THE funerals of a further six victims of the Dunblane shooting tragedy took place yesterday.
Traffic halted in the city's streets as drivers stood silently and respectfully for the cortege to pass after the funeral of five-year-old David Kerr at the town's Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family.
Up to 200 mourners had packed into the little church on the outskirts of the town and about a mile and a half from the school.
Canon Basil O'Sullivan told mourners: ``He is a beautiful, boy and it is our privilege to have him here in his own church, the Church of the Holy Family, where he never listened to me.
``Can't blame him for that, but he always got his blessings when he came up at Communion time.''
Later, there was a joint service for close friends Melissa Currie and Charlotte Dunn at Dunblane Cathedral.
Melissa's family moved only recently to the town, and Charlotte moved to Scotland with her family only six months ago from the West Midlands.
The cathedral, which seats around 600, was almost full as family and relatives of the two girls arrived.
Afterwards, they supported one another as they followed the two small coffins.
The mourners stood in silence in the bitter cold for about 15 minutes before the hearses were driven off.
Then the two friends were finally separated as Charlotte was taken to Falkirk Crematorium and Melissa to Dunblane Cemetery.
The cathedral was also the venue for the funeral of Megan Turner, where music from The Lion King and Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat was played.
The funeral of Sophie North, was held in private. She was the only child of university professor Mike North who lost his wife Barbara to cancer two years ago.
The final funeral yesterday was that of Hannah Scott, with 300 mourners gathered at the cathedral.
When the service ended, the white coffin was carried out by four pall-bearers, followed only by a funeral director carrying a large arrangement of yellow flowers. The family came out shortly afterwards.
Throughout the day, most of Dunblane's shops remained closed.
Six children and two teachers remain in hospital in Stirling and Glasgow.
Ryan Liddell, five, is continuing to improve but will not be going home today.
Dr Alistair Miller, medical director at Glasgow's Yorkhill Hospital, said: ``His surgeon wants to have a look at his injuries so it's likely he'll stay in today. He may go home tomorrow.''
The other two children also at the hospital - Coll Austin and Amie Adam, both five - were said to be making good progress.
Two five-year-olds, Ben Vallance and Robert Purves, went home on Monday from Stirling Royal Infirmary.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article