Dunblane cathedral

Dunblane is back on the international stage again following the massacre of 28 people in Newtown, Connecticut.
It eerily replicates what happened in this small Scottish town nearly two decades ago when a lone gunman entered a classroom and shot 16 pupils and their teacher before shooting himself.


Now the minister of Dunblane's medieval cathedral, the Rev. Colin McIntosh, has contacted people in Newtown offering support and friendship.
He lived through the shootings in 1996.

Even today twenty years on, it is difficult to imagine how such an atrocious crime could have been committed in what is a gentle, douce Scottish town.
In fact we were on holiday in France when it happened and we refused to believe it was Dunblane convinced the folk who had told us had got the name wrong.

The American massacre has brought it all vividly back to us.