Lockerbie Remembered

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Lockerbie Remembered

Postby peter » Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:28 pm

Twenty years ago today I had been working near Southampton for several months. My wife back home in Glasgow with our four sons. The youngest was about 12 months and the oldest was 11. I had done some Christmas shopping before heading north. Normally I would have flown or taken the train but loaded with presents I decided to drive. My cars brake servo was also needing fixed.
Heading north I drove listening to tapes as my radio was not working. Grinding my way home in heavy traffic past places like Birmingham the day wore on. As I crossed the border it was wet and windy. A few miles south of Lockerbie the mass of northbound traffic came to a complete halt. To the north the sky had an ominous glow. Rumour spread down the lines of stalled traffic. IRA bomb in petrol station. This was at the time of the troubles so what else could it be.
Eventually we were directed off the motorway on to side roads. The cops gave us a choice. Head west towards Ayrshire coast roads or east towards Edinburgh on country roads. I found myself behind a truck heading for Whiteinch so it seemed a good idea to follow him. However after a few miles he pulled into a layby for the night. I drove on in darkness, driving rain and wind on narrow winding roads. Through the deserted towns of Selkirk, Hawick etc.
Eventually I emerged back on to motorway at Moffat and eventually arrived home in the very early hours exhausted to a frantic wife.
It was only then I heard what had happened. A night I will never forget and am only glad it was dark as the area I drove through was where much of the plane wa spread across.
"I've seen them come and I've seen them go. And I've seen them Die"
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby glasgowken » Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:35 pm

To my shame I didn't realise the significance of today's date, just doesn't seem that long ago .
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby BrigitDoon » Sun Dec 21, 2008 9:40 pm

Twenty years indeed. The same year I lost my little bruv. Came home from the pub to an unusually subdued pair of parents.

Then they told me. One of my earliest memories is of Dad telling me of a Jumbo collision in Tenerife and here it was all over again. :cry:

When I was even younger, 100 folk from our neighbouring village of Axbridge boarded a Vickers Viscount bound for Switzerland for a weekend's shopping. The landing beacons were on the blink and the unfortunate pilot drove straight into a mountainside.

I'll have to stop now..
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby gap74 » Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:19 am

It was the night before my 14th birthday, a birthday I'd be spending at the funeral of an uncle who had died unexpectedly 6 days earlier at the age of 42 after his alcohol intake finally overwhelmed his liver. My aunty from Northants was driving up north for the funeral that night and stopped by the local hospitals to offer blood, only to be told that they didn't really expect many survivors.

Not a happy Christmas that year, by any stretch of the imagination!
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby Doorstop » Mon Dec 22, 2008 9:04 am

I think the most significant thing about the whole sorry debaclé is the fact the powers that be are considering letting Megrahi out of prison on 'compassionate' grounds ... bleeding heart liberals should hang their heads in shame, then let the bastard rot.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby red_kola » Mon Dec 22, 2008 10:17 am

Doorstop wrote:I think the most significant thing about the whole sorry debaclé is the fact the powers that be are considering letting Megrahi out of prison on 'compassionate' grounds
Indeed. They should let him out because he didn't do it.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby onyirtodd » Mon Dec 22, 2008 10:39 am

red_kola wrote:
Doorstop wrote:I think the most significant thing about the whole sorry debaclé is the fact the powers that be are considering letting Megrahi out of prison on 'compassionate' grounds
Indeed. They should let him out because he didn't do it.


I'm not entirely convinced of his guilt either. The work done by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission seems to be pointing that way too.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby Doorstop » Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:28 pm

Until proven otherwise, guilty he is.

No Brownie points for being terminally ill in my book.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby BrigitDoon » Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:40 pm

I don't think the conviction is safe. There have been governments involved and I find it difficult to believe that there haven't been rather a lot of funny handshakes.

I'm with Doorstop, though. He's guilty and stays that way until the conviction is overturned on appeal.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby Dugald » Tue Dec 23, 2008 1:46 pm

I find it rather strange that a posting i made on this topic has disappeared, and I'd be obliged to anyone if they'd inform me what became of it.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby onyirtodd » Tue Dec 23, 2008 2:10 pm

Dugald wrote:I find it rather strange that a posting i made on this topic has disappeared, and I'd be obliged to anyone if they'd inform me what became of it.


A post I made on the 'debt' thread has gone too. Possibly to do with the server upgrade(?)
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby Sharon » Tue Dec 23, 2008 2:14 pm

Sounds likely to be the case, the servers were down for maintenance (by the host) so i guess things haven't been restored from the final state but from an earlier restore point - which is a bit shit really :?
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby Dugald » Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:42 pm

Sharon wrote:Sounds likely to be the case, the servers were down for maintenance (by the host) so i guess things haven't been restored from the final state but from an earlier restore point - which is a bit shit really :?


Thank you for the information Sharon. It just occurred to me that I also wrote a response to a post by Dexter about a bicycle business in Glasgow, and both his post and mine have also been lost.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby dave2 » Wed Dec 24, 2008 1:48 am

I don't trust the current verdict, but then again I don't find the other (conspiracy/??) theories too reliable. Or should that be don;t want to. i don't want to think that 'friendly' governments blow up planes with civilians on; I don't want to think that members of an inteligence agency blow planes up because their shady dealings were to be uncovered; I don't want to think that one country would blow it up to overshadow an independence signing at the UN.

All in all it seems that:
a) the bomb may not have been contained in the item alleged, and may not have been in the location claimed
b) the person convicted was not involved in the role alleged
c) the sponsor may not have been the one alleged
d) the SCRO may have been used to alter evidence to fit with the preferred scenario
e) justice may have not been evaded or perjury committed, but fraud, conspiracy and a cavalier attitude to the truth (usually seen only in novels) employed.
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Re: Lockerbie Remembered

Postby BrigitDoon » Wed Dec 24, 2008 6:01 pm

Conspiracy theorists? These are people who used to be scared of wardrobe monsters as kids, surely?

I've not looked into the matter greatly, but I suspect Gaddafi was up the back of it. Most likely, feeling the squeeze of sanctions, he's offered Megrahi (an ex-intelligence officer) as a sacrificial pawn.
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