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But others tell a different story. Dennis Morley, a friend of the family, claimed that Ryan used to beat his mother up.

‘He used to hit his mother a lot,’ said Morley. ‘But he would not pick on a man.’

During his long conversations with the police from John O’Gaunt school, Ryan claimed to have been a member of the Parachute Regiment. He was not. But he was an avid reader of military and survivalist magazines, and he had fantasies about being a paratrooper.

Along with his usual attire of a brown jacket and slacks, he wore a pair of Dutch parachuting boots. He also wore sunglasses in all weather and was self-conscious about going prematurely bald. Even his only drinking buddy described Ryan as ‘extremely quiet, he never gave anything away about himself’.

Apart from walking his labrador, Ryan’s only recreation had been shooting. He belonged to two shooting clubs where he spent an hour twice a week. Andrew White, a partner in the Wiltshire Shooting Centre in Devizes, said: ‘He’d come in for a chat, pick up his targets, go down to the range for an hour’s shooting, come back, have another chat, and then go.’

But White did notice that, unlike some of the other riflemen at the 600-member club, Ryan would not use targets that showed a human figure or a soldier’s head. He would insist on the standard circular accuracy targets.

During his negotiations with the police, Ryan confessed to the murders he had committed. Although he could shoot other people, he could not kill himself, he said. But at about 6.30 p.m. a muffled shot was heard from inside the school. Ryan did not answer any more. He had finally found the courage to kill himself.

The armed police still held back though. There were fears that Ryan had been holding hostages and they could not be sure what had happened inside the school. It was only at 8.10 p.m. that armed officers finally burst into the classroom to find Ryan shot with his own gun – and the Hungerford massacre was over.

Britain was so shocked by Michael Ryan’s murderous outburst that the BBC quickly dropped several films they had scheduled which depicted gratuitous violence or gun play. The first casualty was an American film called Black Christmas which was due to go out on BBC 1 at 11.50 on the night of the massacre. It depicted a psychopath killing college girls and was replaced with the Dick Emery comedy Oh You Are Awful!.

The BBC’s own film Body Contact, described as a ‘stylish pastiche with echoes of Bonnie and Clyde’, was also dropped. The ITV company Anglia dropped the western Nevada Smith and switched an episode of police drama The Professionals for a less violent one.

The day after the Hungerford massacre a fund was set up to provide support to the injured and the families of the dead. Local millionaire Peter de Savary gave £10,000. He had employed Ryan as a labourer when he was building his medieval theme park at nearby Littlecote House and about 80 per cent of the people who worked at his theme park lived in Hungerford. Another anonymous donor gave £10,000 and Newbury District Council gave £5,000. Local radio stations GWR Radio and Radio 210 launched appeals. Soon smaller donations poured in and within a couple of days, the fund topped £50,000. Ryan’s victims would also be eligible for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation board. Murder victims’ spouses and children under 18 would also be eligible for a bereavement award of £3,500 and a ‘dependency’ award.

Hardly a single person in Hungerford’s small population was unaffected. In a community of that size everyone knew someone who had been killed. Quickly the Hungerford Family Unit was set up, giving 90-minute grief therapy sessions. It was staffed by social workers who had counselled victims’ families from the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and the Bradford tragedy where football fans had been burnt to death in a football stand.

The local church also played a role, offering prayers for the victims and flying its flag at half-mast. They also offered prayers for the soul