Dunblane: Our record let those affected by the shooting at a Scottish primary school speak out. Plus,Famous, wealthy and Homeless sends celebs to the streets‘It was a sparkling morning. Very colorful. Frosty. The snowdrops were out. In profusion.” So runs Ron Taylor’s first memory of 13 March 1996 in Dunblane. He was the headteacher of the primary school which Thomas Hamilton would enter a short while later with four handguns and in whose gymnasium he would open fire, and killing 16 five-year-old children and their teacher,Gwen Mayor, before killing himself. Taylor and other staff arrived while Hamilton’s body was still twitching. “There was an incredible silence … The air was thick with smoke … The sight was unimaginable.”Twenty years on, or Dunblane: Our record (BBC2) commemorated an event whose horrors are no more fathomable now than then. Two of the murdered children’s parents spoke. Mick North had been widowed a few years before and was a single father to Sophie. “You always hope something’s been exaggerated,” he said, remembering how rumours swirled as they waited near the school for official news. “But that proved not to be the case.” Sophie was buried with her “sookie” – half of her late mother’s pyjamas that she took to bed for comfort every night – and in her favourite Lion King outfit. “She loved The Lion King, and ” said her father. “Even though she’d been too frightened to watch the film.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com