A mother’s poignant journey
MY LOST SON
BBC One, 7.30pm IT is a night that will be forever etched in Scottish memories: Pan Am 103 being blown up by terrorists over Lockerbie in 1988.
Carol King Eckersley was probably the last mother to have found out that her child was killed on board the flight.
She had given her son up for adoption at birth and it was only last year – the 25th anniversary of the tragedy – that she typed his name, Kenneth Bissett, into a search engine and made the heartbreaking discovery, essentially finding and losing him again on the same day.
Bissett was one of 35 American students, part of an overseas exchange programme, who died. In a twist of fate, he had been due to fly home a few days earlier but stayed on in London for a 21st birthday party arranged by friends.
Bissett caught a later flight from London to New York on December 21, 1988. It exploded over Dumfries and Galloway, killing all 259 passengers and crew on board along with 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie.
This powerful and poignant documentary film charts King Eckersley’s attempts to discover the life story of the son she never got to meet. “Even though I didn’t have him with me physically, he was always in my heart,” she says.
Back in 1967, King Eckersley was the daughter of a high school principal when she became pregnant and gave up her child for adoption to protect her father’s reputation. The last time she saw Bissett, he was in a car belonging to the lawyer who had arranged the adoption. Through speaking to those who knew him, King Eckersley has managed to build a snapshot of memories and photographs that pay tribute to the life of a young man cruelly cut short.
She meets an old school friend of Bissett’s and travels to London to hear from his mentor and photography professor.
Then comes the emotional journey as King Eckersley makes her way to Lockerbie to pay her respects at the spot where her son’s body was found.