Lockerbie in Scotland lies just off the A74(M) motorway in Dumfries & Galloway.
On 21st December 1988 the town hit the headlines world wide for all the wrong reasons. Pan Am Flight 103 had exploded in mid air due to a bomb hidden on board and the wreckage was scattered over the town. 270 people from 21 different countries lost their lives, including 11 on the ground. It was the worst air disaster of the decade.
For some time, the disaster defined the town. The name Lockerbie was synonymous with grief and despair, but if you visit the town today you will find it typical of any of its size in that area of Scotland.
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The people have been moulded by the events of 1988. There is a friendliness and solidarity that is clear to any visitor that can only come from hard times and scratch below the surface and you may be surprised at what you find.
The best place to start is the Dryfesdale Lodge visitors’ centre. This is a former cemetery worker’s cottage, on the edge of town, which houses an exhibition of the history of Lockerbie from prehistoric times. The panels and displays give an excellent overview of the people and places and you can pick up a lot of information in a very short time. Whilst there is it worth taking a stroll through the cemetery to the Lockerbie Memorial Garden. This can be quite an emotional place. Sitting in the peaceful garden it is hard not to be moved reading the names etched on to the stones. What hits the most is the number of people with the same surname then the horror slowly dawns about whoever planted the bomb didn’t just kill hundreds of people, but wiped out whole families.
If you head out of town to the south, towards Dalton, you will find the remains of the Hallmuir Prisoner of War camp. The camp was home to up to 450 Ukranians who had volunteered to serve in the Waffen SS during World War 2. The Ukranian PoW’s built a chapel that still holds Ukranian services once a month.
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