This year marks 37 years since the deadliest terror attack on UK soil. But the memories of the victims are being kept alive – thanks to a local church.
On 21 December1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, the nose of the plane landed right outside of Tundergarth Church. It quickly became a staging post for Scotland Police, the British Army and the RAF teams as they searched 845 square miles for the bodies of the 259 passengers and crew, as well as for the wreckage and clues. The church was a place where they could keep warm and sleep – if they were able to – away from the biting cold of winter.
The funeral services of several flight 103 passengers took place in the church and three were laid to rest in the churchyard. But the church and the local community never forgot the victims.
It was local women who sorted through the luggage and tried to reunite it with families and loved ones of the victims. It was through doing this that one woman found two girls – strangers – who died in the explosion, shared a birthday with each other. Every year, on their birthday, she leaves flowers at the memorial garden in the small town for the two girls. Never forgotten.
Tundergarth Church also built a Remembrance Room near the entrance of the church. It’s a space where you will find photos of all the passengers. There are two computers, where you can read up on all of the victims. Families and loved ones have contributed to these pages; a lasting legacy to them. The church was bought from the Church of Scotland by The Tundergarth Kirk’s Trust a few years ago – so they could keep the church open as a space for worship and remembrance.
But the building was in terrible shape. And just after Christmas in 2023, the church suffered devastating storm damage.
Almost forced to close
“There was water physically pouring down the inside of the church,” Lori, Chair of the board of Trustees at the Trust, shared with us. “It was just evident then that there were a huge number of problems allowing the water to come into the church... All of the bell tower was saturated; it was just one thing after another.”
Lori and her team were determined to keep the building open, but costs were mounting. Tundergarth Church is a place of pilgrimage for people near and far. More than 50,000 people have signed the visitors’ book in the Remembrance Room, with people coming from all over to pay their respects.
They also hosted Syracuse University’s Hendricks Chapel Choir for a special remembrance concert to commemorate the 25 Syracuse University students who were killed in the bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103.
“It’s been really daunting,” continues Lori. “Actually, a huge amount of pressure because it’s one thing, being able to tell the small number of parishioners that they might not have a church to worship in every few weeks. It’s very difficult to then think about the prospect of closing the doors to the national and international visitors that we get here who come to pay respects to those who were killed in the attack...
“People travel from all over the world to be here, and they come year after year, they come unannounced, they come at all different times of the day, the year. That’s why we’re open 365 [days a year].
And the thought of having to close was really heart wrenching for a lot of us. So, it was a lot of pressure to try and find the money.”
Determined to keep the church open
Thankfully help was on hand. Last year, we awarded Tundergarth Church a £30,000 National Churches Trust Grant to help to pay for urgent repairs to the roof and gutters to help make the church watertight again. We were also able to award the church a £10,000 Wolfson Fabric Repair Grant from the Wolfson Foundation, one of our partners on whose behalf we award grants.
“We were absolutely delighted and relieved when we had the grant application confirmed, because at that point we were really at the tipping point,” explains Lori. “We had nothing left in the bank really to support the work we were doing.
“We as a Trust want to say how incredibly grateful we are to National Churches Trust and the Wolfson Foundation for awarding us vital funding to help repair our beloved church.
“Our repair project has been like opening a can of worms, and it seemed like at one stage we were very nearly facing complete closure as we had so much water damage and were struggling to keep the building safe for use by our parishioners and visitors alike.
“At the heart of everything that we do, we want to keep the church open.”
It is thanks to our generous Friends and donors that we are able to help churches – like Tundergarth – keep their doors open. But the demand is growing. We are only able to award grants to one in five churches in our Large Grants programme. And with changes to The Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme, churches are struggling more than ever to pay for repairs.
This story first appeared in our Friends magazine.
