One Morning in March

By Stephen McGinty

On 13 March 1996 a man walked into Dunblane Primary School armed with four legally owned handguns, and in less than four minutes fired 105 bullets, killing sixteen children and their Primary One teacher.

The gunman was notorious among local parents, politicians and police: for years he ran a network of popular boys’ clubs and was the subject of multiple complaints and investigations, but, despite considerable evidence of troubling behaviour, he was never charged. His crime shocked the world then changed the nation – but only after an extraordinary political battle.

Based on original archival research, unseen royal correspondence and exclusive interviews with parents, One Morning in March tells – for the first time – of the lead-up to that day but also the incredible and powerful true story of how, in their darkest hour, a band of parents used their grief as fuel in a fight with John Major’s Conservative government to forever ban handguns in Britain. It is a story of how Princess Diana, forbidden to comfort the parents in the immediate aftermath, urged their campaign on; of how Andy Murray, a pupil at the school, ultimately banished the shadow over his hometown by winning Wimbledon; and of how the grieving parents secured the tightest gun laws in the world.