Judy Murray says Dunblane massacre taught her to ‘make the most of everything in life’
And reveals Andy’s ‘uber competitiveness’ comes from having an older brother
With all of Andy Murray’s success, it’s easy to forget that he was in the school where the Dunblane massacre took place.
And now his mother Judy has spoken about the aftermath of the tragedy, and how it has taught her to make the ‘most of everything’ in life.
The 57-year-old described how Andy and his brother Jamie had ‘no idea what had happened’ because the teachers had tried to carry on as normal, explaining that she had to stop the car to tell them about the mass shooting.
In an interview with comedian John Bishop, she also spoke of the close relationship between her sons - revealing that Andy’s ‘uber competitiveness’ comes from having an older brother.
Judy described the Dunblane massacre which saw 16 children and one teacher killed by gunman Thomas Hamilton in 1996 - as an ‘enormous shock’ to everyone in the community.
‘That was something nobody would even imagine would happen in their town, very quiet town,’ she said.‘it was an enormous shock to everyone around the world but none more so for us than those of us who lived in the town. For me, life after that became making the most of everything.’
Explaining what happened that day, she continued: ‘The tragedy happened around half past nine in the morning and it was early afternoon, half past one or two o’clock before we found out what had happened and whether our children were safe or not.
‘I got the boys out of school that day, what really astounded me in an appreciative way was what the teachers had been able to do given what was going on or what had occurred in the school.
‘The boys has no idea what had happened, they knew that there had been a man in the school who had a gun. They had been fed in the classroom, teachers had tried to carry on with everything as normal.’ Judy said she had to stop the car and explain to her sons what had happened, even though they were ‘probably too young to understand the enormity of it.’ ‘They don’t remember too much about it, which I’m very grateful for, but we knew the guy because he ran boy’s clubs in the town and Jamie and Andy both went to them,’ she explained.‘so that was the thing they couldn’t get their heads around was why that guy would do it.’ More than twenty years on, she described how the town has ‘recovered so well’, adding t h a t her sons’ success has ‘brought a lot of joy and pride into the town’. In the interview, Judy described her sons as ‘great rivals’, adding that ‘Andy’s uber competitiveness comes to a great degree from having a bigger brother.’ She explained how after Andy won Wimbledon for the first time in 2013, the brothers ended up having a row over a tennis table game the day after.