‘Today or tomorrow or the next day we might find out our son is
0 Comments | Herald, The; Glasgow (UK), May 9, 2009 | by Marisa Duffy
CLUSTERS of photographs adorn the lounge of the West Calder home where Derek Burns lives with his wife Diane. Some are formal poses, glowing in sepia, others are spontaneous holidays snaps capturing a carefree moment. Together they are a pictorial family tree stretching back generations.
However, one framed picture on the bureau is particularly poignant. It shows a young man with wavy, dark brown hair and a winsome look standing in a beauty spot, looking straight into the camera. This is the couple’s younger son, also Derek, who left the family home one day in March 1989, aged 20, and never came home.
No matter the circumstances, the unexplained disappearance of a child is any parent’s worst fear and one which time does not heal. Marking the second anniversary of the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine last week, Kate and Gerry McCann said that their pain and anxiety had not lessened.
“On the morning Derek went away, it was a horrible morning, the rain was lashing down, ” recalls Derek. “I was going to Peebles for a job. Sometimes he came with me if he wasn’t working. He was still in bed and I said, ‘Do you fancy coming with me, son?’ ‘Nah, dad, ‘ he said, ‘I’m going to go into Edinburgh’. I told him I’d see him that night.”
It was the last time Derek saw his son. Later, they discovered he had gone from Edinburgh to Hemel Hempstead to visit his girlfriend. “He had tea and sandwiches with her and her friend and he left them to come home. None of his friends have ever seen him again.” He had left without his passport or driving licence. “There was no falling out, there was no rhyme or reason for him to go.”
Derek grew up in West Calder, West Lothian, with his brother Gordon, who has recently moved to Queensland.
“They had very different natures but they were always close, ” says Derek, who worked for the RAF before becoming a salesman. “Being four years younger, Derek used to latch on to Gordon and his pals
family tree picture frame