Dunblane: Our Story

'Reports are coming in that one person is dead and several people

'have been injured after a shooting incident at Dunblane Primary School.'

I think I'm more prone to calling it the shootings.

Probably...because I was shot.

I don't ever call it anything like the massacre,

I don't like any unrelated words.

If somebody said, "What happened to your mum?"

I would say, "She was the teacher that was killed at Dunblane."

Dunblane was a tragedy for everyone who was involved.

Some people in the media called it an incident,

which was hardly appropriate.

I don't tell people that my daughter died,

I don't tell them that she was killed.

She was murdered.

Thomas Hamilton murdered her.

..savagery today, savagery that has stunned this town.

'As a child, the anger was...not then,'

but looking back now, and, why?

Why...

my class, why my school? Why my town?

Why?

'It was a bit of a shock when Mhairi arrived,

'because I'm fair with red hair and she was so dark.

'She was very beautiful.'

I don't think she was a very girlie girl.

I think she was a little bit like me,

I don't think she was a very girlie girl.

We didn't go through the sort of dressing up in pink,

princess phase with Mhairi.

Or at least not before she was five.

Sophie had always been

a very bubbly little girl.

As any biased father would think,

I found her a bright, intelligent girl as well.

The feedback I got from Gwen Mayor, her class teacher,

was that she was bright, she was performing well,

and she did always seem to enjoy it.

I don't know, to be honest, why my mum became a teacher.

I guess she just felt it was her calling.

I used to go into her classroom

and see some of the artwork

and stuff she would do,

and the ideas she had.

You know, there was, like, a hairdressing corner.

Erm...

And she just had lots of ideas, I think,

that worked very well with the wee ones.

I struggle to remember a lot about being a child.

But the memories I do have are happy,

and are all really in Dunblane.

We lived on the Wirral,

surrounded by family.

My job brought me up to Scotland.

Dunblane was the place we decided was a nice place schools-wise,

nice place for the kids to grow up so we moved into Dunblane.

-So that would be '95?

-1995.

I always remember when Steve came back

and said he'd got the job,

and we'll have to sell the patio furniture

because all it does is rain in Scotland.

When I arrived, it was the largest

primary school in Scotland,

it had a large nursery.

And at the age of 42, I felt very proud to be the head teacher.

I was a university lecturer,

I worked at the University of Stirling, and I was a single parent.

Sophie and I were on our own, because her mum, Barbara,

had died two-and-a-half years earlier of breast cancer.

And we'd become a very close unit, she and I.

'I liked seeing her most with her father.

'And...I liked the two of them together.'

Mhairi was born fairly late in his life,

he was well into his 40s when she was born.

Look in the cupboard.

-He's a big man.

-He's a big man!

I was pregnant with Catherine. I was about six months' pregnant

with Catherine. We were very much looking forward to her birth.

'Murray, he became unwell.

'He suffered some sort of catastrophic stroke.'

And he died a week later.

'Mhairi was very sad.

'That's the only way that I can describe her

'in the last three or four months of her life.

'She was very sad.'

13th March was a particularly cold morning.

When we woke up this morning,

I was surprised to find that there'd been quite a heavy frost overnight.

There was ice on the windscreen of the car

and we were slightly delayed

because I had to spend a bit of time removing the ice.

I have a very clear memory of the early morning,

of driving from Stirling to Dunblane.

It was a beautiful morning, it was very bright, it was frosty.

The snowdrops were out in profusion.

There was even some snow on the ground.

There was a real hint of the summer to come. It was beautiful.

The university had arranged a small memorial service for Murray.

I think it was a chance to have a more intimate farewell

for his students and for his colleagues.

So on 13th March, the plan was, Mhairi would go to school,

I would take her, and then I think the plan was for my mum

to come and babysit the new baby, Catherine,

and I would go to the memorial service for my husband.

I just found out very recently that I'd won a battle on that morning.

I'd been fighting with my mum

about what shoes I was going to wear that morning.

She wanted me to wear my wellies,

and I wanted to wear a brand-new pair of boots

that my uncle from Kuwait had sent me.

A pair of Kicker boots.

And she didn't want me to ruin them on the cold morning,

and I was adamant that I was going to wear them.

And I think, you know, I won.

So I remember taking up Matthew,

and he was always a child that liked you to stay with him

until he joined the line and went into school.

And I remember saying, "Matthew, Mummy has to go now."

BELL RINGS

CHILDREN CHATTER

HUBBUB

We were skipping around the gym hall.

I don't remember the pain of being shot,

I don't remember the noises, I don't remember sounds.

I just remember my leg turning to jelly and falling to the floor.

And then dragging myself to the gym cupboard

where there was other people.

My mum, she would have been the first person that was killed,

so she didn't see... she wouldn't have seen anything else.

Erm...

I can't, I can't...

It's... I can't begin to think.

After crawling into the gym cupboard,

I was very aware of the amount of blood everywhere,

and the crying and the pain that people were in.

Erm...

Obviously, I was crying for my mum, and was very upset.

And I was trying to, you know...

The adults that were in the PE cupboard

were, you know, trying to hush me

because, you know, they wouldn't have known

if he was still alive out in the gym hall, or where he was going next.

When I first burst into the gym that morning,

the sight was unimaginable.

Hamilton was lying, still twitching.

There was an incredible silence.

The air was thick with smoke, cordite, the smell.

And there was a group of children standing.

The first thing we were able to do was to get them out of there.

And I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It was unimaginably horrible...

..to see children dying in front of you.

She had sort of defensive wounds, as you would, through her wrists.

Where her arms were crossed.

She also had an injury that...

the evidence would have been from the pathologist, or whatever,

that suggested she'd been punched.

Erm...

She was shot six times, fatal shot through the eye.

Erm...

Which would have killed her instantly, but the thought that...

If somebody... If you're standing in front of somebody with a gun,

and you've been punched,

it would suggest to you that

there'd been some sort of a struggle.

I think that day...

..she did all she could to protect the children in her care.

Erm...

I think to a lot of the parents,

and indeed survivors, she died a hero.

She...tried to protect each and every one of us.

Nobody knows what they would do.

You're in that position, do you run, do you...?

But the evidence would show that that's what she did, so I'm very...

..very, very proud of that.

Seeing the staff tending to the injured,

seeing the...

..the bodies of those who had died.

And I think, just in that moment, the enormity of the event hit me.

That moment has never left.

I'm angry I don't have my sister now.

She liked to be called Jo-Jo.

I remember my mum telling me,

when she went into nursery, she asked them to call her Jo-Jo.

And I now refer to her as Jo, or Joanna,

if someone doesn't know who I'm referring to.

This one's important to me because this reminds me of myself,

because she's very colourful, she's smiling.

I don't like seeing

her in her school uniform.

I'd like to remember her

as a young girl,

as, you know, I should have been

growing up with this girl,

kind of thing. We should have been

kind of laughing in the sun somewhere together.

My first memory of being told was when I was about six or seven,

and I remember Mum kind of sitting down and telling me, you know,

this is what had happened.

Cos for so long I wasn't sure

who all these pictures of this girl were, in my living room,

and I thought it was me, and I used to ask, "Is this me?"

And, you know, how come I don't have blonde hair any more and blue eyes?

Then Mum kind of sat down and told me eventually what had happened.

I remember just being really confused about it all.

And it looms over us all, I think.

And it...

I don't know.

It gets a bit hard to accept that way, even something... Hold on.

-TEARFULLY:

-Something as simple as her brushing my hair for me.

It just isn't there.

It does... It just always makes me wonder what the relationship

I could have had and it's just not available now,

it's not there at all.

SIRENS WAIL

'Reports are coming in that one person is dead

'and several people have been injured after a shooting incident

'at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland.'

'I remember there was some fuss in the street,'

there were lots of mums running towards the school,

and a friend...erm...

shouted across the street to me

that there was a gunman in the primary school.

-RADIO:

-'We know there are now a number of fatalities,

'I've just been told, and according to the education...'

Steve had phoned, and I'd said, "All right? Are you OK?"

He said, "Yes, but there's been an incident at the school."

I said, "Right." He said, "There's been a shooting."

-RADIO:

-'We'll bring you more as soon as we get it here on 5 Live.'

You obviously hope that either the rumours aren't true

or it's a minor incident that's been exaggerated.

But that proved not to be the case when we got to Dunblane.

'I was in London at the time when it happened.'

I was just in my bedroom drying my hair,

hundreds and hundreds of miles away and this thing was occurring.

And not having any inkling at the time of what was ahead,

and that basically, that moment, my life changed forever.

'Police were directing you into the house

'on the left side of the school.

'The main entrance.'

So I remember going to wait in the garden, and not knowing anyone,

being fairly new to Dunblane,

hearing two parents in front of me saying, "It's Mrs Mayor's class."

And I remember saying to them,

"Excuse me, did you say Mrs Mayor's class?"

And them looking at me thinking, "Oh, my."

And she said, "Yes.

"All we know is that Mrs Mayor's class have been asked

"to go and wait in the blue house across the way."

So then I knew my ratio was down.

Where does my son fit in on that?

I can't say that I was feeling frightened

and overly worried at the time.

Erm... It sounds strange thing to do,

but I'm not the only one who's said that...

people were calculating the odds.

This was a big primary school, school roll of 700.

So the odds against your own child being harmed seemed quite low.

HUBBUB

'The media descended upon us in a way that no-one could anticipate.'

It seemed as if every news channel from all over the world was there,

and it was extraordinarily intrusive.

There's 13 children dead at the moment,

two adults and a number of children in hospital.

We're obviously having a tremendous business

sorting out who's who and what's what.

Well, I specifically remember,

I was in Strathclyde Police

press office

and it was shaping up to be

a normal busy day.

Some reports were starting to appear on our bank of televisions

in the office, saying that a shooting incident had occurred.

'And we decided to offer our assistance.'

The drive to Dunblane was, erm... well, it was pretty hairy.

For a start, I was obviously travelling at speed.

At the same time, I was trying to formulate in my mind

what I was going to do when I got there.

What I was going to be confronted with,

and how I was going to manage the flow of information.

'I arrived at the school just about 12:30pm, 12:45pm.

'And it was just a scene of chaos and pandemonium.'

The difference in the school was like night and day.

The school was absolutely silent.

Everything that you would expect to see in a primary school was present,

except the children.

And there was total silence.

At the behest of the police, we had to go back into the gym,

to try and confirm the identities of the children who had died.

This was particularly difficult for me because

these were Primary 1 children, and I didn't know many of them.

And so, I had to take with me into the gym

previous members of staff who did know them.

And we had to begin the awful process of

confirming the identities

of the kids lying there.

They hadn't done a register

because they were going to gym after the assembly. And...

SHE SIGHS

..the person that would have identified them best...

Um... She was gone.

But no amount of security could have prepared for the savagery today.

Savagery that has stunned this town.

Yeah, we were cocooned.

And I think the media knew more about what was going on than we did.

INDISTINCT VOICES

SIRENS

I am Louis Munn, the press officer for Strathclyde Police.

I'm here to assist...

'It was important that accurate information was given'

to the media as quickly as possible, to stop the speculation

that was ongoing at that time.

As a result of this incident, 16 children have been killed...

SHOCKED GASPS FROM CROWD

..and two adults.

That was something like four-and-a-half hours

into the incident when I made that statement.

CAMERAS CLICK

My understanding is that

15 of the children were killed within the school.

And one has since died in hospital.

'What I didn't know when I released that statement

'was that the parents hadn't been informed.'

Now, that should never have happened.

'It was hours with no news.'

It was just the most incredibly long wait.

And it was like a form of torture. Not a word I use lightly.

It was a form of torture, waiting and just not knowing.

Then, they came and told us they were going to take us to the school.

So, they bussed us down the little driveway,

past all the flashing photographers.

Up the main driveway of the school.

And then we were taken to the staffroom.

Really, the first time I ever got any real information,

hard information, was at 2:45pm in the afternoon.

And that information included being told that Sophie had died.

The police officer couldn't use the word "death" or "deceased".

He... I think he said "casualty" or "victim".

But I remember remarking on that later,

that he couldn't quite bring himself to say

your child is dead, or deceased.

He couldn't... He couldn't give us the finality of the vocabulary.

But it was clear, the news that he was delivering.

Um...

It came as a relief.

It came as

a significant relief, because knowing is better than not knowing.

That is the one thing that I can remember

really, really clearly about that day. I needed to know.

I just needed to know where she was and what she was.

And when they told me she was dead, and she was at the hospital,

it felt that I could begin to come to terms with what had happened.

It's sort of a surreal thing that I think happened in slow motion...

The chances were getting higher and higher

but you're still, in your head, thinking, no, no, no,

it will not be my mum.

But my dad said he knew.

He just knew straightaway.

He got to the school and said who he was,

and he was ushered in straightaway, no questions asked.

It was, "In you come, Mr Mayor."

And put in the library where he was...

He waited, I believe, until about three o'clock till he was told

that she was a teacher that was killed.

I don't remember the pain of being shot,

I don't remember the noises, I don't remember sounds.

The next memory I have is being in the hospital

and having my clothes cut off.

I'm a mummy's girl and I would have been shouting on my mummy.

And even when my mum did arrive to console me,

she said that I was still shouting for her,

I just had no comprehension of what was going on at all.

I just couldn't be consoled at all.

As a group of parents, some went to the children's ward.

And then the surgeon who operated on Matthew

came into the waiting room in intensive care.

The first things he said to us was, "You're Bev. And you're Steve.

"And Matthew has a little sister,

"and his favourite food is baked beans."

And, to be honest, that's the first thing he could have said to us

because we knew he hadn't been shot,

he hadn't been shot so seriously that...

-He couldn't talk.

-..he couldn't talk.

The surgeon had told us when he came in that, where Matt had been shot...

Shot twice.

Once through the shoulder, straight through and through, flesh wound.

If you imagine the size of a small child,

there's not a lot of space between the two bones

that make up the shoulder blade.

And, somehow, it had managed to go through

between a very small space in the bones of his shoulder blade.

So it had actually missed again, hadn't hit the bone,

just gone through the flesh there. And then...

-he'd been shot in the chest.

-He'd been shot in the back.

Shot in the back.

And, with the one in the back,

it had actually gone through his back, but it had hit the rib,

and then the rib had actually deflected it,

so it came out the other side of his back.

And if it hadn't deflected the bullet,

it would have gone straight through his heart.

The children fall into two categories.

They were dead in the gym where they fell,

or they were evacuated from the gym.

And although some of them were very badly hurt, they survived.

Mhairi was the only one who was evacuated from the gym

who did not survive.

'I wasn't with her when she died.

'That's the thing that I regret most.

'That is the regret, the one regret I have.'

MHAIRI CHATTERS

I'd like her mother to have been with her when she died.

I'd like her to have had her mum.

'That's an absolute betrayal. I think that was desperately wrong.'

I feel very angry about that.

I don't have any memories of Mhairi at all,

because I was only three months old when she was killed.

I do wish that I had had a sister.

Um... It's just odd.

I don't think I came to terms with it for a very long time,

because I couldn't imagine having a sister,

because I was so used to being raised as an only child.

It's a very odd feeling

that is almost impossible to describe, I suppose.

I still have the kind of grieving and mourning,

but without knowing her per se.

I've lost something, but not experienced what I've lost,

I suppose.

TV NEWS JINGLE

16 young children and their teacher have been shot dead by a gunman

at a primary school near Stirling.

The Chief Constable of Central Scotland said

the killer had four handguns.

He's been named tonight as

43-year-old Thomas Hamilton, a local man.

-TV:

-Police photos of the inside of Thomas Hamilton's house

have been released, showing the customised targets he used

to practise his shooting.

Detectives searching his home found thousands of rounds of ammunition,

the telephone book was still lying open

at the entry for Dunblane Primary School.

-Thomas Hamilton used two types of bull, er, bullets...

-Bullets, yeah.

..of which the one that came out the back was sort of one of those that

they reckon probably was exploding, because it was, er...

-BOTH: ..quite a nasty exit wound.

-Yeah, it was.

He was dressed in combat fatigues.

He had goggles, firearms goggles on, and he had ear defenders on.

He entered the school, walked down the corridor towards

the sound of children's voices coming from the gymnasium.

He entered the gymnasium and he systematically discharged

his weapons at the teacher and the children gathered there.

He shot 105 bullets.

He had the capability, um, with the amount of ammunition,

to have actually shot every single child in that school at least once.

Within the three minutes,

he not only shot at the children in the gym, but he went out of the gym

and fired shots at two other classes and at someone who was passing by.

And he then went back into the gym...

..apparently walked round, shot again at one or two of the children,

and then finally killed himself.

In some ways, it's a miracle that anyone survived in that gym.

And Matthew had said, "I remember, Mummy," he said that, um,

"everyone was screaming," um, that he watched people fall to the gym...

-Mm-hm.

-..and he lay on the gym, on the floor, and he...

he was crying and the man went away and, um, and he says he was crying

and then, the man came back and he shot

and I think then he realised that he had to be really, really still...

-And be quiet.

-..and pretend to be dead...

-Mm-hm.

-..otherwise, um, he knew he'd shoot him again.

Yeah, so he just said he just stayed very, very still and very quiet,

cos then he'd think he was dead.

'I vividly remember, um, the...'

the press conference we held just around 10 o'clock that night,

when I read out the names of the... of the children involved.

The children who died are as follows.

Victoria Clydesdale, aged five.

Emma Crozier, aged five.

Melissa Currie, aged five.

Charlotte Dunn, aged five.

Kevin Hasell, aged five.

Ross Irvine, aged five.

David Kerr, aged five.

Mhairi McBeath, aged five.

Brett McKinnon, aged five.

Abigail McLennan, aged five.

Emily Morton, aged five.

Sophie North, aged five.

John Petrie, aged five.

Joanna Ross, aged five.

Hannah Scott, aged five.

Megan Turner, aged five.

And the teacher, Gwen Mayor, aged 45.

I had really bad night terrors that, um,

kept me up during the night and I was just inconsolable.

My mum speaks of having to, like, hold me in the night

and I'd wake up, not just once or twice,

like, four or five times, screaming, crying.

Matthew was sort of, like, hooked up to loads of drips and drains

and machines and all I did was just stroke his hand all night

and, um, and it was... Funny enough, one of the members of staff

came through and she said, "It's just like you've..."

With... She said, "It looks like, it's where you feel,

"when you've just given birth, and you've got that little

"bundle of joy in your arms, and you just can't take your eyes off him."

And that's how it felt.

Um, just having his little hand, um, holding his hand

and just to think, "I am just so lucky. I've got my boy."

HELICOPTER ROTORS WHIR

'The following day...

'I had to go to Dunblane and took part in the...'

in this interview, which came as somewhat of a surprise,

I wasn't expecting to have to do that.

Ladies and gentlemen, can I introduce you to Mr Ron Taylor,

the headteacher for Dunblane Primary School.

Um, I think Mr Taylor would like to just make a...a comment.

My thoughts, and the thoughts of all my staff,

are obviously with the families, all the families whose lives

have been devastated by the appalling tragedy.

Evil visited us yesterday and we don't know why,

we don't understand it, and I guess we never will.

'I thought Ron Taylor was a marvellous man.

'Some of the words he said were quite unforgettable.'

These were all his children, these were all his pupils,

and...and...and he lost 16 of them, 16 of them in the most horrific way.

I can't get the images out of my head yet,

and I think that will take some time. It was an appalling mess.

-REPORTER:

-Were you able to do anything?

-We...

We did what we could. We tried. We, um...

People couldn't understand why I felt so guilty after the event...

..because there is no way any of us

could have anticipated what happened.

There's no way we could've adequately prepared

for what happened, and yet, I felt enormous guilt.

More than just a survivor's guilt.

It was my school.

I felt violated. I felt... I should've been able to do more.

And that guilt... lives with me today.

The things that struck me most was the outpouring of grief.

Lots and lots of people actually came to Dunblane simply just

to pay their respects.

Thousands of tributes that arrived in Dunblane in the shape

of letters, flowers, cuddly toys.

What you realise is that, when something like this happens,

the, um, the number of people who are affected by it.

Um, you see the sort of, the immediate people, the family

that are involved, but you forget how far the ripples of the pond go.

The flowers all the way along the street was a wonderful way

of the country showing their support and their love.

But it was also a reminder to us every day

as we had to drive past the flowers.

The last time I saw Sophie before her funeral service,

she'd been dressed in a Lion King outfit that I'd bought for her.

She had always liked The Lion king, even though

she'd been too frightened to actually watch the movie itself.

And I also put with her... her sooky...

which was the last remaining, um, half of a set of...

two sets of pyjamas that belonged to Barbara,

which she had, um, sucked on...

..for years. I tried to persuade her off them, but it had never happened

and so, again, it was appropriate that they were with her.

-RON TAYLOR:

-The pressures after the event were, were enormous

and they were unrelenting.

We had politicians coming, we had the Royals who came.

And it was enormously stressful, having to cope with that,

with the outside pressure that it brought,

with the pressure of helping to organise the visits,

but it was entirely understandable why they came.

They represented the country's support and concern for us.

NEWSREADER: From there, it was up to Ward 17,

to see and talk to the five youngsters

and their two teachers who are being treated at the hospital.

I was in there for six weeks or something and, you know,

we were totally overwhelmed by the generosity,

the public sending things or whatever.

The photos of, um, me with the Queen at the bottom of my bed...

I had absolutely no interest in the Queen.

I was sitting with my Playdays magazine, just wanting to look at

the pictures in my magazine, rather than the Queen at the end of my bed.

BUZZ OF CONVERSATION

Matthew, as he came out of intensive care, um, was very quiet,

he didn't really talk very much, um,

he obviously took in a lot of things.

'It was hard, I mean, cos you had to sort of sit there and just listen

-'to what he had to say, er...

-Not become too emotional.'

And try not to sort of...

-If we got emotional, then he would get upset...

-He wouldn't say...

..then he wouldn't want to upset Mummy and Daddy, so he wouldn't say.

-So...

-So you were trying your best just to, just to let him talk.

Ready or not, here I come!

LAUGHTER

But you did get a huge guilt, er, about the fact that

you still had your, your son and others had lost theirs.

But it's when you, you meet those parents and, um,

and you realise that, that... how much we were grieving

for what had happened to Matthew, um, and that hurt, that pain was

so, so awful, to imagine what they were going through

was just something that must be so devastating.

NEWSREADER: As Dunblane Primary opened its doors

for the first time since the shootings, most children were

escorted back by one or both parents. Many of them...

-RON TAYLOR:

-We opened the school very quickly after the event.

But it seemed only logical.

What were the children doing at home,

with all the stresses and strains and media presence in the village?

It was better that we reopened the school as quickly as possible

and that they returned to a form of normality.

This has been a... a long, dark week, full of tears.

Dunblane is still in mourning.

However...

..the evil that came last week is gone.

The children returned to school today.

And this is a, a very important day for us,

because today marks the beginning of our recovery.

As a headteacher, what happened to me that day

was the worst experience any headteacher could have.

And of course, it was the worst experience for any parent, too.

And for the parents of the other children...

they were hugely emotional.

But it was very wonderful...

..that almost all the children returned on that day.

Having been shot in the leg, and my kneecap was shattered, um,

my leg had to be in traction,

which means it had to be up in the air, um, for...

to be set again, really, um...

so I spent a lot of time, you know, I couldn't go out in the wheelchair

or anything, I was stuck to the bed for six weeks, um...

..and I had, you know, I had...

That resulted in me being the last one to leave the hospital.

Hairbrush.

'After the shootings and the police had collected all the belongings

'and they'd had them for...'

it must've been some time,

and my mum was given all my stuff back one day

'and there was this, you know, god-awful smell

'and she couldn't figure out what it was.'

There was just a big, mouldy banana in my school bag that was...

There was a very unpleasant smell coming from it.

MOTHER CHATS SOFTLY

SEAGULLS CALL

BIRDS TWEET

-We've been married for a long time.

-Yeah, um...

-Too long?

-Far too long!

-Yeah, 16?

-16 years. Together 17.

-Um, married 16.

-16.

-Yeah.

-It's our kind of escape.

-Yeah, it has been,

-and it's been our kind of bolthole for about a decade now.

-Yeah.

Maybe this is the place where we feel closest together,

but it's also the place where I feel safest.

'I try to be very consistent. I try to be a focal point that,'

if things are not going well for Isabel, she can rely on me to, um...

er... be a constant for us.

I think the baggage is always there

-and I think that's a problem at times.

-Mm-hm.

I don't think it is possible, after Dunblane,

-to have a life that is completely normal.

-No.

It's lovely, soft wool

and I do remember her wearing that and it was just...

It was just a lovely little...

..a lovely little cardigan.

It's the only drawing I have that Mhairi did of her sister.

Look, this is Catherine,

with a big, happy smile on her face

and with a fresh nappy on, clearly.

This is a bit special.

She had ladybird scissors and this is her ladybird bracelet.

We used to go ladybird spotting...

..erm, in the garden at home and if we caught a ladybird,

Mhairi would always want it to crawl over her hands.

This is Mhairi's death certificate.

I have thought a lot about,

"It could have been me there, not her."

Erm...

I know it's not my fault.

Erm...

It's not my fault that someone decided to kill my sister,

but I do, a bit, feel...

a bit guilty that I'm the one that survived and not her.

Erm...

I don't think that's an entirely rational feeling.

I recognise myself that that is...

It's not a rational feeling, it's something that you just feel

when this kind of thing has happened to you.

Catherine, erm...

has obviously outlived Mhairi and there's been certain milestones,

certain points in Catherine's life that's been very upsetting for us,

because Mhairi never did this, Mhairi never got that,

Mhairi never got a chance for this.

And in my head, it's hard to think of Catherine as the little sister,

because Catherine is now the big sister

because she's lived so much longer.

I have one final poem.

Give a huge, Loud crowd applause

for Catherine Wilson.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

These are the facts I know about my sister

She's an artist, an architect, a scientist and a gospel singer

She's training to be a vet

A childhood dream that she has loved as long as

Ice cream and she got the science-y side of my father

When I got the philosophy, she loves astrology

And if I'm sick or sad or hate the world, she climbs into my bed

Plaits my hair with affection and I love her

She's my sister and I love her and I love her

And she's my sister and my sister and I love her and I love her

And she is my sister and I love her

Or maybe I don't...

'I can sit here and say my sister was'

going to be a vet or she was going to be, I don't know, a rock star,

she was going to be famous

or she was going to be, you know, the next...

um, I don't know,

she was going to run a charity or something like that,

but that might not be true, she might have completely...

We might have completely fallen out, we might not get on,

so I kind of wanted to capture that.

I don't know these facts about my sister

They are nothing more than the fruits of my contemplation

A big "What if?" that keeps me up at night

And I'm forever sorry that I can't say I'm an only child by choice

With me comes the background baggage of a crime scene

That put me on the map

And I never want to say it, I'm too afraid to say it

Dunblane.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

REPORTER: The Dunblane parents believe

that while the police might have made mistakes,

it is, they say, our whole attitude towards guns which needs changing.

I was certainly of the opinion,

and that appeared to be one that was shared between all the families,

that we wanted to do something positive,

we wanted to change the gun laws

and there was no way that that would happen

if we just stood in the background.

And through campaigning, often exhausting campaigning,

in the face of very strenuous and nasty opposition at times,

we were delighted to be able to persuade governments,

both Conservative and Labour,

to introduce legislation which Parliament passed,

which did result in the banning of handguns by 1998,

just two years after the Dunblane Massacre.

I feel my generation probably...

..like the older generation, just can't fathom how...

just awful it all was and how awful it all is

and how it's still affecting us all today.

And then, following that comes...

I'm angry I don't have my sister now.

I feel like she was taken.

And it's all very selfish.

This man didn't consider, actually,

"I'm leaving parents without children

"and siblings without siblings."

When I say it's not how I want to remember my mum,

I find it quite a morbid picture, to be honest. It's sort of...

It is a snapshot of that day.

It's like a picture of him...

and that picture, that's a sort of chilling thing for me.

I find it quite a chilling picture.

It's just typical of my mum, you know.

She's out hill walking and she's got all her make-up on

and her hair is all lovely and she's got earrings on

and she's got her lippy on.

And she's...

She's smiling and her eyes are happy.

I still have these gloves.

That's exactly how I remember her.

Time... is a strange thing.

And I think it's become even more strange since Sophie was killed.

Some of the memories are so strong that they can seem like yesterday,

they can seem like last week.

This is...

This is so important.

This one, on the first anniversary,

is from Princess Diana.

"As a mother myself,

"my enormous admiration for you all grows stronger.

"Your dearly loved children will always be greatly missed,

"especially today, as we remember.

"My thoughts and prayers are with you.

"With love from Diana."

After Sophie died, I can honestly say there was never a time

when I thought, "No, I can't go on."

There were times when I knew it was going to be difficult to go on.

There were times when I was depressed.

But I never, ever felt, "No, there's no point in keeping going."

Of course, it's...

..horrible, when the two people you're closest to have died.

But neither of them would have wanted me to give up

on what life still had to offer

and what I could offer to life.

People have to cope in their own way.

One of the things I have at home is I have a box...

..full of...

..newspaper articles, statements, cuttings,

and it includes my own written version of the events of the day,

and I did that to help. I locked it away

and thankfully, I have never looked at it again.

And it's quite easy to keep that box locked.

It's much more difficult to keep the box in my head locked.

Matthew got to grow, got to go to high school,

got to his 18th birthday, got to his 21st birthday,

we watched him grow and develop from a young child

to just a warm, loving young man.

That's one thing that's very important to Matt,

is the fact that he wants to be defined by what he does in life,

not by what happened to him.

And that's a good thing.

It just upsets me that it makes Isabel sad and emotional

and it's something I can't fix.

It's something I can't make better.

Something I can't bring back.

I don't want you to be upset.

-You're going to cry. I don't want you to be upset.

-Sh!

-Talking like that will make me cry!

-THEY LAUGH

-I'm really sorry.

-I do want...

You just want me...

-You just want me to be happy.

-Yeah.

It's what anybody in a comfortable marriage,

relationship wants for their partner, they want them to be happy,

but there's nothing I can do to make that part of your life...

-Different.

-Different, or better.

-Yes. It is what it is.

-It is what it is.

-Yeah.

This event was so unprecedented,

and so huge, with so many implications for so many people,

that we really must mark this important anniversary.

It's very difficult for people, it's very difficult for the community

and many people might not agree with me.

But it's hugely important

to help as best we can those who survived.

And support those who lost.

I've got scarring on my left leg, on both sides,

on my knee and my thigh,

and the doctors at some point had suggested to my mum

that I maybe would want skin grafts to try and cover them up.

My mum, I think she was worried that I'd be self-conscious about them,

getting older and being a teenager, maybe wearing skirts or whatever,

but to me, it wasn't an option.

These are my scars, they're on my body, it's my story,

I'm not going to...

I'm not going to hide them, I'm not ashamed of them.

It is part of UK history now, unfortunately, as well

and it's something that needs to be remembered.

So that everyone's aware that we are still here,

we are still getting on with our lives

and we didn't just fade into the background either.

We still had to power on and push on with our lives

and it's important that everybody knows we're doing it.

And doing it well.