In December 1988, a plane exploded mid-air over the Borders market town, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.
Having pushed the horrific images of the Lockerbie disaster out of her mind for 35 years, TV host Lorraine Kelly unlocked undiagnosed PTSD when she finally returned to the stricken town.
“There wasn’t anybody else around. Certainly not anybody living. I don’t remember any bodies. I must have seen terrible things, but I’ve just blanked it out. Maybe that’s for the best. Somehow I’ve shut all of that out. I was very young and inexperienced and this was something on the scale that even the most hardened foreign correspondent would find difficult to process.”
A moved Lorraine says: “They were probably sitting watching telly, having a cup of tea. The kids were probably doing their homework, maybe, getting ready to go to bed, and then death came out of the sky.” She says: “I was only there reporting on it, I didn’t stay. I was able to leave and go back to my life. I don’t feel I have the right to feel traumatised.” But an expert explains to her that PTSD is the body’s natural defence to shock and trauma, and that if she is experiencing flashbacks then she has the condition – and must stop avoiding Lockerbie in order to heal.
Bryony Owen, also the youngest victim at 20 months, had been found in a field. Her mum Yvonne died too. Colin describes how before long, the hall was like a scene from a horror movie, with bodies taking up every square foot of floor space.
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