A heartache you can reach out and touch; 'WE'VE GOT TO BELIEVE WE WILL STILL GET MADELEINE BACK' Paddy Shennan speaks to the anguished grandparents of Madeleine McCann - on the abducted little girl's fourth birthday.

Byline: Paddy Shennan

YOU can almost reach out and touch the heartache, fear and frustration - but it's impossible to fully comprehend it.

Outside, under blue suburban skies in this tree-lined street in the shadow of busy Allerton Road, there is precious normality. Birds are singing. People are shopping. It's a blissfully ordinary day.

Brian and Susan Healy the grandparents of abducted four-year-old Madeleine McCann, would give anything for ordinary.

For an extraordinary and horrifying drama - one they have absolutely no control over - is being played out behind the doors of their comfortable and well-kept semi-detached home.

Hope is keeping body and soul together, but their hearts are slowly breaking.

It is now nine days since their first grandchild was taken from her bed - and today is her fourth birthday.

They should be with Madeleine, together with their daughter, Kate, her husband, Gerry, and the couple's two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie, celebrating the youngster's birthday at the family home in Leicestershire.

Instead, they are in Allerton . . . willing the phone to ring with good news.

Susan said: "We are praying for the best possible birthday present for Madeleine - her safe return to her family. If that happened, it would be a perfect day.

"I just believe we are going to get Madeleine back - if we don't get Madeleine back, I think none of our lives will ever be the same again.

"There is so much being done for the family and so many good wishes that I feel it's got to have a good ending - and it has to, because they are such a lovely family. We don't live in the nicest world, but we need a good outcome-for everyone."

We are sitting in Brian and Susan's front room. Their ordinary front room, with its lovely, ordinary family photographs on the walls and window-sill.

Behind us, on the wall, is a sweet black and white picture which, the proud-as-punch grandparents believe, sums up the sweet nature of the McCann family On the window-sill is a photograph of Madeleine, taken when she was two. She is wearing an Everton shirt and writing something on a piece of paper - and the handwritten caption underneath reads: "Madeleine signs for the Blues".

And on the wall opposite, above the piano, there are photographs of a beaming Kate, scrolls in hand, taken after she graduated from the University of Dundee and the Royal College of Anaesthetists.

Later, just before we leave, Susan and Brian show us a much-cherished Easter present from Madeleine - a heart-shaped plate featuring their first grandchild's hand prints, and inscribed with the words: "I love you grandma and grandad. From Madeleine, 2007."

Beautiful and, in today's painfully sad circumstances, devastating.

This, then, is a room like so many others on Merseyside: full of love, full of pride... full of family. In this case, a family which was long prayed for.

Kate and Gerry's children were born thanks to the wonders of IVF and Susan explains: "The same church I am praying in now - our parish church of Our Lady of the Annunciation, Bishop Eton - is where I prayed before Madeleine was born, because Kate was so desperate to have children. It's also the church where Kate and Gerry got married in December 1998.

"Madeleine was such a gift. Kate loves all her children, but Madeleine was her first child and she had waited so long for her."

Of her fourth birthday, today, Susan revealed: "We should have been in Leicestershire for Madeleine's party, which she would have shared with two other children from her nursery, including her best friend, Sophia, who was born on the same day. I assume the celebration will still go ahead for the other two - and I think Kate would want it to.

"We hadn't time to discuss presents for Madeleine with Kate, that's something we would have done this week."

The grandparents are keen to thank the people of Merseyside - and beyond - for their support, their offers of help and their prayers: "The response has been fantastic and absolutely overwhelming," said Brian.

"It really does help us and we really appreciate it. But it still feels like it's all happening to another family - we feel as if we're in a movie."

The couple also wanted to praise the people of Portugal for their support - and a counsellor, who they only know as Alan, for the help he has given Kate and Gerry. Susan said: "He's an independent counsellor who works for various holiday companies, and we know that while he now lives in Manchester, he's originally from Old Swan."

While they are suffering as the grandparents of Madeleine, Brian and Susan are also suffering as the parents of Kate, their only child: "Every time I see Kate on the television it really upsets me," says Brian, who, with his wife, spent last weekend in Portugal.

"The mental strain leaves you feeling wiped out at the end of every day but I think I did most of my crying when I was in Portugal."

It's been the same hell for both of them but, desperately looking for some positives to cling on to, Susan said: "The media has been absolutely wonderful. And I think, after Thursday evening's police press conference, Kate and Gerry have a little more faith about what's going on in Portugal."

Regarding her daughter's daily torment, Susan, who has been speaking to Kate about twice a day and regularly exchanging texts, explained: "I think herworst time is around 10.30 to 11 at night, at the end of another day - another day that Madeleine has not been found.

"Kate is normally a very placid person but I have seen her kick furniture and do things she has never done before in her life. Gerry has had to go into automatic pilot mode to cope, but I heard him howling the first night we were out there. They are so concerned about what Madeleine is going to be feeling.

"It's been said that the chances are Madeleine could be in Spain and we said this from day one. And it could be that her appearance has been changed - that her hair has been dyed."

Brian and Susan are urging ECHO readers to continue praying for Madeleine and her family - and also asking anyone who has recently been to Portugal on holiday to look closely at their photographs, "in case they see something in the background which doesn't look right."

And to the people who may be holding Madeleine, Susan made this appeal: "Iwould just beg them to giveher back" - and Brian added: "Or leave her in a safe place andwalk away."

Susan, a proud mum and grandmum, fought back tears on several occasions as we spoke, but, like her husband, she is determined to keep this heartbreaking story in the news - and determined to tell the world about an ordinary, loving family.

A family which, God willing, will soon be backtogether.

Watch the emotional appeal by Madeleine's grandparents on www.liverpool echo.co.uk

CAPTION(S):

BETTER TIMES: Susan and Brian Healy with four-year-old Madeleine and twins Seanand Amelie, aged two; ANGUISH: Brian and Susan must wait for news at their Allerton home