THE sky is overcast, but the sun manages to brighten the wet bracken of Laighills park, Dunblane. Steven Hopper, a maths student who has lived all his life in the town, points to the area around the cemetery, where open land has given way to detached family homes.

Across the Allan river, a new housing estate has spread the town boundaries behind the primary school. Removal trucks park in quiet cul-de-sacs. People walk their dogs. "The place has changed so much, " says Steven, now 21. "There are so many houses popping up everywhere." Over the past decade, 630 new houses have been built, and the population has swollen from around 7300 to more than 8300.

Some of those residents are still rebuilding lives shattered 10 years ago, when the the actions of one man split Dunblane into "before" and "after". The majority, however, are linked to the tragedy more abstractly: by their address, by living in Dunblane: the place where the children died.

Steven, a former pupil of Dunblane Primary who was in the classroom next door when it happened, escaped with cuts to the face, and the memory of a man in ear defenders firing a gun through the window. He says: "Dunblane has changed so much since it happened. I think things have progressed with the new houses, and so many people living here now, because it is becoming so much bigger. But I think the reaction of people at the time was not to talk about it, not to think about it, and I think that has continued.

"Of course, when you walk past the cemetery, it will come across your mind. But you have just got to not let it inf luence you. You get on with your life. In a way, what these people are trying to do is leave a mark. If you let it, you give them what they want."

As the tenth anniversary approaches on Monday, residents are preparing to commemorate the deaths of 16 pupils of class 1/13 and their teacher, Gwen Mayor, as they have always done. Quietly. Privately.

FOR SOME, THIS PARTICULAR milestone in the grieving process is preceded by a sense of dread. Irene Flaws, the local f lorist, has known the families for so long that she prepared f lowers for the parents when they married, the children when they were baptised and then wreaths after they had died. She says: "I''m looking forward to next week when it will all be over - at least until the next one. There is nothing to celebrate. It's not like a birthday, when there is a next birthday to look forward to. There's just nothing."

For Irene, the day has become a ritual. "Relatives like to pick up their flowers early, " she says, "usually before 9.30am because that's when it happened." Dunblane, she says, arranging a bouquet of spring flowers, is a private place. Always has been. And when another anniversary comes around, sensitivities still run high. She explains: "On the day, there will always be an ambulance siren or fire engine to bring you back. It's happened every time. Even on Wednesday morning, a false alarm went off at the Hydro [hotel] and we had around five or six fire engines."

Ever since the unspeakable actions of one man propelled the town into the media glare, Dunblane has joined the tragic ranks also occupied by places like Hungerford, Lockerbie and Soham. The name of that man is now taboo among residents, according to Mrs Flaws. "People don't say his name. They will say, 'Did you see the picture of him in the paper?" she says, spitting out the pronoun, "but his name is not mentioned."

Although few believe Dunblane will ever totally free itself of its history, some hope that its link to the past will be tempered by its different role as the home town of Britain's top tennis player. The ascendancy of Andrew Murray - now more likely to be referred to as a rising star, rather than former pupil - has at least given the town something to be proud of.

Mrs Flaws says: "The fact that he comes from the town I think is a positive. It dilutes the association. It is positive when you see the injured children around and see the way they get through it. We need to live with it and learn to cope with it and get on with life - or else he's won."

Nevertheless, so sensitive are the shared memories of past pain, that one resident admits he still makes a conscious effort not to mention certain topics that could trigger associations, during everyday conversation with his neighbours. It's like a filter, he says. "You are always mindful of trying not to say anything that might hurt them or be offensive. You've got to make sure you don't say things that might be too close to the bone."

One regular at The Village Bar describes how many people have responded in different ways. "I have a friend who lives by the cathedral, who has his birthday on that day. He has never celebrated it since. Not been out once. He really took it to heart. It's a sad time for the whole town."

Similarly, in the aftermath of the shooting, when Mrs Flaws realised that a poster hanging in the shop window read Happy Mother's Day, she vowed the message would never appear again. "I've never put it up since. Perhaps I'll put something like 'send your mum flowers', but never Happy Mother's Day. Never again."

FOR STEVEN HOPPER'S FATHER, Sydney, the anniversary will remind him of his movements that morning. A regular stall-holder at the school garden fete, he had planned to show the children how to grow seeds for a school project, but called off because of the cold weather. Instead, he spent nearly six hours with the other parents, waiting in the snowdrop-lined schoolgrounds for news of his two sons, Steven, then 11 in primary seven, and Andrew, who was in primary four, aged eight.

Mr Hopper, 56, a retired tax inspector, says: "The people who were here when it happened have it in their minds a lot of the time, because it was friends and neighbours whose children were injured or, indeed, killed. My second son, his best friend's brother was killed and my neighbours one door down, they lost a child. "Two or three times a week, something happens that brings it back. I see a neighbour in the street, and it reminds me. I see some of the parents or someone I associate with it and it reminds me. If you're living in a little town, with the same people, then all these triggers are there all the time. It's always there." He adds that small signs belie the anniversary. "We live quite near the cemetery and it just seems there have been far more cars coming out of the crossroads than normal."

However, like many in Dunblane, Mr Hopper finds it difficult to deal with outsiders' interest in the town. He says: "I was surprised - although I shouldn't have been - at the increase in tourists around the following year and probably for a couple years after that. It seemed that Dunblane became a stop-off point for bus tours. And while the people were very respectful and acted with a great deal of dignity, I was surprised there were so many still making pilgrimages to look at places where horrific things happened.

"Whether they go out of sympathy or out of ghoulishness, I have no idea. I have never made up my mind whether it was for all the right reasons, or the wrong ones. It's an open question for me, and I still don't know the answer. I don't think I ever will."

There has been little public appetite for a formal service marking this anniversary. Ministers, community leaders and the local authorities have been eager that Monday, March 13, passes like any other day. Councillor Ann Dickson, says: "We really want to move on. It is not that we want to forget. It is just something we have learned to live with, and cope with. Something happened. Yes, you're catapulted back in time, and there's no doubt that you think '10 years? Can it really be 10 years?'

"I don't think you ever shake off your history like that, at least not for a very long time, because, whenever an incident happens involving schools or guns, it always seems to find its way back here. We keep getting pulled back to that day, and it is not of our choosing."

The growth of the town over the past decade has helped, she says. "In some ways we are quite fortunate in that there has been quite an explosion of new buildings. In a way, that has helped dilute it, because we have got hundreds and hundreds of people who weren't here at the time, who haven't come with the baggage of that incident. You don't want to keep going on about it to them."

Ten years on, and the pupils who survived the shootings in the gym are now teenagers, about to sit their Standard Grades. Mrs Dickson says: "We have now got 16-yearolds who were involved in the incident as, of course, not all the class were killed. The other half have to live with the consequences every day of their lives, and we are always trying to help them with that."

For those who remember the panic, the chaos and the grief of that day, it is the constant undercurrent of life in Dunblane.