Hillsborough hits home to me on a number of fronts
1/ Because I am a football fan with particular memories of that day (as I will explain later).
2. Because Liverpool has a special place in my heart and
3/ Because I worked for many years for the police and covered many national Norfolk-based events as a press officer.
So let me explain a little. Roll the clock back to the day of the disaster - 15th April, 1989. Liverpool were playing Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough in Sheffield in the semi-final of the FA Cup. On the same day Norwich City (my team) were playing Everton in the other semi-final at Villa Park, Birmingham.
I was 36 years of age and my eldest son was just over seven and already into football. I had been to Norwich's previous FA Cup Semi Final. So we decided to give it another go and, in keeping with their usual form, Norwich lost again. We went by coach and it was when we were waiting to leave the car park that the news of Hillsborough came through. Somebody immediately said "it makes our defeat seem irrelevant."
It soon became obvious that people had died at the Liverpool game or as Anne Williams put it. "Our son went to a football match and never came home." I couldn't help thinking "that could have been us."
I didn't write very much about it in my personal diary at the time - probably unaware of the magnitude of it all.
"Norwich lost and it was a very busy day overshadowed by deaths at the other FA Cup semi final in Sheffield" was all I wrote.
Having been to the other semi-final it was all too easy to think "what would have happened if it had been Villa Park and not Hillsborough?"
Fast forward almost 33 years and I spent yesterday with my grandchildren. Elliot is aged nine. He walked 10 miles with me without a single moan about aching legs or the distance. In fact he wanted to do a bit more to ensure we did complete 10 miles!
We didn't actually talk about Hillsborough. I will leave that for another day. But we did talk about Liverpool and about music. He told me that he believed the 1960s and 1970s really were times of great music (this warmed my heart) and on the way home in the car we played Red Hot Chili Peppers, White Stripes, David Bowie and I told him that before every football match at Anfield they played Gerry and the Pacemakers version of "You'll Never Walk Alone," which he declared to be a fine song. Many people have recorded this but nothing is as gut-wrenching as the version sung by Gerry Marsden - a real son of Liverpool. To me listening to this song in the car brought together the strands of memories of both Hillsborough and the city of Liverpool which we visit regularly.
I joined Norfolk Police on 20th February, 1989, just two months before the Hillsborough disaster. I was appointed to the Community Relations Department as their first civilian Press Officer. Each year I attended the national conference of police press and public relations officers which always seemed to be held in special and very scenic places. One of the best was at Port Rush in Northern Ireland. Others were in the Lake District, London, Scotland. I remember having presentations on Hillsborough by senior officers but it's only in the last few years that I have grasped the enormity of what happened on that April Day.
That's after we went to see the permanent memorial in the grounds of Anfield Football Stadium to those who died at Hillsborough. We first visited on the day when we crossed Stanley Park to visit Goodison Park - the home of Everton. On this occasion the main gates of that ground were festooned by scarves and flowers in memory of former player and manager Howard Kendall who had recently died.
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I always feel a kind of smug satisfaction when I'm cruising along a Norfolk Road on the way home and a traffic bulletin comes on the radio telling me that there's a 10 mile tailback on the M25, the M6 is closed for two junctions, a bridge has collapsed on the A1 and severe weather in Scotland has closed numerous roads. I suppose this is a case of Shadenfreude. Now this German word sounds good in a strange guttural sort of way. It actually means: "The pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune." Now tell me you have never been guilty of Shadenfreude.
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Thanks to two of my readers who made my day yesterday by saying that, after reading my daily blog, they usually feel the need to have a lie down. I took that as a compliment as I sometimes feel like a lie down after I have written them. Anyway they suggested that I should be raising money for charity if I intend walking 1,500 miles during 2022. I like the idea and so will be setting up a Just Giving page shortly with the aim of walking 1,500 miles and writing 365 blogs in the year. Will keep you posted on that one. So far in the first four days of 2022 I have completed 23.43 miles. If I can keep that up I would crash through the 1,500 barrier and actually complete over 2,100 miles! Here's hoping.