MEMORIAL events marking the 30th anniversary of the Lockerbie air disaster are to be held with the aim of sending a message of peace and hope across the world.
Organisers of a peace walk and special service at the town say they want to shift the association of tragedy with the town to instead recognise the “courageous community” who responded to it with “love, compassion and kindness”.
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The pilgrimage at the ancient and dramatic landmark of Burnswark Hill near Lockerbie will be preceded by a remembrance service at Tundergarth Parish Church, which has a Book of Remembrance and is close to where the nose cone of the jumbo jet came to rest after it was blown up by a terrorist bomb.
“The people who have been organising this service, and the walk up a neighbouring hill the next day, wanted something that would focus on hope and the future,” said the Very Rev Dr Alan McDonald, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, who is leading the service and has family links to the area.
“We have put together a service with the theme ‘The Pilgrimage to Peace’. Hopefully, it will link together with the physical pilgrimage that will take place the next day. We will seek hope and peace for all on December 21-22.”
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Dr Jan Hogarth, one of the organisers of the pilgrimage walk up Burnswark which overlooks the area where Pan Am Flight 103 came down, said she was “delighted” that Dr McDonald was leading the service.
“I hope he can help shift people’s perspective from an area associated with a tragedy to a special spiritual landscape with a courageous community, who held this tragedy with love, compassion and kindness,” she said.
“Thirty years on, you would hope humanity would be working towards achieving peace on earth. We don’t have time to look backwards, we must work together to achieve this ambition.”
Dr McDonald is standing in for the current Moderator, the Rt Rev Susan Brown, who is unable to attend. She laid flowers at the Lockerbie Air Disaster Memorial, which lies within a Garden of Remembrance at Dryfesdale Lodge, during a recent visit to the town.
Rev Adam Dillon, Clerk to the Church of Scotland Presbytery of Annandale and Eskdale, said: “The horror of the night will live on in the memories of those who lived in Tundergarth and Lockerbie.
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“This 30th anniversary gives the communities a chance to focus on looking forward – drawing on the dignity and resilience that has been required of them since 1988.
“My thoughts and prayers remain with all affected.”
Scottish harpist Wendy Stewart is performing at the church service, which begins at 3pm.
Pan Am Flight 103 exploded 31,000 feet over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988. A total of 259 people on board the New York-bound Boeing 747 – known as “Clipper Maid of the Seas” – were killed, along with 11 people on the ground.
Libyan Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was the only person to be convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103.
Megrahi was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment but was released from a Scottish prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Megrahi died at his home in Tripoli in 2012 aged 60.
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