‘There’ll be a lot of homes a lot quieter now with those lovely girls gone’
Those who couldn’t wait, decorated the metal frames of the candle stands with their contributions until the two side walls of St Mary’s glowed with flickering light. The morning Mass and the lighting of tealights brought some solidarity and purpose to a town of disorientated teenagers who gathered in small groups in schoolyards and street corners, not quite sure how to act or what to think. Tragedy isn’t on the school curriculum and there are no text books to prepare for the devastation.
Parents looked, too, for guidance but left without answers, did their best to bring comfort and calm to an impossible situation. Somewhat fearfully, they drove their own teenagers to the scene of Monday’s bus crash to allow them lay flowers and tributes on the grass verge where a day before satchels lay strewn and abandoned by dazed and wounded friends.
