Letting go of the past does not mean forgetting the victims

Lockerbie is a strong community that will always remember the victims of the bombing with respect and sadness.

However, the town does not simply want to be defined by what happened that night 30 years ago.

That is the view of former ITN journalist, and regular Courier Weekend magazine columnist Fiona Armstrong, who, as Lord Lieutenant of Dumfries, will be laying the first wreath at a remembrance service at Lockerbie cemetery today and will be reading out a message on behalf of the Queen.

Fiona, who now lives near Lockerbie, has covered stories on the disaster on and off for years for ITV Border.

On the night of December 21 1988, she was sent up to the disaster scene all the way from London as a reporter with ITN.

Not surprisingly, even after 30 years, it’s a night she still remembers with “great clarity”.

“Arriving in the small market town it was what I imagine it must have been like after the blitz in Glasgow or London,” she told The Courier.

“The darkness, a smell of burning rubber and petrol, a pall of thick smoke over the town, small fires burning in the streets – and despite the work of the emergency services, strangely an eerie silence.”

Fiona explained that the people of Lockerbie had wanted a low-key event this year.

They had thought that the 25th anniversary would be the last “big” memorial event.

However, it has emerged that because so many people want to come, ranging from former Pan Am employees and American families to two busloads of military veterans from Glasgow who helped in the search for bodies in the days after the disaster, it is unlikely to be quiet after all.

Fiona acknowledges that before the tragedy, Lockerbie was a small Scottish market town that probably few had heard of.

However, the name Lockerbie has become synonymous with “the town the plane fell on” – and she knows of local people who, for some years after, would say they were from “near Dumfries or Gretna” if asked, because saying Lockerbie caused an inevitable reaction.

Fiona added: “The plane could have fallen anywhere, but this terrible thing happened to Lockerbie – and Lockerbie folk showed what they were made of.

“Helping with searches, providing food, comforting victims’ families, offering friendship and accommodation to American relatives.

“Lockerbie women washed the clothes of those who died on the plane so they could be sent back to grieving relatives.

“But the town’s motto is ‘Forward Lockerbie’, and whilst never forgetting, it now has to be able to move on.

“This is a strong community. It pulled together and while it will always remember the victims with respect and sadness, it does not simply want to be defined by what happened that night three decades ago.”

Picture: Kris Miller. Fiona Armstrong.