Lockerbie’s local newspaper has marked 30 years since the air disaster which will be forever associated with the Scottish border town.
The Annandale Observer has commemorated the bombing, which claimed the lives of 270 people on 21 December 1988, with a memorial front page and a special eight-page commemorative feature inside.
Chief reporter Amanda Kennedy, a Lockerbie native born since the d isaster, spoke to a variety of different townsfolk about their memories of the night for the edition, many of whom had never spoken publicly before.
Among them was Observer photographer Steve Matthew, who was one of the first there on the night.
Observer editor Fiona Reid told HTFP: “As the Lockerbie paper, we wanted to mark this milestone anniversary with something special.
“We’ve been working hard to produce a fitting tribute that remembers the victims of that tragic night, but also showcases the Lockerbie of today, which has moved on but will never forget.”
A run down of all the memorial events is also included in the edition, published yesterday, along with a more positive feature with comments from residents on what they love about the town of Lockerbie in 2018.
A report on the legacy of the Syracuse scholarship, which sees two Lockerbie students travel to America to study at Syracuse University each year, is also highlighted.
Thirty-five students from the university were killed in the tragedy, for which Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi later accepted his country’s responsibility.
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The 30th anniversary of the Lockerbie air disaster gives me chance to recall one of the most unforgettable afternoons of my journalistic career (parts of this post will make no sense whatsoever to today’s generation of journalists).
At 1pm on Thursday December 21 1988, Sam Holliday, Sean Atkins and I did what we did every Thursday lunchtime. We left the Tamworth Herald office in Aldergate, Tamworth and retired to the Tavern in the Town pub for a, umm, liquid lunch.
At about 2.15pm, we headed back to the office and as we always did, called at the newspaper kiosk in the bus station to pick up a copy of the Tamworth edition of the Birmingham Evening Mail, to see if there was anything in it we should be aware of before that week’s Herald went on the presses (which were in a building at the back of the editorial offices) at about 2.30pm.
We were horrified, not only to see the entire front page wiped out by a picture of the downed plane, but also confirmation from the Mail’s Tamworth reporters, John Slater and Jim Guthrie that a girl from Kingsbury (a village in our patch) had been aboard and (obviously) been killed.
We raced back to the office and alerted the editor, who stopped the presses. The front of the paper was completely remade (I suspect by the late great John Bennett) and that week’s Herald included the news.
Covering breaking news is routine now, obviously, but if we hadn’t done what we did, the Herald wouldn’t have had the news until the following Friday – eight days later. How things have changed.
The Tavern is now closed and derelict (although has been bought to be revamped), all the people mentioned here have moved on in vastly different ways – but I’m sure none of us will ever forget that afternoon
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