UPDATED: Oct. 29, 2018 at 5:11 p.m.

When Joseph Holland’s flight from Lockerbie, Scotland, landed in Boston, he was struck by the neon lights illuminating the streets. He was on his way to Syracuse University, but for a moment, he was absorbed by culture shock — the neon lights of Boston were nothing like the hills and fields that surround the familiar country roads of Holland’s home in Scotland.

Holland and his classmate Harriet Graham flew to Syracuse in August as Lockerbie Scholars. Every year, two graduates from Lockerbie Academy, a secondary school, spend a year at SU as Lockerbie Scholars. They represent 11 people who died in the Scottish town when Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed in a terrorist attack in 1988. Of the 270 people who died in the tragedy, 35 were SU students.

The Scottish students also represent former Lockerbie Scholar Andrew McClune, who died on campus during his year abroad.

Graham and Holland will give speeches at an annual rose laying ceremony on Friday and work alongside 35 Remembrance Scholars to help coordinate SU’s Remembrance Week. Holland said one of their goals is to make sure people become more informed about the disaster.

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On Dec. 21, 1988, Graham’s father Ben Graham was working in his farm workshop three miles northwest of Lockerbie when he heard a bang.

It was loud, “like a quarry being blown,” he said in an email. He said he thought it could have been a fighter jet crashing down. He later learned what happened just as everyone else did — Pan Am Flight 103 had crashed in Lockerbie.

Many students at SU have never heard of Lockerbie, Holland and Graham said. But the town is recognized for its connection to the disaster, Holland said, especially during Remembrance Week.

Lockerbie’s identity is not defined by the disaster, Graham said. But remnants of the bombing are scattered across High Street, the academy and the vast farmland that surrounds the town of 4,000 people.

“Lockerbie has been shaped by the disaster. It’s what it got its recognition for,” Holland said. “But to me Lockerbie’s got more than just that.”

A memorial rock with flowers at it base rests at Sherwood Crescent, the site where the wings of Pan Am Flight 103 came crashing down. A Garden of Remembrance sits in the back of Dryfesdale Cemetery, where flowers circle around a granite memorial. An unmarked patch of tarmac covers a spot where part of the engine pierced the road and resembles a normal road repair, Graham said.

About 4,000 people live in Lockerbie, a rural town in southwestern Scotland, 75 miles away from Glasgow. Daily Orange File Photo

Graham knows Lockerbie as a market town. She remembers opening up the academy windows on Wednesdays and hearing the nearby market on High Street, where people from all over Scotland bid for sheep, she said.

The town makes her laugh, Graham said. Lining the sidewalks of High Street in the town center are sculptures of sheep — five on the right side of the road and two on the left side of the road.

“It’s definitely a place where you’ll walk down the street and see at least four people you know,” she said.

The town is small — Graham sometimes travels to nearby Dumfries or takes the train to Glasgow or Edinburgh on the weekends.

“My friends and I made the most of what we had,” Holland said, of what he does for fun in Lockerbie. 

Holland lives 15 minutes away from Lockerbie, in a cottage that rests on flat land with hills in the distance. A small road leads deeper into the countryside. His family moved there on a whim when he was seven, said his father, Philip. Philip longed to share a quiet country lifestyle with his family.

Holland still attended school in Lockerbie, but after classes ended in June, he saw less of the town on a daily basis. If his parents couldn’t drive him, Holland would need to bike to the nearest bus stop to get into town. He felt empty, he said, without the community in Lockerbie.

“I lost a sense of routine and seeing familiar faces,” he said. “It just felt like losing the sense of familiarity.”

Holland and Graham have grown close to Syracuse while they’ve been away from home, spending their days in Sadler Hall, two floors apart from each other.

They have spent their weekends at the Carrier Dome, with an outdoors club and working with Remembrance Scholars. Both scholars have adjusted to having people around them constantly, after graduating in a class of 35 students.

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In the past few weeks, Graham has mulled over the thought of going home next spring, she said. The clouds and rain remind her more of Scotland, she said.

Next fall she’ll be at a university in Glasgow, where she said she’ll have more free time and will be closer to home. Still, she said the thought of leaving upsets her.

“I love it. I can’t imagine going home,” she said.

Many kids from Lockerbie will go to universities, Graham said. Others become farmers, plumbers or carpenters. Most will move on from Lockerbie, a town with an aging population and a rural setting, she said.
“Everybody will know each other at some point in their lives.” she said. “They want you to get out of Lockerbie and find something bigger.”

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, Graham and Holland were misquoted. They did not say they get bored in Lockerbie. The Daily Orange regrets this error. 

Published on October 28, 2018 at 10:01 pm

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326