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CHAS’ & RUBY’S |
While enroute to Stirling, we passed a sign, “Lockerbie XX miles” (or the like).
Ruby immediately asked, “Why does that city sound familiar?”
I replied that it was where “that Pan Am plane went down and killed all those people.”
FROM WIKIPEDIA.COM:
On December 21, 1988, … [Pan Am Flight 103] … was destroyed as it flew over Lockerbie … when 12 to 16 oz (340 to 450 g) of plastic explosive was detonated in its forward cargo hold, triggering a sequence of events that led to the rapid destruction of the aircraft. … The death toll was 270 people from 21 countries, including 11 people in the town of Lockerbie. …
when the wings, still attached by a piece of fuselage, hit 13 Sherwood Crescent at more than 500 mph and exploded, creating a crater 47 metres (155 ft) long and with a volume of 560 m³ (730 yd³), vaporising several houses and their foundations, and damaging 21 others so badly they had to be demolished. Four members of one family, Jack and RosalindSomerville and their children, Paul and Lynsey, died when their house at 15 Sherwood Crescent exploded. A fireball rose above the houses and moved toward thenearby Glasgow–Carlisle motorway (A74(M)), scorching cars in the southbound lanes, leading motorists and local residents to believe that there had been a meltdown at the nearby Chapelcross nuclear power plant. The only house left standing intact in the area belonged toFather Patrick Keegans, Lockerbie's Roman Catholic priest. |
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 13 Sherwood Crescent, December, 1988 [Pic from the Internet] |
Ruby insisted that we had to take a side-trip to visit Lockerbie. So, we did!
We took the exit to go East of the motorway, and drove through the village searching for the Pan Am 103 “memorial” that I knew had been built somewhere. But, not seeing it anywhere (or any SIGNS directing us to where it was), we turned around and were heading back to the motorway when we saw this Church and its adjacent graveyard. It was so gorgeous that we stopped to get out and take these pix.
When researching Lockerbie to do this website, I discovered that
the church we stopped at was “Dryfesdale Parish Church.”
As you can see (above), Dryfesdale Parish Church had a “graveyard” around it.
But, “Dryfesdale Cemetery” is outside the village of Lockerbie,
West from the motorway!
and THAT is where the Pan Am 103 memorial is!
In the “Garden of Remembrance”:
Ah, well. NEXT TIME I visit Scotland, I’ll stop there!
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We arrive at AIRTH CASTLE HOTEL & Spa Resort
c-d-miller@neb.rr.com
