Cleo Smith found: Why we should marvel at the lost kid who came home

Australia was overjoyed at the news Cleo Smith had been found “alive and well”. But, it’s not the first time we’ve experienced a child’s gut-wrenching disappearance.

Some days are just good days.

Like when you wake up and look at your news feed at six in the morning and read that the coppers have found little Cleo Smith “alive and well”.

Everyone I spoke to said, “Hey, did you hear the great news about Cleo?”

Yeah, I did, and I was thrilled.

Cleo Smith in hospital after she was rescued from a Carnarvon house on Wednesday.

Footage of the moment police rescued Cleo Smith from a Carnarvon home. Picture: WA Police

And it’s much, much more than just the easy-sell post-Covid lockdown pick-up theory. Sure, “we all need some good news”. Yep, heard that loud and clear.

But the news that Cleo was found safe, “alive and well” as the cops said in their statement, was more than just a post-lockdown feel-good. It was close on a bloody miracle.

For those of us who are old enough to remember, the mysterious and gut-wrenching disappearance of little Cleo was not the first time Australia and the world has been punched in the guts with this kind of news.

Just to recall a few, way, way back in time in 1966, the Beaumont kids - Jane, Arnna and Grant - went missing from Glenelg near Adelaide after leaving home together for a day at the beach. Witnesses recall seeing them with some stranger with vague features. Those kids have never been seen again. It is a mystery that chills Australians to this day.

Jane, Grant and Arnna Beaumont disappeared from Glenelg in 1966.

Lindy and Michael Chamberlain outside court in 1982 after the presumed death of their baby daughter, Azaria.

Madeleine McCann disappeared in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007.

In my lifetime, the most infamous child disappearance was, of course, that of Azaria Chamberlain from a camp site near Uluru in 1980. Her parents Lindy and Michael claimed a dingo took her from the tent, but the next few years will be remembered more for a string of mind-boggling legal decisions and rulings that devastated a family, divided a nation and in the end left no-one with any satisfactory answers.

It was a case that gripped the world. Azaria’s remains were never found.

Another sad incident that has held the world’s attention for years is that of the disappearance of English girl Maddie McCann, who was three when she went missing from her bed in a holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007. Despite many, many, many theories, and yes dark once again being cast without reason on family, she has never been found and German prosecutors think she is dead.

William Tyrrell disappeared in 2014.

And then to one of the saddest tales of all in this grim line-up, that of William Tyrrell. Yeah, the kid in the Spiderman outfit with the biggest smile south of the equator.

Believe it or not, it’s been more than seven years now since William, then 3, disappeared while playing in his foster grandmother’s yard near Port Macquarie. Like all the other lost kids, many theories, many fingers pointed, but still no sign of poor little William.

So with that quick look at the history of kids who just vanish, you can see why Australia and the world reached out and gave little Cleo Smith a collective hug and a kiss on the cheek when news came through that for once, just this once, a little lost kid made it home.

It doesn’t happen often enough, so don’t feel bad if you shed a little tear of joy. Cleo’s miracle is something we should all celebrate.