Dog handler recalls Lockerbie horrors
                                 Dec 16, 1998

                                 By Paul Majendie

                                 LOCKERBIE, Scotland, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Search and rescue dog handler Bill Parr,
                                 vividly recalling his night of horror in Lockerbie with his border collie Donna, said:
                                 ``We came across terrible remains.''

                                 ``At one point, the dog put its paws on a tree. The next minute I looked up with a
                                 small beam torch and it just lit up this head looking down at me,'' Parr said of the
                                 fateful night 10 years ago when 270 people were killed in the bombing of a Pan Am
                                 airliner over this tight-knit little Scottish town.

                                 ``That was the start of the night and it just went from bad to worse after that,'' he
                                 said.

                                 Ten years later, the sleepless nights and the nightmares are back to haunt Parr who
                                 had to scour housing estates and then the rolling hills outside Lockerbie after the
                                 plane disintegrated six miles up in the sky.

                                 ``I am having trouble sleeping at the moment. Come the New Year, I hope to put it
                                 not behind me, but just to fade away,'' he said.

                                 There is no doubting the electric charge of emotion in his voice as he tours the sights
                                 of a town that turned into Armageddon in an instant.

                                 Finally the tears overflowed and, almost apologetically, he said: ``Oh dear, look at me
                                 going all weepy.''

                                 Shattered wreckage and broken bodies were scattered over a huge area. Parr had
                                 the grim task of tracking so many bodies down.

                                 One sight up in the hills will always haunt him.

                                 ``These two girls were dressed in black. It is something I shall always remember.
                                 They were wrapped around one another and had their fingers crossed.

                                 ``They had this look of total abject terror in their faces. That is the thought that stays
                                 with you.''

                                 Fate was cruel to his two dogs. One of the border collies, Shep, died of cancer of the
                                 mouth which Parr believes was caused by sniffing through so many horrifying
                                 remains.

                                 After all she had been through, Donna was run over in a car park. ``It was pretty
                                 grim,'' he said.

                                 And now Parr knows all too well the agonies suffered by the relatives who came to
                                 Lockerbie from 21 nations to grieve for their loved ones.

                                 His younger brother was lost while on a climbing expedition in the Himalayas.

                                 ``He never came back. So we have no body to bury and don't really know where he
                                 is. It is something you have to learn to live with. You certainly understand how the
                                 Lockerbie relatives felt.''

                                 It takes real courage for Parr to relive that night. Each horrific image is seared on his
                                 brain. Talking about it appears therapeutic but the 10th anniversary invasion by the
                                 media circus has certainly unsettled him.

                                 He said that in the aftermath of the accident, ``I had the bodies talking to me in
                                 nightmares. It was all in technicolour.''

                                 When out searching the hills he would be ``busy talking to those bodies as I walked up
                                 to them. I told them 'Don't worry. The dogs won't hurt you.' The dogs looked at me
                                 like I was daft.''

                                 After the 10th anniversary is marked on December 21 with a memorial service, Parr
                                 hopes he can finally turn a corner. ``I intend drawing a line. It is as positive as that,''
                                 he said.