'It felt way out of my depth'

Jim Swire's quest to find the truth behind the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 has inspired a new series starring Colin Firth. Ellie Harrison hears the actor's thoughts on the role

- Ellie Harrison

On the evening of 21 December 1988, Jim and Jane Swire were preparing for Christmas in the warm glow of their home in the sleepy Worcestershire village of Finstall. They had just waved goodbye to their 23-year-old daughter Flora, who was jetting off to New York to visit her boyfriend for the holidays.

Shortly after 7pm, a newsflash appeared on the Swires’ television, announcing that a plane had gone down over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. From that point on, their lives were never the same again.

Flora was one of 270 people killed in what remains, to this day, the deadliest terror attack ever to have taken place in Britain. Thirty-eight minutes after Pan Am flight 103 took off from Heathrow on its journey to New York, a bomb on board exploded, killing every passenger and crew member as well as 11 people on the ground below.

Now, just over 36 years on, a new Sky Atlantic drama, Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, tells the story of Jim’s search for answers to what happened that night – a quest that for the former GP, now 88 years old, continues to this day.

Colin Firth, who plays Jim, his face permanently crumpled in anguish, has said he was “just overwhelmed by the relentless sadness of Jim’s journey”. The show, which has been years in the making and spans several decades, co-stars Catherine McCormack as Jim’s wife Jane, who has remained by her husband’s side even when his obsession with the case threatened to tear what was left of their family apart.

The case of the Lockerbie bombing continues to throw up more questions than answers. Only one man has ever been convicted of the attack – the Libyan national Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, in 2001. But several concerns have emerged in the years since the trial.