Farmer's tribute to young Lockerbie victims

The cockpit of Pan Am 103 landed in a field at Tundergarth, near Lockerbie, on 21 December 1988

A farmer who found two of the youngest victims of the Lockerbie bombing will carry out his own tribute to them on the 30th anniversary.

David Stewart was 17 when he and his father discovered the bodies of a toddler and a baby on their farm just outside the Dumfries and Galloway town.

Debris from the plane had been strewn across their land.

In spring this year Mr Stewart found what he believed to be part of the plane in one of his fields.

The airliner Pan Am 103 was flying from Heathrow to New York on 21 December 1988, when a terrorist bomb exploded in its hold at 31,000ft.

All 259 passengers and crew were killed, along with 11 people whose homes were destroyed when the wreckage fell on Lockerbie.

• Lockerbie: The town scarred by Pan Am 103

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Mr Stewart was in his family's farmhouse when he heard a noise outside. He looked out of the window and saw flames rise from a huge explosion in Lockerbie.

David Stewart and his father, Ian, found the bodies of a baby and a toddler on their land after the plane crashed

He said he did not realise what had happened until his father Ian came home in a state of shock. He had been out buying turkeys for Christmas.

"He said he'd had the most horrendous journey coming home, because there were bits of plane and he'd driven past his friend's farm and that was where the cockpit had fell," Mr Stewart said.

His father decided they should go out to their fields.

"They'd opened the town hall as a temporary mortuary and we just went out to see if there were any survivors or casualties or anything, just to see if we could help," he added.

They searched with a torch and the lights from their pick up truck.

"There was all the luggage and Christmas presents lying all over the ground," he said.

There were no survivors, there or anywhere else. Just bodies.

Mr Stewart told BBC reporter David Cowan that luggage and Christmas presents were among debris that fell from the plane

The first body they found was that of a young woman. She was Lynne Hartunian, a 21-year-old college student from New York.

The second was a baby. Mr Stewart has never been certain of the child's name. There were two children of that age on the plane.

The third was a little girl.

"She was about 18 months old," said David. "A toddler. All I can really remember is she had really really blonde hair. That's what sticks out my mind the most. This little girl with blonde, blonde hair."

The child was Bryony Owen, travelling to the US with her mother Yvonne. They were later buried in a single coffin in a village in Wales.

Bryony Owen and her mum Yvonne both died in the bombing

Mr Stewart's father had taken the bodies down to the town hall in Lockerbie, where he handed Bryony to Colin Dorrance, an 18-year-old probationary officer on duty outside.

In the days after the crash a massive search operation swung into action. Mr Stewart and his father stepped back, and never talked about what they had done.

"There was only really a handful of my friends know what happened that night," he said.

"It's something I hadn't really discussed with my wife. It was never mentioned. It was just basically swept under the carpet. We never talked about it to anybody really.

"Maybe we were fortunate we just picked them up and took them away and that was all I ever seen.

"Some of the police had to face it day in day out, in the mortuary or whatever. We maybe had half an hour, an hour. What we done stayed with me for the rest of my life but we weren't at it all day, every day."

Mr Stewart's father died two years ago.

He has got on with his life on the sheep farm but from time to time the events of 1988 come back to him.

During lambing season this year, the father-of-two spotted a partially rusted piece of metal sticking out of the mud in one of his fields.

It looked like a strut of some kind, painted white and green.

"I can remember all the bits of plane had that kind of green paint on the inside," he said.

"It's a bit of the field I drove by and walked by many times and I never seen it before. So it's been 30 years and there are still bits of plane."

In October, Colin Dorrance brought Lynne Hartunian's brother to the farm to see where his sister had been found.

Low key ceremonies

Meeting Colin and Rick Hartunian appears to have unlocked something in Mr Stewart. He set out to learn more about Lynne and Bryony, and after three decades of silence, has decided he can talk about that night.

"Working on the farm, you lose calves, you lose sheep, life and death is part of being a farmer, whether that's made it easier for me, I think possibly," he said.

"You were just looking to see what you could do to help. You weren't really thinking about what was going on. It was just a fact of life and you just go on with it."

A series of low-key ceremonies in Lockerbie will mark the anniversary. Mr Stewart will spend the day on his farm.

"I'll be thinking about all the people and I'll be thinking about Lynn and Bryony. I suppose I'll maybe have a couple of minutes to go out in the field and think about them on my own."

He won't be alone. The 270 victims came from 21 countries. On Friday, across the world, people will be remembering them.