Dunblane Tapes documentary lays bare parents’ grief 30 years on
The new film The Dunblane Tapes returns to the day that reshaped a small town and a nation: dunblane on 13 March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton opened fire in the primary school gym. The Channel 4 documentary, compiled from video the bereaved made in the aftermath and fresh interviews, runs tonight at 9pm and is timed to mark the 30th anniversary.
Dunblane documentary built from a father's camcorder
The documentary uses footage shot by John Crozier after he lost his five-year-old daughter, Emma. Crozier filmed gatherings of bereaved parents, and many conversations with his friend Les Morton, who had lost his five-year-old daughter, Emily. Those tapes — alongside contemporary news clips used sparingly — form the backbone of the film and follow the families as they try to continue ordinary life amid grief.
The attack in the school gym
On 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton entered the primary school gym as children were beginning a PE lesson and opened fire. One account in the film notes that he shot dead 15 primary schoolchildren aged between five and six and their teacher, Gwen Mayor, in the gym; some were shot at point-blank range after being incapacitated by earlier bullets, and a 16th child died on the way to hospital. Other coverage of the massacre describes 16 children killed along with Gwen Mayor. One account says Hamilton entered with four handguns and 743 rounds of ammunition and that the attack lasted just under four minutes; another account says he shot 17 people at the school and then killed himself.
Voices from the school: teachers and pupils
Fiona Eadington, who was deputy headteacher and in charge of the infant department, speaks in the documentary for the first time publicly about that morning. She recalls a frosty morning when her car would not unlock and she got into the car through the boot. It was an infant assembly morning with Easter hymns; the assembly had finished just before half past 9. Eadington says she sang with pupils to take their minds off the horror and that she was one of the first people on the scene in the gym. She told the filmmakers, "I should have been able to protect them, " and also says, "Those children were given to my care and I didn’t protect them. "
Parents' grief and small moments recorded on tape
Crozier’s footage captures small, heartbreaking details: Emma’s three-year-old brother Jack making a tray of fairy cakes with his grandmother and saying he planned to grow up to be "a big baker. " The film shows Crozier and Morton years later, white-haired and remembering; Morton tells of being interrupted in a meeting and hearing there had been a shooting. On the tapes Crozier asks, "Is it like a photograph?" and Morton replies, "No, it’s like a live picture. " Morton says, "Nobody would think it’s possible... I feel venomous every day. My child's gone. Never to be seen again. " Other parents in the film include Mick North, who lost his five-year-old daughter Sophie and who had lost his wife to illness three years earlier.
How the massacre shaped law and memory
The film places the stories of the bereaved alongside the campaign that followed. The Snowdrop Petition — named after the flowers that were blooming in Dunblane in early March when the children died — is woven into the narrative as the tangible political response that arose from parents' grief. Coverage in and around the documentary links the massacre to the government move that led to a ban on private handguns in the UK and to new restrictions on firearms.
The Dunblane Tapes screens on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm and is presented as part of events marking the massacre’s 30th anniversary in March; the film gathers previously unseen home video, survivor testimony and the memories of those who were first on the scene.
