THE day after March 13th. Another raw morning. A fresh fall of snow. And the people of Dunblane awoke to the chilling reality of an enduring nightmare.
As the streets of this torn town came to life, there were some signs of normality. But only some. Many shops stayed closed. In others, darkened, staff stood watching the media at work. It was hard work. Hardened hacks hesitated. Cameramen, often the butt of complaint, worried about intrusion.
Some locals were happy to stop and talk. Others marched past eyes firmly set forward. One woman, trailing her husband on the narrow pavement, smiled sympathetically. As an obviously anguished Mr Michael Forsyth the Scottish Secretary, put it on Wednesday morning, this is the last place on earth such an atrocity would have been expected. Outside the press centre at Victoria Hall a couple of policemen and local clergy could be heard muttering about "the media circus". But for the moment at least, Dunblane is proving tolerant as reporters attempt to do their job.
For many in this successful, prosperous town, there was no thought of work yesterday. It was a time for giving and seeking comfort. Tonight the Church of Scotland Cathedral will be packed as the people gather for a vigil, to mourn those who died, to weep with those who suffered and grieve.
As the clock-struck noon yesterday, it was hushed and quiet. Small pockets of people, friends, families, sat in silence or whispered among themselves. And at the midday prayer service the minister led them as they turned "from the pain and suffering of this life, to the Lord". She and we prayed "that peace might return to this place". She prayed for the power for understanding of "the peace that passeth all understanding".
She prayed "for all those who grieve, and for those who have not yet learned how to grieve, who are still numb." In the quiet of his sitting room, Canon Basil O'Sullivan spoke of his shock and disbelief at the young lives brought to such brutal and premature end in just three minutes of incomprehensible madness and evil.
The canon, a Cork man, 40 years in Scotland, was summoned to the inter-denominational school as the tragedy unfolded. He could do nothing to console, but hug and kiss and cry with those who had lost their loved ones. "I've never seen such dread in all my life", he told me yesterday.
Canon O'Sullivan lost three of his young parishioners. Two more lie seriously injured, another, two count among the "walking wounded".
At 11 o'clock on Wednesday night he went with one couple to identify their dead son. Why the long wait? I asked him. "He shot them through their faces", came the horrifying reply. "Or at least he aimed at their faces. And they couldn't be immediately identified because their teacher was dead."
Careful of the family's right to privacy, he confided that the distraught grandparents were expected shortly from Ireland. Asked how he felt at this ordeal, Canon O'Sullivan said of the little boy: "I thought he looked like an angel." The small body wrapped in white had reminded him of a child "just baptised" or "attending his first communion".
Thomas Hamilton used four handguns in Wednesday's slaughter. Wondering aloud about the precision of his attacks, the canon said: "There was nothing random about this. This was the targeting of five and six-year-olds." In most cases, as he understood it, "the bullets went through the brains" of Hamilton's victims.
It was impossible, lie said, "to read into this man's mind".
Certainly he had witnessed nothing like it in his 40-year ministry. "People will remember this to the day they die," he told me: "I'm sure I will."
Canon O'Sullivan likened the murders to "the crucifixion And the young mothers, heartbroken at the loss of their sons and daughters, "remind me of Mary", he said.
As to what he would say to his congregation come Sunday, the canon had no idea: "God help anyone looking for words, for there are no words."
Sunday, March 17th, 1996. Mothering Sunday. But there will be little celebration here, in the town named after the Celtic Saint Blane who hailed from Bangor, in Co Down.
In Crawford's bakery yesterday there were special "Mother's Day" cakes on offer. But there were few takers. And in Meldrums newsagents along the way, a young mother and her daughter held bunches of flowers. They would join the mounting pile at Dunblane Primary School.