First reporter on the scene of Lockerbie bombing dies, aged 82

[This is the headline over a report in today’s edition of the Daily Record.  It reads in part:]

The first reporter on the scene of the Lockerbie bombing has died 25 years after the tragedy.

Former Daily Record district newsman Frank Ryan, who was 82, was remembered yesterday by ex-colleagues as “one of the nicest men in the business”.

Local BBC journalist and author Giancarlo Rinaldi said: “Frank was the first man to a lot of stories. You’d turn up and Frank would already be there having spoken to everybody and have the story.”

Frank’s wife Avril, who wrote the TV column for the Daily Record, said: “Frank was with the Record for 38 years, then decided to go freelance. Lockerbie happened just five months later.

“We’d been in Lockerbie on the night and I remember Frank saying to a local, ‘Anything happening?’

“The lad replied, ‘Nothing ever happens in Lockerbie’. We’d just got home when Frank got a tip-off. He was the first journalist on the scene and his work went all over the world.”

Last year, Frank recalled the night: “I gazed in disbelief at blazing houses, streets littered with debris and chunks of aircraft.

“I watched the townsfolk, many of whom I knew, wandering around. They asked ‘What on earth has happened?’”