He had a girlfriend but she got too serious and he didn't want to know. He had only one friend, but she did not know much of him

Alison Daniels traces the picture of a troubled family background outlined by Hamilton's mother in her evidence

THE day before the killings, Thomas Hamilton made one of his regular twice-a-week visits to his elderly mother. As usual, he took a bath and then had something to eat. The pair sat and blethered for a few hours and at around 6pm he left. It was the last time Agnes Watt spoke to her son.

Yesterday, as the nation's media and the handful of people in the public benches of Stirling's Albert Halls leant forward to catch the words, Mrs Watt described that day in a voice surprisingly bereft of emotion.

Occasionally during the brief 10 minutes of questioning she hesitated, stumbling over her words as she tried to remember the dates of a particular event. Mostly, though, she replied with a ``yes'' or a ``dinnae know'', her voice never dropping in tone, never betraying any feelings of her own loss or over the events of March 13.

The slight 64-year-old, dressed in a straight black skirt, white cardigan with bright flowers, and wearing large round glasses, had arrived with her friend, Sheila Sutherland, 15 minutes before the hearing began yesterday morning.

Listed as witness number 22, the running order was changed to allow her to be questioned when the inquiry reassembled after lunch. Mrs Watt walked to her place without looking up at the dead children's relatives seated in an upper balcony at the back of the hall. Never, during her evidence, did her eyes stray upwards or towards Lord Cullen.

Hamilton's mother sat motionless as the Lord Advocate, Lord Mackay of Drumadoon, gave a factual account of the Hamiltons' complicated family background - a story which began with an illegitimate birth and included a broken marriage and family relationships destroyed by drink.

Agnes Watt was brought up by her mother's in-laws, James and Catherine Hamilton. In 1950 she married Thomas Watt, a Glasgow Corporation bus driver, and two years later the couple had a son they named Thomas Watt. Shortly afterwards the marriage failed and Agnes returned to her adoptive parents with her son.

At that time it was decided that Thomas's grandparents would adopt him as a son and he grew up believing Agnes was his sister. The family moved from Glasgow to Stirling and Agnes went out to work in hotels in the area.

Lord Mackay, looking straight across at Mrs Watt, stated that it was during that period her son had found out she was his natural mother and that his grandparents had adopted him. ``Yes,'' she replied, without shifting her gaze.

As the Lord Advocate ran through a series of questions about Thomas Hamilton's adult life, Mrs Watt's brief answers betrayed a startling lack of knowledge about her son. She knew nothing, she said, about how he earned a living, or anything about his obsession with guns. As far as she knew he had no debts.

She said he bought and sold cameras and on a couple of occasions when he had made some money he had given her #50. But how did he sell these cameras? Lord Mackay asked. ``I can't tell you,'' Mrs Watt replied.

Yet over the years mother and son maintained close contact. Sitting slightly hunched with her right arm resting on the table in front of her, fingers curled tightly into her palm, Mrs Watt said she saw ``Tommy'' twice a week. He also phoned every night ``just to see if I was all right''.

The man who took such trouble in maintaining a relationship with his mother had only one girlfriend, it emerged. Mrs Watt said Thomas Hamilton had met a girl years ago but the relationship had come to nothing. With a slight shrug Mrs Watt said: ``He had a girlfriend but she got too serious and he didn't want to know.''

He had only one friend, a James Gillespie, she added, but she did not know much of him either.

Questions about firearms, boys' clubs and the Scouts elicited a series of ``don't knows''. Once, she said, she saw some guns in her son's house and she thought he was a member of a rifle club, but she added that she had no idea if he had still been a member in the last couple of years.

During more detailed questions, Mrs Watt was asked of a row four years ago between herself and her son. Clasping her hands in her lap, she said Hamilton had made a number of phone calls threatening that ambulances were coming to take her away to a hospital in Inverness. Asked if she had been upset, she replied: ``Yes.''

Two days before the killings Mrs Watt bumped into her son unexpectedly in the centre of Stirling.

She was asked how her son had seemed that day and what he had said to his mother. But nothing had been out of the ordinary. Hamilton had told her he was going up to the university. She did not ask him why.

The following day Hamilton came to her house in Raploch. Faltering, she at first put the time at 6pm but then changed her mind and said it was nearer 2pm. ``He took a bath and something to eat. We sat and blethered and then he went away. He had a bath because he didn't like showers.''

During that last afternoon the talk had been of Mrs Watt's adoptive father, James. Lord Mackay asked her to describe the troubled relationship between the two men. Hands back on her lap, Mrs Watt said in a clear voice: ``They didn't get on. They just kept arguing, my dad drinks. He used to come in and Tommy was in his bed, and he used to come in and wake him.''

The night he left, Hamilton failed to phone his mother. Mrs Watt thought it was unusual and the next day, Wednesday March 13, she called his house but the telephone was answered by a policeman.

With the Lord Advocate's questioning over, Lord Cullen asked the pensioner to tell him when her father and Hamilton had parted company. In the same steady tone she replied: ``I can't remember, sorry.''

With that, Thomas Hamilton's mother was led away through a side door. She look straight ahead.