Dunblane

[curiouswombat]

I was so happy for Andy Murray, winning the US Open. There was coverage on the TV news this morning, not only of the match, but looking at how it was watched, and celebrated, in his home town of Dunblane.

And I thought of what the name Dunblane meant to people before Andy Murray became famous.

So tonight I would like to remember

Victoria Elizabeth Clydesdale (5)
Emma Elizabeth Crozier (5)
Melissa Helen Currie (5)
Charlotte Louise Dunn (5)
Kevin Allan Hasell (5)
Ross William Irvine (5)
David Charles Kerr (5)
Mhairi Isabel MacBeath (5)
Brett McKinnon (6)
Abigail Joanne McLennan (5)
Gwen Mayor (45) — Primary School Teacher
Emily Morton (5)
Sophie Jane Lockwood North (5)
John Petrie (5)
Joanna Caroline Ross (5)
Hannah Louise Scott (5)
Megan Turner (5)

Who were all gunned down in the gym of Dunblane Primary School on 13 March 1996 - whilst an 8 year old boy called Andy Murray hid, with his classmates, under his desk just up the corridor.

Comments

[dreamerjules.livejournal.com]

I was in the US Navy stationed at a NATO base outside of Lisbon when the shooting occurred and while I didn't remember the name of the town for the longest time, I could never forget the sight of the mums who were just devastated by it. I don't think they knew anyone there at all, much less lost anyone, but just the simple fact that something that evil could happen in a place of such innocence, some place their children could have been, tore them apart.

Thank you for the names. I'm thrilled for Andy - major tennis nerd and an Anglophile - and I'm pleased the town has something so positive attached to it now.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It seemed unbelievable at the time (and in many ways still does); that sort of thing happened in America, not in small Scottish towns. My daughter was a pupil in a very similar school - I think it hit so many mothers in the same way - and fathers, too.

It is odd to think that had the gunman chosen a different time, when year 4 were in the gym, there might have been no Andy Murray, Tennis Champion. And, as Gill says, it makes you wonder what those children, too, might have achieved.

One thing it did achieve, of course, was to outlaw almost all gun ownership in the UK and so it remains in the mind because nothing similar has happened since.

But I am really happy for Dunblane that now it is also becoming known as Andy Murray's home town.