follow-up cards and letters of encouragement, "a side that probably few people were privileged to see . . . she was truly a Christian lady . . . When she came to the Hospice, she was extraordinary in her ordinariness". The deluge of tributes to both the public and the private Jill Dando last night told the same relentless story. Nick Ross said: "She was, if anything, better, nicer, more modest, dignified, cleverer than anybody saw on the screen." Asked to sum up her career, he replied: "She was a real star."
But from such a competitive, and at times ruthless world - populated by stars and "wannabe" stars - perhaps the greatest and most remarkable tribute came from the BBC's veteran correspondent Kate Adie, who told Six O'Clock News viewers she knew Jill Dando as a star who had no enemies.
Ms Dando would reassure herself about her own safety by echoing the words of her Crimewatch co-host, Nick Ross: "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well."
In an interview for the BBC Online website she said the monthly show had made her take more of an interest in home security. She said: "It upsets me that there are such brutal people - occasionally we get the stories behind the crimes and the motives are quite sickening.
"I take great care over home security and about walking home in the dark. But I also know that crimes are very rare. I always tell myself: don't have nightmares, do sleep well."