Lorraine Kelly has spoken of her emotional return to Dunblane to film a documentary on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.
The presenter, who reported on the events for GMTV at the time, has revisited the Perthshire town which was the scene of the UK’s only mass school shooting.
Gunman Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and their teacher in the gym hall of Dunblane Primary School on March 13 1996, before killing himself.
ITV has commissioned a one-off documentary which will be screened around the time of the 25th anniversary in March.
Lorraine, 61, will be seen talking to survivors and families of the victims and said filming the programme brought all the memories of the event flooding back.
She said: “I was just back there at the end of the year just before we went into the lockdown.
“I did a documentary which is going to be about later this year, the beginning of March I think, because it’s 25 years.
“It never really does go away and (I think about it) any time I see a sign for Dunblane or whenever there is something in America where as we know it happens far too often.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life and I don’t think there will be anything else like that.
“Going back I was remembering a lot of things.
“I remember the press conference and journalists are pretty hard bitten, they have to be just to survive, but I was seeing grown men in tears.
“I remember the quietness and nobody quite knowing how to absorb this and how to cope with it.
“It’s things like that that you remember and it just makes you realise how lucky you are.”
Speaking on The Convex Conversation podcast, Lorraine said her style of presenting allowed her to tell more of the human stories behind tragedies like Dunblane.
She added: “Unlike other news organisations, you are allowed, not to be mawkish in any way, but to put it into perspective and talk about emotions in a really, really grown-up, proper way and not in a self-indulgent way.
“That’s what I think is a real strength of the kind of television that we do.
“You can reflect how people are feeling because I think that’s really important, but it’s got to be done in the right way with respect.”
