CONGRATULATIONS have been flooding in to the Messenger for the teenage singing sensation Danielle Hope after she won the BBC1 talent show Over the Rainbow at the weekend.

Stretford and Urmston MP Kate Green said she had been watching Saturday’s show and cheering Danielle on.

“I am absolutely thrilled for her and it just shows what talent we have in Urmston. I hope it will be the start of a long and glittering career for her,” she said.

Mayor of Trafford, Councillor Kenneth Weston, said: “Send my full congratulations to her, what a fantastic achievement!”

And Danielle’s 17-year-old boyfriend Taylor Danson, from Sale, said he was ‘very proud’ of her.

“As soon as her name was called out I just went crazy, it seemed too unreal to be true. But she definitely had it in her, she showed that in the performances,” he said.

Danielle’s grandmother Ann Radley, who took the teenager to the first audition at Old Trafford in January, said she was ‘absolutely ecstatic’ with the result.

“She’s shone all the way through, but this is beyond our wildest dreams,” she said and added that the family had been ‘inundated’ with messages from people congratulating the teenager.

Helen Mayne, Danielle’s drama teacher at Knutsford High School, said she was ‘over the moon’ and the school was planning a trip to see the show.

“She’s done a fantastic job and deserves it. We here at the school are so incredible proud of her “Throughout the whole thing she has been herself. She never wanted fame, she just wanted to entertain people,” she said.

Eleni Crosby (nee Stanou), Danielle’s teacher at Highfield Primary School, said she had watched the show every week.

“She’s just been amazing and for her to win, it’s just fantastic,” she said.

Eleni was instrumental in persuading the once shy 11-year-old Danielle to appear on stage in a Year Six production of Grease.

“At first she said that she couldn’t do it, but then she did it and was amazing,” she said.

Urmston Musical Theatre’s business manager Peter Marks said he had already booked tickets to see Danielle perform in The Wizard of Oz and said she was a ‘deserving winner’.

A spokesperson for the Trafford Centre, which urged shoppers to vote for Danielle on the Orient’s big screen, said they were ‘absolutely over the moon for her’.