How Sir Andy Murray has helped turn Dunblane massacre into beacon of hope – 30 years on from one of Britain’s most shocking tragedies

Today marks three decades since the Dunblane massacre, one of the darkest chapters in modern British history, when a gunman claimed the lives of 16 young children and their teacher at a Scottish primary school.

Among those who survived that horrific day was Andy Murray, then just eight years old, who would go on to become one of Britain’s greatest ever sportsmen.

The tennis champion and his elder brother Jamie, aged 10 at the time, were both pupils at Dunblane Primary School on March 13, 1996.

Murray’s class had been making their way towards the gymnasium when gunfire erupted, forcing them to take shelter beneath a window in the headmaster’s offic

Their mother Judy rushed to join hundreds of desperate parents gathered at the school gates on Doune Road, none knowing whether their children had survived.

The attack remains Britain’s deadliest mass shooting, a tragedy that shattered a quiet community nestled between Stirling and Perthshire in central Scotland.

On that spring morning, the gunman, Thomas Hamilton, forced his way into the gymnasium at Dunblane Primary School, where he opened fire on a class of five and six-year-olds.

Seventeen people lost their lives: 16 children and their teacher.

The perpetrator had been known to the Murray family, having run youth clubs in the local area.

He had even accepted lifts to the railway station from the Murrays on previous occasions.

Writing in his 2008 autobiography Hitting Back, Murray said: “Some of my friends’ brothers and sisters were killed. I have only retained patch impressions of that day, such as being in a classroom singing songs.

“The weirdest thing was that we knew the guy [Hamilton]. He had been in my mum’s car. It’s obviously weird to think you had a murderer in your car, sitting next to your mum.