DUNBLANE. A place they named after a Celtic saint who hailed from Bangor, Co Down. A stopping-off point - a gateway to the Highlands. Not a place where much happens or is expected to. Home to a Church of Scotland cathedral, the 7,000-odd inhabitants seem divided as to whether they constitute a city or a town. Some think the "city" designation a touch pretentious. Far from a poor place, it isn't stuffy either. A place from, which to commute to the cities, its pace more gentle. A nice place to return to at night. Known far beyond its environs as a desirable place to live, a perfect place to bring up children

WEDNESDAY, March 13th, 1996: The word spread fast. And the images will surely live forever. Barely half-an-hour since mothers and fathers had dropped their children at Dunblane Primary. The sound of laughter filled the raw morning air. Now they returned, some in cars, others pushing buggies. Dark dread lined the faces of frantic parents.

"Something terrible" had happened. They knew not what. But it was truly terrible. They hardly dared hope. Fear almost paralysed some at the school gates. Then the diversion to the big house next door. And the long wait, to learn if their loved ones were among the living or dead.

In his London office, the Scottish Secretary, Michael Forsyth, struggled with the enormity of the unfolding tragedy. As he explained later, it seemed too big in scale to be true. But local councillors, in London for an education conference that day, knew the awful truth. They joined the first hordes of the world's media on the I p.m. shuttle for Edinburgh as the world recoiled in horror at the news. Dunblane - a place many had never heard of - instantly became known as the scene of Britain's worst mass murder.

Shortly after morning assembly, the 29 boys and girls of the Primary 1 class had made their way happily to the gymnasium. At around 9.15 a.m. Thomas Hamilton burst upon them, unleashing a hail of bullets, which in three minutes claimed the lives of 16 children and their teacher, Gwenne Mayor. As the surviving and the dead lay in pools of blood, Hamilton turned one of his four handguns on himself.

Ambulance men found teachers and children in a scene of unbelievable carnage: "They were kneeling on the floor, covered in blood and cradling the heads and bodies of those wee souls with bullet holes in them. It wasn't so much the dying, it was five-year-old children looking unbelievingly at bullet holes in their arms and legs, and who couldn't comprehend what was happening to them."

Head teacher Ron Taylor would speak later of his powerlessness in face of such evil: "It was an appalling mess. We did what we could. We tried to stem the blood. We just did what we could. It was just so little that we could do.

And as doors closed on private grief 11-year-old Laura Bryce described the massacre, as she had witnessed it from an adjoining classroom overlooking the gym. As the terrified five- and six-year-olds ran screaming, she saw Hamilton: "He was wearing black earmuffs and a big black cap. He was the kind of man you have nightmares about."

The youngster and her friends dived for cover as bullets ricocheted into their classroom: "The bullets came through the windows and doors. One went through a friend's chair just as she was getting up. I thought we weren't going to see each other again."

For some of the parents of the Primary 1 class, there would be joyous, tear-filled reunions. Robert Weir was at work in Dundee when he heard the first reports. He spent, "the longest half-hour of my life trying to telephone home, before driving the 40 miles back to the school like a man possessed.

He had no memory of his journey, save the regular and increasingly sombre bulletins - and mounting fear for his little boy. Six-year-old Stewart was safe. But his father was relieved and horrified in equal measure. That reaction was common to all the parents whose children had survived the nightmare. As moving as any this week was the woman who spoke tearfully of her joy at finding her child alive, and her simultaneous feelings of terrible "guilt".

The certainty is that the survivors in this small community will share the burden with their bereaved and broken-hearted for a long time to come.

Only one child emerged from Primary 1 physically unscathed by Hamilton's brief but deadly reign of terror. Little Robbie Hurst was found by a teacher cowering under the body of his dead friend. The gym kit he was wearing was saturated in the blood of classmates. Robbie had tried to push his friend Kevin Hassell and another boy into an alcove as Hamilton stormed the gym.

His grandfather said on Thursday: "We were told that poor Kevin died lying beside Robbie who had tried to save him. We still cannot believe our boy got away and we are feeling terribly mixed emotions.

"On the one hand we are overjoyed that he got out alive. But we are upset for the other wee children who died and for their parents."

HIS grief-filled weekend finds Dunblane's survivors facing the ordeals of living. In the days ahead the community must brace itself to bury its dead.

For the people here and for many further afield tomorrow, Mothering Sunday, will be a day of overwhelming sadness. For Dr Catherine Morton, who tended the injured at Stirling Royal Infirmary, later to learn that she had lost her daughter, Emily. For nursery nurse, Kareen Turner, who waited a long, lonely five hours to hear that her little Megan (5) had also died. For all who died, and for all who will live long with the suffering and the loss.

Questions are already being asked. In time, in the public inquiry and elsewhere, they may be answered.

Why separate police and local authority inquiries, and seemingly widespread public suspicion, failed to put an end to the activities of Thomas Hamilton, a man fixated by firearms and young boys? Why was he deemed fit to accumulate an arsenal of weapons? What if anything - short of turning our schools into fortresses - can be done to prevent another bogey man murdering our children?

In time. For this time, there are no words. Evil. Madness. Insanity. These reflect only the inadequacy of language. As Canon Basil O'Sullivan found on Wednesday, we can but sit, stand and weep with those who mourn.