Living with Lockerbie

When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in these skies,

the nose cone came crashing down in this field.

25 years on, the wreckage has long since been lifted,

but the aftereffects of the bombing are still being felt,

reverberating in the lives of those who responded to the emergency

and those who lost loved ones at Lockerbie.

This is their story, the story of those who picked up the pieces,

the story of those left behind to make sense of madness.

This couple found love in the heartbreak of Lockerbie.

Most people we tell the story to, they say, "Oh, my God.

"I've got goose bumps. I can't believe it."

This mother has only just learned of her loss.

And it finally dawned on me that it WAS right.

And I just said, "My God. My baby's dead."

This woman found it in herself to forgive the bombers.

I refused to allow myself to become bitter,

because if I became bitter,

I would be no different than the terrorist.

I'd be responding in hate just the way they did.

It's hard to imagine terrorism tearing apart

the tranquillity of life in Lockerbie.

But it did.

ALL: Three, two, one.

CHEERING

25 years on, Christmas is once again a time for celebration here.

But it's a time for commemoration too, because this is a town

that will always share its name with a tragedy.

A tragedy that struck four days before Christmas in 1988.

# Silent night

# Holy night... #

We were sitting round the kitchen table, having supper.

We heard what was like a loud crack of thunder.

It was three minutes past seven - I remember the time exactly.

The noise, I would say... I heard it get louder and louder.

I look up and there's this enormous explosion.

I haven't seen anything...

I don't think anybody had seen anything quite like this.

It was about 300 foot... It was a sort of fireball.

# Sleep in heavenly peace... #

A couple of minutes later, my sister arrived

to say that there was a plane down in the front field.

'A Pan American Boeing 747 airliner crashed tonight.

'It came down on the village of Lockerbie.'

I'd been to about 30 aircraft crashes from all kinds of things,

so I thought I'd seen most things.

'The jet demolished two rows of houses

'and the small town was left looking like a battlefield.'

It was mayhem. The place was on fire.

The first thing I thought was Chapelcross.

-The nuclear plant?

-Yes, nuclear. Yes. And I thought...

I jumped in the ambulance, obviously doing my job,

and I thought, "What the hell am I going to do here?"

# Silent night

# Holy night... #

It was like a scene from hell.

I ran through and I must have seen 40, 50 bodies. Nobody was alive.

SIREN WAILS

I'll never forget that scene.

It was complete and utter devastation of passengers

from this aircraft strewn across the road.

Bodies lying in the immediate area in and around the cockpit.

Pilot and copilot were still in there.

People on roofs, people in trees, fires, the smell of fuel

and Christmas presents everywhere.

I got on the radio and I said,

"This is happened in Lockerbie,

"it's in Lockerbie and it's a major disaster."

# Sleep in heavenly...

# Peace. #

In the years since the disaster,

the damage to Lockerbie has been repaired.

This town has moved on,

as have many of those caught up in the carnage.

But here's a remarkable thing.

The blast that ripped apart Pan Am Flight 103

and so many families around the world

has also been bringing people together ever since.

Together in grief, in friendship, in remembrance.

There are even those who fell in love

because of those who fell from the sky.

In 1988, George White was an ambulance man in Lockerbie.

Went back to the garage to get emergency blankets and equipment,

and that's when I found Suzanne's body...

right at the door.

So I checked... There was no way... I mean, I know she was dead,

but I went through the motion, as you do.

And...

Her body was right at the door. There's... There's...

The garage is there and there's a path

and there's a plot of grass about three feet wide

and she was in the grass.

-You couldn't have missed her?

-Oh, no. Oh, no.

George didn't know it at the time, but the young woman he found

would change the course of his life.

22-year-old Suzanne Miazga was a Syracuse University student

who'd spent a term at their London campus.

An ocean away, her mother was waiting for her to come home.

I was at work and my sister-in-law called me and she says,

"Well, there's been a terrible plane accident."

I just...walked around with her picture and holding her picture.

And people were coming to the door and I didn't want them to come.

I wanted it to be her that came to the door.

As Anna Marie struggled to come to terms with her loss, in Lockerbie,

George was struggling to cope with the enormity of what he had faced.

We were trained to look after people and make them better if possible,

but we couldn't do a thing.

There was nothing anybody could do. Nothing. It bothered me no end.

It was so bad that I saw the specialist doctor and he said,

"If you felt that way, I think you should finish."

I did. I just retired there and then.

So, what effect did events of that night and the days after,

what effect did that have on you?

Oh, I cried and cried and cried in my sleep. I just...

My wife told me I cried every night.

-You lost your confidence?

-Yes. Completely.

I still have nightmares. I still have nightmares.

But I remember that I thought long and hard

about this girl that fell in the grass.

I thought I should do something.

So, I planted a rose tree. I had no idea who she was.

Months later, a visitor to the site where Suzanne's body fell

gave George her name, and he wrote to Anna Marie.

"First of all, I'd like to introduce myself.

"My name is George White

"and I was leading ambulance man at Lockerbie ambulance station

"and was on duty that fateful night when so many lost their lives."

He wrote a beautiful letter that said that he would always

take care of the spot where she fell

and he would always remember her.

What was that like for you, Anna Marie, to receive that letter?

That was wonderful.

That somebody cared, you know?

George's gesture started an enduring friendship.

Anna Marie decided to meet the man who found her daughter.

With a friend of Suzanne's,

she visited Lockerbie for the very first time.

The people...

I would meet them on the street,

they'd come walking toward me when I first went out,

and they would start crying before they got to me.

I guess they knew the way I dressed, I was American.

Bright colours.

And they were just so nice.

Cos they just understood.

They arranged for her to come and visit myself and my wife.

And she met Elma and they got on like a house on fire.

We just e-mailed back and forth together

and then there was a time she didn't e-mail me back.

In January 2002, George's wife Elma died from cancer.

After Elma died, she came to Lockerbie and...we met every day.

But he was like in a depression after Elma died.

She was a wonderful lady and...and he would...

he'd go to the cemetery every day.

Anna Marie was there for him as he had been for her,

and over the years, their relationship developed.

When we did meet, obviously we kissed and whatever. Kissed.

And I realised then that it was something more

than just a casual friendship.

So, I remember on the train coming from Lockerbie to Glasgow.

I said to her, "I'm not making a pass, Anna Marie,

"but if there's anybody going to take Elma's place,

"it would have to be you."

-And that was it.

-You said I was at the top of your list.

The top of the list.

-Like he had a list!

-And it blossomed from there.

Blossomed from there.

George has emigrated to America to live with Anna Marie

in New York State.

Two people from two different countries

brought together in love by an act of hate.

-What does Anna Marie mean to you, George?

-I love her very, very much.

She's... She's special. And generous to a fault.

What about him to you?

Well, we've kind of gone through this whole thing together.

He knows how I feel about Elma's death and, I mean,

-he knows how it is with me for Suzanne.

-Mm-hm.

He goes to her grave and he... he kisses her stone and just...

He's a compassionate man.

In Lockerbie, a replacement rose tree has been planted

outside the new ambulance station.

This local play centre was gifted money

by the families of Suzanne Miazga

and other young people who were on the plane.

George's daughter Cilla is in charge here,

caring for today's children

in memory of those who died in Lockerbie a generation ago.

That's... Oh, gosh! You are so strong.

On this side of the Atlantic,

the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 was viewed as an attack on America.

Never before had so many US citizens lost their lives

in an act of terrorism, and the Lockerbie bombing would remain

the deadliest act of terrorism that this country faced

until 9/11 removed the Twin Towers from the New York skyline.

In Brooklyn, Helen Engelhardt Hawkins

honours the memory of her husband, Tony.

Their son Alan was six years old when his daddy did not come home.

It was Tony's cousin who called Helen.

He had to tell me first what had happened. And he...

As soon as he said that there had been

a rather serious accident with a plane,

my body knew that this was extremely serious.

This sculpture captures the moment Helen heard the news.

I needed to sit down, because I began to tremble, to shake.

Uh... I was fr... I was terrified.

Tony was notorious for arriving at places last minute, you know?

And everyone was hoping he'd miss the flight,

but I knew that Tony was dead, because he would have called me...

..if he had missed the flight.

I said, "He hasn't called me."

Helen and Tony used a tape recorder the way other people use a camera,

to document their lives.

On the night she heard Tony was dead,

Helen switched on her microphone and opened her heart to her husband.

'My joy and my sense of fulfilment has always been anchored with you.

'Oh, my God.'

I thought, I've got to record this now, because I'm not going to be

in this place, in this mind, in this emotional body, again.

I'm going to change.

I will never be able to recapture this again.

I have to record this now, it's... so I did.

I'm going to start recording now. Are you ready?

Welcome to Lockerbie. Welcome to Coventry. Welcome to...

Helen has produced a powerful audio memoir of the first year

after Tony's death to keep his memory alive.

The worst terrorist atrocity in aviation history.

The headquarters of the biggest murder investigation

in British history.

I promised Tony that I would do this for him

and I would do this for Alan, that they would be...

I would put this down, there would be something that was shaped,

that came out of this raw experience, so that he would be...

..honoured in this way, acknowledged in this way.

The audio book includes the last recording of Tony's voice.

It's from a cassette recovered from the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103.

Tony's explaining air travel to an aunt who has never flown.

-'What's it like, crossing the Atlantic?

-Well, it's...

'You're sitting in a nice armchair which is a little bit cramped

'and you can lean it back.

'What's that airline called?

-'Pan American.

-Oh, Pan American, isn't it?

-Yes.

-'When you think of the millions of people that fly.

-400 people...

-'..36,000 or 37,000 feet high all having dinners.

-Yes.

TONY LAUGHS 'It's really very funny.'

He had no way of knowing how his next flight would end.

Suzanne Miazga was patient, kind and enthusiastic.

She was a graduate student in the school of...

35 of those killed on Pan Am Flight 103

were students from Syracuse University in New York State.

It holds remembrance events every year.

35 students are funded to study in memory of those who died.

There are a further two scholarships for students from Lockerbie.

At the railway station,

Colin Dorrance is waiting for his daughter Claire.

She's on the train from Glasgow,

home from university for her birthday.

Hello. Happy birthday.

Thank you.

Happy birthday, Claire. There you go.

Claire has just turned 19 and spent much of the past year

as a student at Syracuse, having the time of her life.

I don't think any experience will ever compare, really,

it was the making of me, I think.

I haven't felt, erm...

..as happy as I did when I was over there.

By the time he had turned 19,

Colin Dorrance was a police officer who'd already faced the death

and destruction that Pan Am Flight 103 brought to Lockerbie.

Dad and daughter could hardly have had more different experiences

at the same age.

I remember handling a passenger in the mortuary

and then the following night, in the stint in the property centre,

seeing some of that passenger's effects.

It was a diary in particular that had, you know,

plans in it for days that they were not there for and...

..I became conscious that I didn't want to join the dots.

I kind of wanted to keep detached.

I didn't involve myself

in knowing too much of the back story of the passengers.

That was a conscious decision on my part,

but I felt I'd dealt with enough at the time.

25 years on, Colin is ready to revisit his past.

With the man who took charge of the original police investigation,

he's gone back to Lockerbie Town Hall which was

used as a makeshift mortuary in the days after the bombing.

-Well, what a change, Colin.

-Aye.

It just brings it all back, though.

I remember on the night, it would be nearly midnight.

I was at the Bridge Street entrance and a farmer drew up

-having come down the Bridge Street Road...

-Yes.

..with aircraft artefacts, chutes and pieces of metal,

basically, and me and a colleague helped him

with the property off the back of the pick-up into the Bridge Street

entrance and almost, it seemed to me as I recollect it,

an afterthought, I thought

he had a son or a child in the front seat.

It turned out it was actually one of the young passengers

and that young body was brought into the hall as the first and from

that point on, the hustle and bustle fell away, with the realisation...

-I know.

-..this is what we're dealing with.

And let's be blunt, you had only a matter of months' service

at that time as a police officer.

It does send a shiver through the spine in some senses.

I think it's important that we do talk about these things,

because it was a very integral part of what we had to do.

Lockerbie happened six years before Claire Dorrance was born.

She's grown up with the story, but only

when she went away to study did the magnitude of the disaster hit home.

Syracuse was an emotional time.

Erm...incredibly emotional because I was 17 when I left, so...

First of all the parallel with Dad being 17, 18

when he dealt with that disaster was incredibly special.

All of the sudden it comes up to remembrance week and...

..you've learnt so much about the victims that you feel you know them,

like when you meeting their families and you're talking to their families

and you realise that these are real people

and you're walking the streets that they walked.

All of a sudden it kind of hit me that...

It's really hard to express that...

..here I was having the best year of my life

and such a positive experience...

..and it had come from such heartache and tragedy.

For the first time, Claire felt she understood

the enormity of what her father had faced.

I remember there was one Skype conversation where...

..I kind of got really sentimental

and emotional and just kind of said to Dad, you know...

It's really kind of grown my respect for him and given me

so much more, like, understanding into his character

..and just really, um...

-Did it change your relationship with him, Claire?

-Yes. Um...

We had a few really, really rough years as a family,

a few years ago and it really took its toll

on my dad and I's relationship...

..and then going to Syracuse gave us

something to bond over and grow closer over.

-You're closer now?

-Yes, 100%. Mm-hm.

I suppose that garden would look better in the summer,

-it was always at the end of the winter there, eh?

-Mm-hm.

Melanie Daniels was never able to get close to her dad, Bill,

because he was on the plane.

In the Pan Am 103 archives at Syracuse,

with her mum, Kathy, she's looking at the collection of items

held in memory of her father.

-You wanted to see the tools, though.

-Yes.

-OK.

Bill was a big one for woodworking tools.

And this looks kind of dangerous, though.

How does it make you feel, sweetie, to see all these things,

the tools and the things that your dad used to like to...

to play with?

MELANIE CHUCKLES It makes him real.

-Tangible.

-Tangible.

Yeah.

Cos you were so young.

Melanie was just two years old when he died.

-So who's the beautiful baby?

-That would be me!

-Uh-huh.

What age were you there?

-Um, I think one, somewhere around one.

-You're just a little tot.

-And there you are on the back of Daddy's bike.

-Yes.

That was always my spot.

These precious pictures are in an album Melanie's mum made for her.

It tells the story of Melanie's life

before and since the Lockerbie bombing.

"Melanie's dad, Bill Daniels, boarded a flight from London to New York.

"He was coming home for Christmas from a four-day business trip,

"Coming home to his wife and three children."

I couldn't remember anything, but I was real focused on trying to...

connect somehow.

-Does it bother you that you don't remember him?

-A lot.

Melanie grew up going to memorial events

for a man she felt she did not know.

Aged nine, she was in Arlington National Cemetery

when President Clinton dedicated a cairn.

BAND PLAYS U.S NATIONAL ANTHEM

Each of its 270 Lockerbie stones tells of a loss beyond measure.

There's a block for every victim,

to make sure all who died are never forgotten.

I didn't...couldn't remember him,

and it made it kind of uncomfortable, because I would sit there

and I would feel kind of like I was supposed to cry or something,

you know, like I'm supposed to be reacting

in more of a way, because everybody else is,

but I'm not necessarily feeling what they feel.

You know, I'm...I'm frustrated but I'm not grieving.

I can never kind of confess that to anybody!

BAGPIPES PLAY "Amazing Grace"

These days, Melanie is one of those responsible for organising

the annual commemoration at Arlington

on behalf of the American relatives of Pan Am 103 victims.

At some of the most solemn times of our memorial services,

a plane goes over, and everybody looks up,

and it's a great big plane

and it looks a lot like it could have been Pan Am 103.

-And everybody takes a...

-Yeah.

-..a deep breath.

The memorial service itself

is always emotional and difficult and everything,

but the period of time when I could find out things...

You know, cos it was already the topic of conversation,

and so it wasn't like I was bringing up something painful.

Melanie lives in Washington, DC, where she works as a dog walker.

It's a temporary job Melanie took up when she dropped out of college

because she was struggling with depression.

How much of that do you think

is fuelled by your own loss in Lockerbie?

It's complicated, but, um...

that's definitely...

been part of it.

The fact that I couldn't find any connections or anything

kept, I don't know, kind of adding to the feeling.

You're going to get dog slobber on your hands!

Melanie says her work with dogs like Chuck and with the Pan Am 103 group

is helping to improve her health, and she's hopeful about the future.

I'd like to be married and have kids and, you know, a dog!

But, um... But, yeah, I would like to be working

in international aid in some other country.

But I'd like to feel like I was improving people's lives

and working towards keeping the same thing from happening over again.

25 years after the bombing that deprived Melanie of her dad,

she's determined to redeem her loss.

And Melanie is not the only Lockerbie relative to feel that way.

Lisa Gibson founded an aid agency of her own

as a direct result of losing her brother at Lockerbie.

It had been about two years since I'd seen him in person.

I was very much looking forward to seeing him.

US Marine Ken Gibson was heading home from Germany on Christmas leave

when disaster struck.

I spent a very...

deep time in despair,

really wrestling through why something like this would happen.

When you're realising that there was someone in the world

that did this intentionally and essentially stole your family member

and the family member of 270 victims,

to me, it just was very difficult to reconcile personally in my heart

that someone would do that.

Is it fair to say that the events of the 21st of December 1988

changed the course of your own life?

Absolutely. I mean, it's completely changed the course

of what I would have chosen for my own path.

But I made a decision, too.

I made a decision that I was going to

try to find a way to overcome evil with good,

and that has been something

that I never would have envisioned going as far and as long as it has.

It started with an extraordinary letter to Abdelbaset Al Megrahi,

the only man ever convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103.

By this time, he was in prison in Scotland.

It was probably one of the simplest and shortest letters

I've ever written, really.

I just shared a little bit about who I was,

that I'd lost my brother on the Lockerbie bombing and said,

"Ultimately, only God knows if you're really responsible,

"but either way, I need to forgive you".

And that was basically it.

To Lisa's surprise, she received this reply, in which Megrahi says,

"It made me very sad to learn

"that you have lost one of your loved ones".

He also denied responsibility,

saying he'd been convicted on false and unsound evidence.

So in some ways it was helpful,

but in other ways it left me a little bit more in conflict,

because it was hard for me to be angry...

at someone that wrote such a compassionate note to me.

Lisa also called to see Libya's ambassador to the United States.

She offered to set up development projects in Libya,

the country that's held responsible for the bombing.

Ali Aujali helped make this happen and has become Lisa's friend.

Just to be able to help the Libyan people

and to go there and work there has been incredibly meaningful to me.

To be able to spend time with people that,

you know, um...

just have gone through their own trials and tribulations.

Lisa raised money for Libyan children

suffering under the Gaddafi regime

and has been teaching conflict resolution in Benghazi.

You are one...

The first one from the victims of the families of the Pan Am

who came to say, "I'm ready to help, "I'm ready to forgive,

I'm ready to help the Libyan people."

That's very well appreciated.

Good to meet you, sir.

Lisa's reconciliation work did not end there.

Ali Aujali arranged for her to meet Colonel Gaddafi in New York.

Not content with forgiving the man jailed for blowing up her brother,

Lisa decided to personally forgive

the man many believe ordered the attack.

I refused to allow myself to become bitter,

because if I became bitter,

I would be no different from the terrorists,

I'd be responding in hate, just the way they did.

'Lisa's high-profile acts of forgiveness

'are incomprehensible to some Lockerbie relatives.

'Helen Engelhardt Hawkins

'followed the prosecution of the two Libyans accused of the bombing,

'Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah and Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.

Could you ever forgive?

No.

When I went to the trial and looked at Fhimah and Megrahi,

and their families, sitting in front of them,

I felt nothing.

I didn't feel hatred,

I didn't feel fury, I just felt...

But...

forgive them?

The people that do this?

Why should I forgive them?

In 2001, a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands acquitted Fhimah.

Co-accused Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder

and jailed for life.

The conviction was upheld on appeal.

In 2009, Megrahi dropped a second appeal.

That summer, he was granted compassionate release from prison

having been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

He died at home in Libya almost three years later,

still protesting his innocence.

Some British relatives of Lockerbie victims

are convinced Megrahi was wrongly convicted.

Most American relatives

are equally convinced of his guilt.

Those who gathered the evidence against Megrahi,

including the FBI and the Scottish police,

are still pursuing other suspects

and the man who headed the FBI for the last 12 years

is confident others will be brought to justice.

'We have FBI agents who are working full-time'

to track down every lead, as we have since it occurred 25 years ago

and my expectation is that,

continuously, we'll obtain additional information,

perhaps additional witnesses

and that others will be charged with their participation in this.

Even after all these years?

Yes.

We don't forget.

We do not forget.

And by that, I mean the FBI, the Department of Justice -

we do not forget.

Lisa Gibson has not forgotten either,

but, for her, finding a way to forgive

has been an essential part of her own recovery.

For 25 years...

..I've been identified as

"Lisa who lost her brother in the Lockerbie bombing",

and that's a lot to carry and a lot to have to hold.

And to see your identity so tied up into something so tragic.

And I don't regret the mission I've been on

and the journey I've been on, cos I think it's been very meaningful

but, at the same time...

..I'm ready to move on.

'Lisa intends to be at a 25th anniversary memorial service.

'It may well be the last one she attends.

'Ceremonies are planned at Arlington, Syracuse and London

'and in Lockerbie itself.'

Lockerbie Academy is proud of its links with Syracuse.

It will soon have sent 50 pupils to study there.

'I can assure you that the people of Lockerbie

'will never, ever forget.

We will never forget what happened over our skies 25 years ago.

'Lockerbie's head teacher, Graham Herbert,

'was among the Scots attending the university's remembrance ceremony

'for the 25th anniversary.'

'Many relatives find comfort here every year,

'but the mother of one student victim has never been before.'

Kenneth Bissett was a charming man

with a wonderful sense of humour and a love for jazz.

Ken Bissett was one of the Syracuse students

returning from a term in London,

but it was only this year that his mother found out that he'd died.

I lay this rose on behalf of Kenneth Bissett

and act forward in his memory.

I'm still in the semi-numb part, I think,

um... that you hit right after you lose a loved one.

Because, even though...

I didn't have him with me physically,

he was always in my heart.

I think I thought of him pretty much every day, close to it.

He was my child

and I gave him as a gift.

I gave Ken up for adoption at birth

and, even though I was told his name,

I never looked for him

because I'd given my word.

It was after she was widowed that Carol decided to look for her son.

In April this year, she went online.

I typed his name in

and it brought me to a website

and I clicked on the website

and there was the remembrance page.

And I looked and I said, "My God, it's him."

It was his birth date,

he looked just like my dad.

And I looked in the mirror and I said, "He looks like me."

I called my sister in and I said,

"But why are they only showing a part of his life?

"They've got December 19th 1967,

"but then they've got December 21st 1988.

"That's not right."

And it finally dawned on me

that it was right.

And I just said, "My God...

"my baby's dead."

And I finally realised

that it was the Lockerbie 103,

Pan Am 103...

..remembrance site.

And I said, "Oh, my God, he was on that plane."

270 people died in that tragedy.

And one of those happened to be the only child I ever had

and I didn't even know it until last April.

So it became a kind of a double tragedy

in that I found him and I lost him in the same day.

Carol did not feel able to keep her baby

because, as the unmarried daughter of a high-school principal,

it would have been socially unacceptable to do so.

In fact, all my life, it's been the most painful decision

I ever had to make.

It's still not easy,

it's not easy watching your sister,

who always wanted to have a lot of children,

give up her first-born.

Only born.

And, it turned out, only born.

Carol's sister, Sandi, is supporting her through her grief.

Oh, wouldn't Daddy have loved to have met him?

Oh. Oh, yes.

Every year for 25 years,

having a student coming in...

-..in your name.

-Yep.

And living forward.

We love you, sweetheart.

And we wish you were here in person.

And he would have looked for you.

I know he would have.

I think so. It was so good to find out he knew.

Yes.

It turns out the couple who adopted Ken did tell him

they were not his biological parents.

They have since died,

but left a detailed account of Ken's childhood in the Syracuse archives.

I saw his baby picture for the first time yesterday.

I had never seen him, except wrapped up in a yellow blanket...

..on the day we left the hospital, so I never saw him, never held him.

And now I get to grieve for him.

Look at the hair.

SHE LAUGHS

-It's just like mine and it's just like Grandpa's.

-Grandpa's!

-The eyebrows?

-I think so.

Ken Bissett celebrated his 21st birthday two days before

he took his seat on the flight that would end his life.

The more Carol hears about him, the harder she's finding her loss.

In a way, I'm going backwards...

..because the getting to know him makes it sharper...

..makes the regret deeper.

He was an incredible artist.

I saw comic strips that he drew when he was 11 years old.

In the last year of his life,

Ken also drew this picture of a plane plummeting to the ground.

His own death, in strangely similar circumstances,

meant that he would never search for the woman

who brought him into the world.

That was a reunion Carol dreamt of.

There was always the hope

and dream that, some day,

there would come a knock on the door and I would open it...

..and there would be this tall, handsome gentleman saying, "Hi.

"I guess you're my mom."

And when I saw that...

..on my computer, it was like somebody had turned the light out,

because that hope was gone.

It is just a real regret...

..that I'll never, in this life, see him.

Because she gave up her son,

Carol has not felt like a proper parent and that has hurt.

I have carried that stigma around

and I didn't even realise it until today,

when I was able to sit there with the other parents.

It was something and my sister kept saying,

"You need to go up there with them."

I said, "I don't think I belong",

and she said "Yes, you do."

And so I went and one of the ladies, she said, "Oh, sit here."

That lady was Melanie Daniels's mum, Kathy.

It's such an amazing feeling for me to be included

and to kind of feel like Ken and all the other kids are...

..guiding this whole thing. It's very surreal.

Those on board Pan Am Flight 103 didn't stand a chance,

but many on the ground escaped death by a whisker.

In 1988, David Gould lived in Lockerbie's Park Place.

We're just approaching the house that I lived in

on the night of the disaster itself.

We heard something very large bounce off the roof

and I charged through to that room there and saw the oxygen cylinder

came down and bounced and spun in the road here, hissing.

Much worse had crashed to earth along the street

and David rushed to help.

I was running up the road towards Rosebank Crescent...

..and it wasn't, in fact,

until I encountered a young man wearing jeans lying in the road.

And looking at other casualties, they were also in civilian clothing.

It began to dawn on people, this was a civilian plane that had come down.

All through these gardens here was just the fuselage

-of the plane itself.

-Right.

There were seats, there were suitcases, Christmas parcels

and, obviously, a number of fatalities.

As a local social worker, David was tasked with evacuating residents

and helping vulnerable people in the days ahead.

He was part of an army of local officials and volunteers

working alongside emergency teams from across the country.

Somebody has described it as the nerve centre of the enquiry.

-This is, at that time, the local school.

-Yeah.

The man who headed the police investigation is still struck

by the kindness he found amidst the chaos.

Human nature has a habit of showing its best side

when confronted with the worst trauma imaginable.

And that's what happened here in this town.

People coming and just saying, "Look, can I give blood?"

There was no survivors, but they wanted to be there to give blood.

They came in with cakes and biscuits and you name it.

People who just earnestly, passionately wanted to help.

Search and rescue specialist David Whalley rushed to Lockerbie

with the Royal Air Force.

He, too, will never forget the way people pulled together.

I think people should know what the rescue teams did here,

what the local people did, for months looking after people.

This was Scotland's tragedy but it was also, I think,

one of Scotland's finest hours

and days, what happened here.

I think the story should be told.

It's not nice, it's not good and we're not trying to do it

for any other reason but there was so many people affected by this.

David paid a high price for his involvement -

post-traumatic stress disorder from which it took years to recover.

David Gould also suffered a breakdown.

Not only did he witness the horrors of Lockerbie first-hand,

he also escaped death by the narrowest of margins.

Our house was only missed by one tenth of a second.

That's how long it would have taken for the part of the fuselage

to have veered in a different direction.

-It's not a long time, is it?

-It's not a long time.

As I say, by one tenth of a second, I'm still here.

Friends thought David WAS dead,

because one of the passengers on the plane

had exactly the same name as him.

That touched David deeply.

I went through a lot of the survivor feelings afterwards.

The feelings of guilt, feelings of anger and so on.

It's very difficult to describe but when somebody shares your name,

they're sharing something very personal...

..and...

..that's a link and it can't be broken.

I have a sense of duty

that I must honour the memory of David

and lay flowers for his family who can't make it on the day.

David has remarried since the disaster,

and he and his wife pay tribute to the other David Gould

at Lockerbie's Dryfesdale Cemetery every year.

They also lay flowers for Tony Hawkins,

whose widow, Helen, and son, Alan,

were hosted by David when they visited Lockerbie.

Yet another transatlantic link.

Many relatives of those who died visited Lockerbie

and many of them passed through the kitchen

of Tundergarth Mains farmhouse.

'It was on this farm that the Boeing 747's nose cone

'and scores of bodies fell.'

And on the length and breadth of our farm,

we had nearly 100...

of the bodies were found.

At the time...

It sounds horrible. At the time, they were...

they weren't people - they were just bodies,

and most of them just looked as though they were asleep,

quite peaceful.

Lesley did not sleep that night

but, in the morning, she still went to work in nearby Dumfries.

Arriving at work was surreal,

because no-one knew...

My work colleagues didn't know

what had happened to any of us at that point.

It fell to Lesley to tell her colleagues

that their boss, Jack Somerville,

his wife and two children were among the 11 Lockerbie locals killed

when a wing of the jumbo jet smashed into Sherwood Crescent.

Having to tell them that...

..he had perished that night was very difficult.

He was a nice guy, a good boss.

Back at Tundergarth, where so many victims lay,

it wasn't long before those who loved them started to arrive.

There was... A constant stream of relatives came.

We did what we could for them -

not a great deal, I don't think, in a lot of cases.

But, then, you do what you can,

even if it's just to be a shoulder to lean on,

a shoulder to cry on.

A lot came because they needed - or hoped -

to find some kind of...

..closure, to a certain extent,

because it was very difficult to comprehend or to understand.

Lesley Smith still lives near Lockerbie

and meets relatives of Pan Am victims

when they return to the town.

Some have visited many times.

I think it's quite comforting for a lot of them to come back here,

and to come back to the peace and tranquillity of round here

as well as, you know, coming back to visit Lockerbie

because of the meaning it has.

We do, as well, count them as friends nowadays,

rather than just acquaintances through this.

We do most definitely count a lot of them

as very good and very close friends.

Among those friends, Mary Kay Stratis and her daughter, Sonia.

Lesley's visited them in the United States several times.

The body of Sonia's dad, Elia, was found at Tundergarth.

I would like to think...yes, we would've been friends anyway.

But I'm not sure how we ever would have met,

had it not been for the air disaster.

Having said that,

we would give up those friendships if we could've turned the clock back

for them not to have lost their loved ones.

But then, unfortunately, you can't do that,

which I think, in some ways, is why their friendships mean so much...

..on both sides, I think.

Sonia Stratis was seven years old when her dad died.

He only booked on Pan AM 103 to get home a day earlier.

25 years on, Sonia and her husband, Chris,

have started their own family...

Way to go!

What next?

-Dolphin.

-Dolphin.

-Dolphin.

..a family that would almost certainly not exist,

had it not been for the Lockerbie bombing.

You know, I... It's funny.

Our families had known each other for 20 years, right,

and I have never met her.

Chris and Sonia met for the first time

at the Arlington memorial service for the 20th anniversary.

I had actually seen him at the memorial service the year before

and thought he was cute.

But I had never interacted with him, and...

yeah, it wasn't on my grid,

and then at the 20th, we... we did, we went to the hotel lobby,

just to hang out. Kind of a lot of the younger...

The generation that were children who lost their parents,

that generation, were hanging out downstairs.

It must have been like four hours or something...maybe four hours,

and we were just sitting talking, and I don't know,

just...it was like, "Hey," you know,

and there was just like an instant chemistry, I think.

# Holy, holy, holy

# It's our Lord God Almighty... #

They married three years ago

in a ceremony that united two Lockerbie families.

When Sonia Stratis said, "I do," to Chris Tedeschi,

his step-sister, Melanie Daniels,

was there to witness the happy event.

Russ and Kathy Tedeschi!

Chris's dad is married to Melanie's mum.

Chris and Sonia's wedding anniversary is in August.

But December the 21st will always be the date they first met.

It's definitely a bittersweet date for me of, still, 25 years on,

mourning the loss of my father and yet celebrating this new family

and new life that... that I get to have now.

Despite the tragic events, something good came of this.

And how God can really restore things that are tragic.

And...and this is one of those cases.

And what's that?

Their first son Joshua's middle name is Elia,

after his late grandfather.

When we met them, they were anticipating the arrival

of another boy, to be named Lucian.

And I think telling Joshua and Lucian, our new baby,

about their grandfather and his character,

it will also be inspiration of,

"Hey...this is a great man that you can look to

"as a role model even if he's not here."

One of two men this family will always remember.

Two men died to bring us together in a way, and they're...

there aren't any sets of brothers in my family,

and yet we're having the first sets of...of boys, two boys,

and I just think that's really significant as a way of...

another way of redeeming what's happened.

Two boys of strong character who are going to be wonderful.

Sonia gave birth to Lucian Alexander Tedeschi on November the 21st,

a month before the Lockerbie anniversary.

Lesley Smith was among the first to post congratulations.

Baby Lucian and his brother will grow up

to know that their grandfather and their step-gran's first husband

died on Pan AM Flight 103

and that, had this horror not happened,

their parents would probably never have met.

They're the start of a new generation...

living with Lockerbie.

In some ways, Carol King Eckersley is part of that new generation,

having only just learned her son was on the plane.

It's been a real roller coaster -

sobbing one minute and being hugged by somebody the next

and meeting a friend of my son the next.

I don't know how long it's going to take to assimilate it all.

One day, she hopes to come here to Lockerbie

as so many bereaved relatives have done.

To see the spot where her son fell,

and perhaps to feel the embrace of a community

that endures its own pain

and keeps its collective heart open

to all those who lost loved ones at Lockerbie

25 Christmases ago.

Local police officer Colin Dorrance

has already offered to be Carol's Lockerbie guide.

One of the many thousands of people touched by this tragedy,

reaching out to help another after all these years.