I could have been on the doomed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie

The Herald Scotland

3 days ago

Because the plane her friends were travelling home on December 21 was Pan Am Flight 103.
It is now almost 40 years since the Lockerbie bombing. That night, 270 people lost their lives when the Pan Am jet blew up over the Scottish border town.
It has taken Lareau this long to tell her own story onstage. Fuselage, currently at the Pleasance Courtyard, is her moving and, at times, harrowing story.
'I started writing a book in 2019, shortly after I went to Lockerbie for the first time,' she explains. 'It was the 30th anniversary and I was tired of the news speaking only about who did it, the how and the whys.'
Annie Lareau (Image: Daniel Morris) She wanted to talk about the people she knew on that flight. Given that she has spent her life in theatre, people asked her why a book and not a play? And so now she's performing at the Fringe.
'This country shares this story with me in a very deep way and it just seemed the most logical conclusion.'
Watching her perform Fuselage it's clear that there are points where Lareau is not acting.
'I knew that going in that it would possibly be very difficult,' she says. 'I've been surprised by when the emotion hits me. It hits me at very different points every night.'
The experience has been exhausting, she admits, but there have been rewards. 'I'm getting to meet so many people after the show who are so deeply touched and have connections themselves to the story and that connects me to them. It has just been very powerful.
'A gentleman came the other day who was a firefighter in Lockerbie at the time, and was on the site just after the plane fell. I also met a nurse who was in Dumfries waiting for victims to be brought to the hospital and no one, of course, came. Because there were no survivors. I had a teacher whose student was on the plane going to the States for the holidays. I've met so many people who have connections in one way or another.
'In the States 9/11 has washed the memory clean of Pan Am 103, so many people don't really remember it or feel it in the same way. Here in the UK it still remains the largest terrorist attack in history.'
The details Lareau recounts in the play are both chilling and heartbreaking. Her account of the media intrusion that followed after she returned to the United States is in itself jawdropping.
'It was the biggest news of the century and everyone wanted a story and so it overshadowed the care of the people they were seeking information from.
'The day after I got home I had a woman knocking on our apartment door at 6am with a microphone. I was in my bathrobe and she shoved a microphone in my face. I shut the door and she came around and banged my window, telling me I was doing the world a disservice.
'We couldn't find a peaceful moment for a while.'
Lareau's own life since has been dealing with the consequences of the loss of her friends and the survivor guilt that resulted. It took her to the other side of America (she now lives in Seattle) and into therapy.
'I would say it took a good 10 years before I was healthy. It's not by coincidence that it took me 30 years to write anything about it. It did take a while before I actually could speak about it beyond just my closest friends.'
She first travelled to Lockerbie in 2019 and has been back since. Going there was a form of healing too. 'It's become a very special place to me.'
But when grief moves in it never truly moves out.
'People ask, 'Is this going to give you closure?' There is no closure. The wound stays open.
'But that doesn't mean that there is no healing. I see grief as a huge lake and it never changes depth. It is always as deep and painful, but it's much faster to get across. It used to take years to get across it. Now I can do it in a couple of hours. I can do this play, I can touch this grief, and it's not easy, but I can move through it.'
Fuselage, Above at Pleasance Courtyard, 3.45pm, until August 25 (except August 19)
For festival tickets see here