To the Editor:

As the 14th of December approaches, we reflected on the memorials that have been created after the appalling massacre in Scotland. It was on the 13th of March 1996, that a 43 year old gunman entered the school and shot 16 five-year-olds and their teacher.

Now in Dunblane, they have a snowdrop, Sophie North, (named after one of the children who was killed).This was the emblem of the group that successfully campaigned for changes to the handgun laws. In 1997 the Conservative government, followed by the Labour government passed two bills which make it virtually impossible to legally own a handgun in Britain.

There are also two new roses, one named Gwen Mayor, for the teacher who stood in front of her class, and died with them, and the other called Innocence.

There is also a memorial garden and in the cathedral there is also now a standing stone- It is a rectangle carved on four sides.

“He called a little child to him” by E.V. Rieu

“If there is anything that will endure the eye of God because it is pure it is the spirit of a little child” by Richard Henry Stoddard

“The spirit of a child that waits for me” by Bayard Taylor

“We are linked as children in a circle dancing” by W.H. Auden

Jim and Ruth Morley

Huntingtown Road, Newtown                    December 10, 2013