The Enniskillen Remembrance Day Bomb - 27 years ago this weekend - is something that Serena Doherty, nèe Dixon, says she will “never get over”.

The Fermanagh woman, who now lives near Ballyclare, was among those caught up in the no-warning attack, which claimed the lives of 11 people that day and over 60 were injured, a number very seriously, including Serena’s father, Jim Dixon.

She says you “learn to deal with it” and “put on a face and go on” but she confesses that memories of the explosion will remain with her forever. “I have lived with it ever since,” she confides.

Sharing her story with this week’s Impartial Reporter, there are tears in the 43-year-old wife and mother’s eyes as she recalls that on November 8, 1987, she was attending the War Memorial in Enniskillen as Headgirl of Enniskillen High School to lay the wreath on behalf of her school. Her parents, Jim and Anna Dixon, had dropped her off that morning. She met up with the headboy and they were standing on the pavement near the cenotaph waiting for the procession, when she recalls seeing their headmaster Mr. Ronnie Hill, whom she said ‘was standing in front of the Reading Rooms’.

She mentions that she was just starting to go across to talk to him when she heard a bang and “saw a flash and the building starting to split.” Having been pushed to the ground, she said that when she got up, she couldn’t hear anything. “There was a deathly silence, I couldn’t see anyone through the orange dust and there was a strange smell.” She remembers checking her face for cuts, which she described as minor.

As the air was clearing slightly, she recollected a soldier screaming at them to get away from the scene. “I was ushered down into the carpark behind the town,” said Serena, who remembered seeing “injured people with blood running down their faces and heads, screaming and running looking for their families.” Although “in shock and disbelief”, she said she remained very calm. “I was able to help and comfort other people who were very distressed. I felt like it wasn’t happening to me.” She went on to say that “people then decided that they should lay their wreaths at the other war memorial which was at the other end of the street. It was here a man tried to play the Last Post but he couldn’t, he was shaking so much.” At that point, Serena recollected that one of her teachers came looking for her and asked her ‘where are your mum and dad?’ She explained they had gone to park the car so she thought they would be in a carpark somewhere. “Strangely, it never occurred to me that they could have been in the explosion. My teacher knew that my parents had been injured and drove me straight to the hospital.” She recalls that her mum came running out of the hospital, with no shoes on her feet, and told her that her dad had been injured. “When we went into the waiting room it was full of people crying, watching and waiting for family members to be found,” said Serena, who added: “We were hearing the news of people who had died and ones that were badly injured.” Serena, whose two sisters were also there, said their father had to be transferred to Altnagelvin Hospital by helicopter as he had head and facial injuries.

As the hours passed and they worked on him at the hospital, Serena felt they were “the longest hours” of her life.

On completion of the surgery, she remembers going into intensive care/recovery, but reveals she didn’t recognise him. “His head was extremely swollen and his face was much distorted, bruised and cut. I didn’t know this person in the bed. We were all so relieved that he was alive, but didn’t know the full extent of his injuries.” Her father got home just before Christmas, but Serena confesses “he was like a different person. He had to relearn how to walk, eat, talk and was in extreme pain with his head and eyes. It was extremely difficult to watch my Dad suffer in such a way. I felt so helpless and was very distressed to know that another human being had deliberately caused this suffering to my daddy. As a family our lives were changed forever.” Serena recalled that her mum had to cope with the running of the family business, Willowbrook residential home, and the care of her father, as well as dealing with the trauma she had been through. “She was standing right beside my father at the cenotaph and was actually blown off her feet and the buttons blown off her coat,” said Serena.

Her middle sister got married the following April (1988) and Serena reflected: “It was the most emotional day as my father walked up the aisle. But unfortunately he spent most of the day in a darkened room in the hotel suffering severe pain and weakness. My sister didn’t have an evening reception due to the circumstances knowing that he would not be fit for very much.” Reflecting on the days after the bomb, which she felt were ‘indescribable’, Serena said “the town was in shock and disbelief” and so many people were affected. “Some of my friends had lost parents and some of my friends were badly injured. I felt very fortunate that I still had both my parents,” she said.

As time went on, Serena says ‘fear and anxiety set in’. She realised that she could not walk past the cenotaph on her way home from school.

She confesses that she became very nervous and had strange experiences in her subconsciousness. “When I would be falling asleep I would see the building falling,” she said, continuing: “Through time I am learning to deal with the events and consequences of that day, but I will never be the same person again, it has changed my life.” She says that in her every day life she tries to be ‘outgoing and cheery’ but admits that she never knows when something will ‘trigger the memory’.

Serena remembered she was in London in 2010, 23 years after the bomb, when a canon fired and she became hysterical. “I was totally out of control reliving my experiences with flashbacks.” She goes on to say that when she enters a building “the first thought is how do I get out of here in an emergency. Thankfully I have my mum and dad who understand these experiences and we talk about it regularly which helps.” At the time of the bomb, she says she was never medically examined as she felt she had only minor scratches to her face. “I never had my ears checked for damage,” said Serena, who several years ago developed tinnitus, but feels fortunate that it is all she suffers from. Serena, a nurse, and her husband, a physiotherapist, have two sons, aged 11 and nine, whom she says unfortunately “have never known the man” their Papa was before the bomb. She feels they have ‘missed out greatly as he was very outgoing’. She acknowledges: “He was a very young at heart person. He would have loved doing adventurous things with his grandchildren but due to his injuries he is not able.” Having never spoken publicly about the bomb until this year - apart from participating in a recent interview for an upcoming BBC One ‘Real Lives Reunited’ programme - Serena says that 27 seven years on this Saturday, November 8, she does not feel any better. “You just have to get on with life; it does not get any easier.”