"An unbelievably difficult time" - Andy Murray opens up about surviving horrifying school shooting in his childhood
Andy Murray has revisited the 1996 school shooting in his hometown, Dunblane, Scotland. At the time, the former World No. 1 and his brother Jamie were students of the Dunblane Primary School, where the shooting took place. Murray stated that the tragedy came with lessons for him to learn as he grew up and that it also brought the people of the city closer.
On Wednesday, March 13, 1996, 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton, armed with four handguns, entered the premises of Dunblane Primary School and started shooting indiscriminately. As a result, 16 students and a teacher perished. 15 others were injured. Hamilton's rage-filled shooting spree came to an end when he ended his own life. To this day, it remains British history's deadliest mass shooting incident.
Murray and Jamie, who were in school as the tragedy unfolded, escaped unscathed, aided by teachers and dinner ladies. Recently, the former World No. 1 revisited the massacre in an interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN. Amanpour got into the Dunblane conversation with Murray by asking him about his thoughts on his mother Judy's proposed tennis center in the Scottish city.
The three-time Major winner expressed optimism about the idea, saying that he would want to contribute to the development of the upcoming generations of British tennis players.
"I think it's something (the proposed tennis center in Dunblane) my mum really wanted, and with me and Jamie finishing playing soon, we'll have the opportunity to be in Scotland more. You know, I'll always love tennis and always want to be involved to try and help the next British tennis players as much as I can. Yeah, I think it would be good if there is a tennis center up there," Murray said.
Amanpour went on to ask the two-time Olympic gold medalist if he had learned any life lessons from the 1996 tragedy. Murray answered in the affirmative, also reflecting on the struggles of Dunblane's people when it came to recovering from the incident.
"I think there are certain things I've learned from that (Dunblane school shooting) through my upbringing, through my life. It was obviously an unbelievably difficult time, the way that the whole city and community came together in an extremely difficult time, and has never fully recovered but had become stronger through that. I definitely learned a lot of strong values from that," Murray added.
"I was driving there thinking I might not see my children again" - Andy Murray's mother Judy in 2014
In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, Murray's mother Judy recalled her own traumatic experience on the fateful day of the Dunblane Primary School shooting. Judy said that when she heard what was going on, she was working at the Murrays' family toy shop in Dunblane.
She immediately rushed to her car in a bid to reach the school premises as fast as possible. However, she remembered having to ultimately run because the road to the school was jam-packed full of cars, with all of them heading in the school's direction.
"I was driving there thinking I might not see my children again. There were too many cars on the road – everyone was trying to get there. I got angry, shouting 'Get out of the way!' About a quarter of a mile away I just got out and ran," Judy told The Guardian in 2014.
On the tennis front, Murray is currently at the 2024 Paris Olympics, his final outing as a tennis player, where he is set to play doubles partnering Daniel Evans. However, he will not be featuring in singles following his earlier withdrawal, which means that the former World No. 1's singles career has come to an end.