This week marks twenty-five years since an armed man walked into a Scottish school and murdered a classroom of five-year-olds along with their primary school teacher.

A total of seventeen people died and several others were injured during the rampage. The story is well known so I won’t go into it here except to say that the Dunblane atrocity prompted a tightening of gun control legislation in Scotland. The law was changed to prohibit the ownership of guns without good cause.

A generation of local children were of course lost but at least steps were taken to minimise the risk of it ever happening again.
The healing process led to the establishment of a memorial garden on the site of the murders and three local churches feature stain-glass windows dedicated to the lost children.
My personal favourite however is the remembrance stone within Dunblane Cathedral. It’s a simple looking piece of sculpture in the form of a standing stone and maybe two metres tall but it maybe has a message about gun control for folk on both sides of the pond.
Alongside quotations from WH Auden “We are linked as children in a circle dancing” and Emile Victor Rieu “He called a little child to him” two American men of letters feature on the stone in the form of words from Henry Stoddart “the spirit of a little child” and Bayard Taylor “But still I dream that somewhere there must be the spirit of a child that waits for me”.
It’s a powerful set of words.
Location: Dunblane FK15, UK

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