08/03/2016 Scotland 2016

The Dunblane massacre 20 years ago - the mother of a victim

Tonight we're devoting much of the programme to an interview.

This weekend will mark 20 years since the morning Thomas Hamilton

walked into Dunblane Primary School and murdered 16 children

It's still hard to comprehend the full horror - which led to some

of the strictest gun laws in the world.

The mother of one of the victims has been talking to Jackie Bird,

reflecting on events that day and the impact it has had.

On the day there was to be a memorial service for my late

husband. He died in October. And there was to be a memorial service

at Stirling University for Murray, and I was to attend. My mum was

coming over to babysit for Catherine, the baby, and I would

walk around to school as normal. It was a chilly day, are never see did

not wear her school shoes that day, she wore little red wellingtons. And

I dropped her off at school completely as normal. I went back to

the house. The baby had fallen asleep in the buggy, so I left her

sleeping inside the front door, in the front porch. And I don't relieve

no what I did. A little while after that I got a phone call from a

friend who lived in Perthshire. Barbara, another teacher. Ireland

she said, is everything all right? And I said, why wouldn't it be? I

was a little surprised that Barbara was falling around nine o'clock in

the morning. And she said," there are reports coming over the radio

that there is a gunmen in Dunblane Primary School." And at that point I

simply did not believe it. I did not give any credence whatsoever. It

just sounded like the kind of thing that would be a kind of silly

rumour. I went out to check the baby. The baby was still snoozing in

the buggy in the front porch, and I became aware that there were

parents, people I knew just running towards the school. One of them,

another friend, a lady I used to babysit with, we were all in the

same baby-sitting circle, she just looked over to where I was and she

said," Isabel, there is a gunmen in the school, there is a gunmen in the

school!" . And I was perfectly calm. I think I went back inside to get

Michael. -- to get my coat. I didn't rush out, I locked the door properly

and gathered the baby in the body. And I wandered around to the school.

I was just literally around the corner from the school. And there

was a great many people milling around and great confusion. This

rumour was obvious he been taken very seriously. There were about 650

pupils at Dunblane Primary School. I wasn't really worried about Mhairi

because I realised the odds where... Her classroom, for example, was

upstairs, and I did not think for a minute she would be involved in

anything. At one point a senior police officer came to the front of

one of the larger houses on the street and said that the only people

they wanted to speak to... They wanted people to disperse, the only

people who wanted to speak to were parents of children in Gwen Mayor's

class. And at that point I did feel... Not panic, but I felt... I

was aware that the odds shortened considerably. I was very aware that

Mhairi could now be involved in something horrible. What happens

then? The police shepherded us into a house, a large house on the Doune

Road in Dunblane. We were there for quite a while and then a decision

was made that they would put us on a bus. Despite the fact that the

school was just that few hundred yards away. They would put us in a

bus to get us to the school. Rather than perhaps walking is passed

cameras and newspaper people. So we got onto the bus, and because the

bus was going very slowly it actually made it, I think, perhaps

easier for people to film us and photograph us. We were taken to, I

think, the staff room in the primary school, and that was it, just the

beginning of the longest week of my life. I was there for hours and

hours and hours. With no news. No information. No access to even a

radio at that point. So the outside world knew more than you all did?

Very much so, yes. At one point... I felt at 1.I had nothing to lose

weight tempting to leave. So I gathered up the baby, and there were

double doors that were being staffed by a young policewoman. And I do

remember her, she was very upset, and I do have a feeling quite angry

that she had been rather abandoned to do this job by more senior,

perhaps more hardened officers. And when I approached, I think she got a

male police officer to come and speak to me and I said that I would

like to leave, and he said, "In that case we have a problem." And so I

was made to feel that I couldn't leave. I think being perhaps quite

middle-class, and obedient, I think at that point I backed off. I wish I

hadn't. I wish I had insisted on leaving, because I think at that

point, rather than allowing me to leave it would probably have... I

think they might have dealt with me. They might have given me some

information or some news. What was happening in that room? It was

actually very quiet. I was there with the baby, she was only two

months old, and she needed a clean nappy, and that was something I had

not thought to bring with me when I left the house. So I think... I

don't know, I was beginning to get quite annoyed with the police

because I needed to change the baby, and so there was a little bit of

movement, coming and going. From time to time the police would come

in and call out a name and a couple were perhaps disappear. Now, at that

point, I made an error of judgment. I thought people who were being

called out where perhaps the people for whom the news was worst. And I

don't think it dawned on me until later in the process that actually

they were calling out the families of the injured pupils so that the

good get the parents to the hospital. -- so that they could get

the parents. It did not don on me until quite late in the process, and

by then we were only going to perhaps two other families and

myself. I think at that point began to dawn on me that we were the

people who were going to have the worst news, and that they were

saving the worst until last. It was such a long day. I don't think the

police told me that Mhairi was dead until sometime between three o'clock

and half past three. Of course, I had been at the school since about

ten. It was a terribly, terribly long wait. And that was very

difficult. But you learned later that Mhairi had been taken from the

gym hall, injured, seriously injured, but alive. I was very

lucky, I was able to speak to the ambulance... Not the ambulance

driver, the ambulance attendant, the paramedic who was with her. And he

was able to reassure me that she was deeply unconscious, she had suffered

a massive headwind and she was not conscious. I suppose it is a

parent's worst nightmare that your child will be frightened and wanting

you with them. And perhaps asking for you, and you don't appear. So

that was actually very consoling. I was very lucky, the way that I met

him was something of an accident. And it mattered. It mattered a lot.

I also know that there was someone with her in the hospital. I know

that. You must understand this was a huge incident, so they were very

short staffed, and they needed nurses and doctors to be with the

children who were injured, but, very kindly, quite humanely, someone had

had the presence of mind to leave I think an auxiliary or even a

cleaning lady, and to ask her to be with Mhairi. When she died. And that

matters. Despite the fact that she was deeply unconscious, it matters

to me that someone was with her, but she did not die alone. But you still

feel that you could have been there? We understand that there must have

been unbelievable chaos, and organisational chaos. Yes. But for

that, if things had happened a bit more quickly, you could have been

told sooner? I don't think it was a question of speed. It was a question

of... It was the way the police behaved on the day. The police

behaved towards the parents of the victims of Thomas Hamilton as if

they wear an administrative inconvenience. I think that's the

best way to describe it. And I think... I think we did not really

picture in the way that they processed the incident, I think we

were very coincidental to the incident. I'm not expecting this

very well. I think we were on the periphery... We were not in the

focus, we were not their priority. It is more than that. We were very

low down on their list of priorities. Did you ever challenge

the police about that? Yes. And? I went to the school on the day that

John Major, the serving Prime Minister, and Tony Blair, the Leader

of the Opposition... I went to the school on the day they visited, and

I believe I was the only parent who went to the school, I asked for an

interview with them. And to be honest, they could not refuse me

that. They could not be seen to refuse me. And I asked some quite

searching questions about police behaviour. I directed them to John

Major. But actually it was Tony Blair who responded to them. Tony

Blair was over John Major's shoulder, and he was listening. Over

the years, parents of those who were killed have reacted in many

different ways. Some have never spoken. Some rarely, and others

threw themselves into campaigns to tighten gun laws and increase school

security. What path did you take? A little bit of everything. You have

to remember that I had a two-month-old baby, and my priority

was to look after her. My husband had just died and stop my daughter

had just been killed. There was an awful lot to do, there was an awful

lot... There was a great deal of activity. There was not a lot of

peace in my life. So what I had to do was call about little boy sees of

peace for Catherine and I -- a little oasis of peace for Catherine

and I so that we could have a normal life, so at the start of her life

could have some normality about it. But I did notice in campaigning for

tighter gun controls in the UK, and I did that because I felt it was

something I could do, and indeed I felt it was something I should do.

It is something I still feel very strongly about. There must also be

times that what happened at Dunblane crops up randomly. Yes. That can be

very awkward. Again, a social worker, who was assigned to my

family immediately following Dunblane, was pretty helpful in

helping me to think about the future and helping me to think about how I

would respond to those incidents. To those moments when you ask why you

only have one child. To those moments when you are at a dinner

party and someone says," you used to know in Dunblane, do you know anyone

who... ? " how do you answer that? I find it tricky because I find in

social settings, if my out myself as a parent of a Dunblane child, then I

feel responsible for perhaps having spoiled a social occasion or having

made someone feel badly about my circumstances. But there are also

occasions when you simply choose not to tell, you simply choose to keep

that to yourself because... Particularly if you are talking to

somebody you are not likely to meet again or not likely to be spending

much time with, there is nothing to be gained by telling them who you

are or what has happened to you. The hardest thing is when people that

you know you will go on and have a bit of a relationship with, for

example, new neighbours, new friends or colleagues, and you know at some

point you will have to tell them and you desperately tried to think of

Norway to make it all right then. -- you desperately try to think of a

way to make it all right. The rationality of that is staggering

but understandable! I cheat. I have asked people to pass on the

information for me. In job circumstances, professional circles,

I have asked people simply to pass on the information for me. And that

smooth it over a bit and is easier for me. But of course, each year,

there is an anniversary, how have you dealt with the anniversary is

over the years? I am inclined to think that dates are artificial. For

example, this year, the 13th of March occurs on a Sunday. It wasn't

a Sunday, it was a school day. Actually, it is usually the day

after, usually the 14th, 15th, 16th of March, where I begin to just lose

the poise and self-control the self-discipline and field genuinely

very sad. As a family, we tend to spend the day together. My husband

always liked the candle. I don't know if you remember on the first

anniversary of the shooting, people all over Dunblane lit candles and

put them in their windows. It was so beautiful, such a simple gesture of

support. Walking down to the cathedral I think, that night, it

was enormously comforting, to see a light in nearly every window. Is

there a special poignancy, the fact this is the 20th anniversary? For

me, there is just one thing. I am not sure even my closest family have

understood this. For me, it is just desperately important that they are

not forgotten. It is just desperately, desperately important

that they are remembered. And that... They don't become... A sort

of comfortable part of the past. Of necessity, it is in the past. That

is natural. But I would like Dunblane to be an uncomfortable

past. I would like them to be remembered, I would like that

incident to be remembered. I would like people to understand that... I

think we have a responsibility to the living and I think the best I

can do under half of Mair is to make sure the UK, Scotland, has the

censorship to gun ownership. You said you did not want to come across

as a sad woman. I am not. I have a very comfortable and happy life. I

remarried. I have another daughter. How would you like Mhairie to be

remembered? She was only five when she died. What makes you happy when

you think of her. I am not sure I do feel happy when I think of Mhairi. A

friend to be that the word bereaved comes from old English and it means

to have something stolen from you. That really helped when my friend

discuss that with me. That is how it feels. I think of her as something

of great value. Something of great joy that has been stolen from me

forever. I think that is how I feel about it. It is not really possible

to look back at Mhairi and be happy because so much of what I enjoyed in

the first five years of her life was that working progress, it was about

becoming and it did not become, it did not progress. It is not really

possible to be happy about her. Isabel Wilson speaking

to Jackie Bird there. And the documentary Dunblane:

Our Story is on BBC One Scotland Joining me now are Stephen

Naysmith from 'The Herald' and the journalist and

broadcaster Liz Leonard. When you hear the testimony from

Isobel, you think two decades on, those memories still so painful.

What are your memories of that? It was funny watching the tape, I

remember watching, I was sitting at home and I remember seeing the

flowers. It was interesting seeing those flowers again. I don't know if

that is when it started because I think a year later Princess down

died. -- Diana. It was very moving to see the flowers. Isobel seemed

completely remarkable. I don't think she need fear that Dunblane will

ever be forgotten. It was a seminal moment in the country are certainly

in my lifetime, we had never experienced anything like that. That

was her concern, that those children were not forgotten. But that memory

still remains quite vivid. I don't think it will easily be forgotten.

There was a sense at the time of a loss of innocence. I remember at the

time, people feeling this was not the type of thing that happened in

Scotland. You heard about these things happening in America and

suddenly it was upon us. I don't think people will forget it very

easily. That was a remarkable interview. Very poignant, the way

she was talking about that loss of potential which is what made it so

powerful. Another thing she was concerned about is the possible

relaxation of gun laws, that we are becoming possibly desensitised to

some of these issues and she thinks we have to be very aware of that. I

think we do need to be aware of it. I don't think in the UK we are

becoming desensitised to it, even though we obviously see what is

happening in other parts of the world, so very quickly. I think

anybody in the UK who sees... That loss of innocence Stephen was

talking about, and we think of some similar circumstances in America, in

schools, and it has been Obama's desire to make that his priority and

he hasn't managed it. And yet, the death rate in the US by firearms is

30 times higher than the UK and I think that is something to be proud

of. I think the snowdrop campaign was very effective, handguns were

banned. It is not just had an impact on the availability of guns for

people who, for whatever reason might be moved to even contemplate

something like that,. It is so essential that remains in place. And

that we are aware that guns should not be widely available. To Want

pick up on another issue, the Scottish Government plans for public

sector for a named person appointed to look after. This has been going

on at the supreme court. Let's hear from two Dundee mothers opposed to

this. Completely against human life. All of this workload being put on

people. I am quite angry that this is going to be forced on me, whether

I want it or not. I don't want my child's sensitive medical data

shared with the teacher. I think you two are broadly in favour of this?

What are your concerns? Parents feeling they are being undermined

perhaps? I don't think they are being undermined, I think people are

being quite misled about this policy. The concerns being raised by

it are wildly out of proportion. This policy has been backed by

Scottish secondary teachers's association. Half a dozen children

charities in Scotland. It is supported by the health and social

care are lions. It is not a controversial policy. There is a lot

of scaremongering about it. The invitations regards to the rights of

family life. They have said there will be no intrusion into family

life and I think there is a lot of misinformation going on. Do you

understand parents's concerns, some parents might be religious and some

might be secular and there might be different ways of deciding how to

bring up a child. I think that is a valid point. This named person, I

think it is important they do not affect that relationship. People are

being home-schooled now because they don't want a certain curriculum to

be followed. That does not mean to say though, that curriculum isn't

checked and monitors. It is interesting, it is 20 years since

Dunblane, it is 30 years since Esther runs in founded child line

this year. In a way, Childline was done as a response because there

were not avenues children could turn to when they felt the need to speak

to someone outside the family. The me, having a named person, they are

all responsible professionals. I understand parents's concerns but I

think when you read the intention behind the bill, and the various

safeguards and the experts to put it together, I think this makes sense

and hopefully, it will guard against the likes of another baby P because

they will have some constant in their lives. A lot of people talking

about this, opposed to it and some people saying, maybe resources are

spread too thinly. The named person might have too many children to look

after. There is a real issue there, what use is the named person if it

is ahead teacher of a school of hundreds of children? --

headteacher. That is not really what the debate has focused around. It

hasn't focused around the real questions they may be. For example,

the campaign has been talking about the cost of it and they have lumped

together at the cost of all the health visitors in Scotland and the

child protection system and said that is the cost. What it is not.

You would have to pay for child protection systems and health

visitors. Thank you Bury for joining me.

We'll be back with you tomorow night at the usual time,