James Johnson is pictured in the Remembrance Room at Tundergarth, one of the Pan Am 103 memorial sites overseen by the Tundergarth Kirks Trust. (Photo by Lori Carnochan)
A Lockerbie Native Takes Up the Work of Remembrance
On Dec. 21, 1988, Gwen Baxter, a doctor, was in her Main Street home in Lockerbie, Scotland, when a roar shook the house. Through the kitchen window, she and her family witnessed a fireball.
A terrorist bomb had caused Pan Am Flight 103 to explode over the small Scottish town. Debris struck the house’s thick Victorian sandstone walls, and a boulder of earth landed in the back garden. Gwen went over the back fence to help, getting neighbors out of wrecked homes.
Her grandson, James Johnson, was not aware of the full extent of his grandmother’s involvement that night until a couple of weeks before he left for Syracuse University in October 2025 as part of its first cohort of Lockerbie Fellows.
A Trustee of Tundergarth Kirks Trust
A first-year student at the University of Strathclyde studying law, politics and international relations, Johnson is carrying that story forward. He has been named a trustee of the Tundergarth Kirks Trust (TKT), which owns and preserves three Pan Am 103 memorial sites in Lockerbie.
The invitation arrived while he rode the London Underground to a meeting for his work with the mental health charity Anna Freud. TKT Trustee Dianne Thomson told him the board had agreed unanimously, then urged him to think it over. Hours later, after his mother called it a great idea, Johnson texted back: yes.
“I was quite surprised, actually,” he says. “I was not expecting it at all.”
Carrying the Legacy Forward
Johnson, who grew up in Lockerbie and now lives in nearby Lochmaben, knew some of the details from his family of what had taken place. But when he applied to be a Lockerbie Fellow, he only briefly mentioned his family connections to the bombing in his application, so that he could focus on his own qualities.
“I wanted to have the honor to help carry on the legacy of all those who were involved in that night,” he says, “and carry on the memory of everyone who was lost in 1988.”
In Syracuse, as one of 10 fellows in the inaugural cohort, he felt the weight of that memory. During the annual Rose-Laying Ceremony, as Lockerbie Fellow Grace Key read the names of the 11 Lockerbie residents killed on the ground, each fellow laid a rose in their memory. Roses were then laid for the Syracuse student victims, the Pan Am Flight 103 crew and the Pan Am Flight 103 passengers.
“It makes you realize how big of a gap these people have left physically and emotionally,” Johnson says. He kept thinking of how many of the 270 victims were younger than he is now, and that they never got to finish university, have careers or start families.
Waiting at the airport in Newark for the flight home, he proposed a “Sitting in Solidarity” event in Lockerbie, mirroring what is done on the Syracuse campus during Remembrance Week. Lockerbie Academy Deputy Head Teacher Kerry Currie loved the idea, and the fellows carried it out last year on Dec. 19. At the Dec. 21 anniversary service at Tundergarth, TKT trust chair Lori Carnochan said that Johnson “spoke so eloquently of his time in Syracuse.” Johnson, in his speech commemorating the 37th anniversary of the tragedy, said that the renewal of the Lockerbie-Syracuse connection further illustrated the spirit of Lockerbie.
“As a town, and community, our motto is ‘Forward Lockerbie,’” he said. “The 10 of us participating in not just looking back but also acting forward has embodied our vision of Lockerbie as fellows.”
Closer to home, Johnson has helped teach. Invited into a history class of 13-year-olds at Lockerbie Academy, he shared his grandmother’s story and his time in Syracuse. Students who wouldn’t always engage in classes listened closely, and many shared their own family connections. “It was nice to see a different side of them and how respectful they were about it,” he says.
He has also been involved in visits to Lockerbie by Syracuse students studying at the University’s London abroad center. “James epitomizes the lasting legacy of the disaster on the young people of Lockerbie,” says Stewart Clegg, assistant director for student well-being at Syracuse University London. “He has spoken to our students about the responsibility to remember those that were lost and also to share stories about the incredible humanity shown by the community in the aftermath.”
His supporters see Johnson’s promise as a keeper of the Pan Am 103 legacy. Dumfriesshire Member of Parliament David Mundell calls his trustee role “another tangible example” of how the Lockerbie-Syracuse connection benefits the community. “The fellowship program not only gives Lockerbie students a greater insight into events of December 1988 and its impact on their community and Syracuse, but also broadens their horizons and builds their confidence allowing them to become more engaged citizens, as James has demonstrated so well,” Mundell says.
Currie says Johnson brings “a valuable young, community-focused perspective” to the trust’s plans for an educational space at the site.
Johnson intends to keep going. “It’ll always be a part of my life,” he says.
The second cohort of Lockerbie Fellows will arrive in Syracuse on Oct. 17 to participate in the University’s Remembrance Week events.
