Over 500 people gather in Whitehaven to mourn gunman's 12 victims and observe two minute silence
It was a dull morning compared with the sun that shone a year ago on the last, murderous journey of gunman Derrick Bird. But the weather was warm for west Cumbria and the warmth was reflected in more than 500 people who gathered in silence in Whitehaven to mourn the massacre's 12 victims and console the 11 who were seriously hurt.
A baby mewled as the names of the dead were read out before her mother hushed her for a two-minute silence, broken only by birdsong, including the keening of the port's seagulls.
The town's rector, the Rev John Bannister, who took the service after the killings last June, spoke of the dignity and compassion shown since the tragedy. The blameless family of Bird, whose first victim was his twin brother David, stood close to relatives of Darren Rewcastle, a colleague on Whitehaven taxi rank where everyday joshing unwittingly fed Bird's persecution complex.
"We must begin to move on," said Bannister. "This anniversary, I pray, will give us all strength and support as we take the long and painful road of recovery."
A poem in the Whitehaven News, whose modest coverage echoed the muted nature of this week's memorials, repeated the theme. Invoking the ebb and flow of the Irish Sea tide, it recalled Whitehaven's past recoveries from disaster – "again and again and again".
Those conscious of the town's history thought of the day in 1910 when 104 men and boys were killed by an explosion at Wellington pit; or of 1947, when 103 miners died in William pit.
Mourners were hesitant to draw positive lessons from the aftermath of the tragedy, partly an act of revenge for imagined family injustices and partly a random slaughter. Bannister, the leader of Copeland council, Elaine Woodburn, and Cumbria's chief constable Craig Mackey all spoke of the effects on community spirit and resilience.
Whitehaven's ceremony in the pretty grounds of St Nicholas's church was mirrored in the small town of Egremont and the seaside village of Seascale. Both were stages along Bird's final drive to the hamlet of Boot, where he shot himself.
Seascale showed a determination to get on with normal life and, in the words of its vicar John Woolcock, refuse "to let the community be defined by the events of last June".
This week has seen candles and lamps shine in windows in Whitehaven, while on Saturday there will be fetes in the town and at Seascale, enhanced by tributes to the victims. One of the most seriously injured, hotelier Harry Berger, issued a blanket invitation for a money-raising climbing expedition.
"There is no point sitting around moping about it," he said of learning to live with a severely damaged arm and the loss of two fingers. "You do not do anyone any favours like that. Life is too short and I just want to get on with it."
In September, he will lead a climb up Scafell Pike, Scafell, Helvellyn and Skiddaw, the highest of the mountains that rise behind Whitehaven, in aid of the Cumbria air ambulance.
Of the 12 people who died on 2 June 2010, nine were unknown to Bird, who asked most of them the time from the window of his grey Citroen Picasso and, when they walked over to help, shot them dead at point blank range.