"The town itself has moved on"

[What follows is excerpted from a report in today’s edition of the Daily Record headlined BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull returns to scene of Lockerbie bombing for final show:]

BBC Breakfast’s Bill Turnbull marked his final day on the show by returning to Lockerbie - where he made his name as a young reporter with a series of bulletins on the Pan Am 103 disaster.

Turnbull was a BBC correspondent in Scotland when Pan Am 103 was blown up over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.

And to mark his departure after 15 years on the sofa the presenter returned to Lockerbie for the first time since the atrocity, which claimed 270 lives.

Archive footage included a piece to camera by a young Turnbull.

He said at the time: “This may have been one of the shortest days on the calendar year but for Lockerbie it has been the longest in its history.”

During his return Turnbull, 60, recalled “a scene of ordered chaos” as he arrived in the town more than a quarter of a century ago.

His report included new interviews with retired newsagent Alister Moffat and ex-councillor Marjorie McQueen.

On Sherwood Crescent, where the plane’s wings and the part of the fuselage left a 47m crater, McQueen told him: “It does change your whole perception in life.

“Maybe my husband wouldn’t agree but I thought I was quite house proud and breaking a dish was the end of the world.

“And now, it doesn’t matter.”

Walking in the town centre Turnbull recalled: “When I was last here in December 1988 it was an almost surreal experience.

“There were hundreds of people here from the world’s press and it was as if the town had been rained upon by pieces of metal.

“There were rivets and fragments of debris all over the street.

“And today, while the world still associates Lockerbie with that appalling event the town itself has moved on.”

Turnbull also spoke to pupils at Lockerbie Academy about an exchange scheme set up with Syracuse University in New York, which lost 35 students in the bombing.

His report concluded: “After 27 years the Lockerbie disaster remains the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil but just looking around today you would not know what happened here.

“Perhaps that’s as it should be.”