15.4.89 (15/4/13)

There's only one thing that I can write about today.

I wasn't at Hillsborough.

24 years ago today I was in work. My memories of the day are ridiculously vague, they come through in little snapshots and emotions all out of order rather than anything concrete unlike our Keith - the account in his book 'We Had Dreams And Songs To Sing' is utterly vivid. He was there. So was our Kev. And my Dad. And my Uncle Dave and, I'm fairly sure, my Uncle Len. And everybody that I knew from going to the match, the lads that we stood with.

I wasn't as regular a match goer as Keith and Kev and generally didn't do away games, I'd been to a couple of Milk Cup finals over the years and two semi finals - one at Goodison and the replay at Maine Road. Nothing with too much travel. I was a part timer.

I remember hearing the first news of what was happening in Sheffield. My manager, Pete, was a Man United fan from Bury. He came to me on the shop floor, grinning, and said "See your lot have kicked off again"

I can't blame him for that, he didnt know, he couldn't know. He was getting it from the radio in the stockroom. I was on the shop floor and stupidly I stayed there. As the reports started to filter through and the first rumours of loss of life started to emerge, I kept working. I didn't go and stand in front of the radio and listen. I have no idea why. I just worked and worried.

I worried about Keith and Kev. I was sure my dad would be okay, he was in the stands. The lads were behind the goal though, because that's what you do, that's where you want to be. Keith had been at Heysel and he'd come home okay, you don't get lucky twice. All I was waiting for was the worst. Waiting for the end of the working day and waiting for the worst.

The only consolation that I had was that my Mum wouldn't know about it. She was going out that afternoon and wouldn't be anywhere near a telly, she wouldn't have any idea what was happening. Except obviously she did. The second she got off the bus in Crosby she heard about it. She got back on the bus, went home and turned on the TV. She saw what was happening. She knew her sons were in there. My Dad was in the stands watching bodies being carried past him on make shift stretchers constructed from hoardings waiting for the next one to be one of his sons.

Keith and Kev had avoided the central pen, they had been out to the left. They had been in the crush outside, Kev had a bad moment in the tunnel under the stands and was almost swept toward the central pen but they had been okay, they had been lucky. Keith had somehow got down onto the path around the pitch, found my dad and let him know that they were all okay. Obviously none of us knew  anything about that.

I have no idea whether I rang my Mum from work or if she rang work, I don't even know if we spoke. We must have because, somehow, I knew that there had been no contact from anybody yet. J had been at home in her Mum and Dad's watching everything unfold on the TV. She was coming over to ours that night, we were having a night in, watching a Robin Williams video that I was borrowing from work. She went over early to be with my Mum. As she arrived at ours, my Mum opened the door, threw her arms around J and said "they're alright!"

A lady in Sheffield had allowed Liverpool fans to use her phone to ring home. I don't know if it was the lads that rang or my dad, I think it was the lads, but the message had got through. The lad in front of them hadn't been as lucky. He was ringing home to tell his parents that he'd lost his brother.

I don't remember getting home. I know that I arrived to be told that everything was okay, that they were safe. I remember the relief. We watched the news until they stopped showing it and, I'm fairly sure, moved back to normal programming. This was before our 24 hour news channels. Then we waited. And while we waited we put on the Robin Williams video. I had still borrowed it and I still put it on. I have no idea why. I think it was an attempt to feel as though the world was still normal, to try and hide from what had happened, a distraction until everybody got home.

I don't remember them getting home either, I know the lads arrived first, my Dad later. My Dad's coach was held back as they were missing one of the passengers. Eventually they had to leave, leaving the missing man's son in Sheffield to search for his father. When the news came through that the missing passenger had died it was the first time that I had ever seen my Dad cry.

The main memory of the days after is going to Anfield. The ground had become a shrine, flowers were filling the goalmouth when we first got there, scarfs hanging from the bar of the goal, tied to the barriers in the Kop. Very quickly the carpet of flowers would grow to fill over half of the pitch. Flowers, scarfs, shirts, banners; from every club in the country. The saddest, most beautiful sight. The sight that remains though, the sight I will always see when I think of that week is our Kevin walking up to the spot on the Kop that we had always stood, sitting on the steps and breaking down.

He was 20. He was a 20 year old kid that had gone to a match and come back having seen things that nobody should have to see. Keith was 23. The police who were on duty, the majority of whom had failed in the most appalling manner,were given counselling for what they had witnessed. Where was the counselling for the fans? How were thousands of people allowed to just drift home on their own from such a disaster?

For a very long time I felt guilty for not having been there, for not being able to understand what my brothers had been through. It took years for that feeling to fade.

The hour that I've just spent writing this has been horrible, I feel physically sick and I've been on the edge of tears a few times. I've dragged up emotions that I've avoided for years, done my damnedest to remember things that I don't want to remember. And I wasn't there. I'm talking from the standpoint of somebody who wasn't there and who was lucky. My family came home physically unharmed although two years later Keith was having operations on his eyes as two years of sleepless nights had damaged his tear ducts. He told us at the time that it was due to the VDUs that they were using in work, we found out the truth from his book twenty years after the fact.

And that's it really, that's what I remember. As I said, I wasn't there and we were lucky. There were thousands there who carry the memories and the images with them every day of their lives, there are 96 families that carry an unimaginable loss with them every waking second, 96 sets of friends who lost somebody that day. There are 24 years of lies and cover up and smears, 24 years of victims being blamed for what the actions of others caused.

I thank God that I still have my Dad and my two Brothers and that they and we have the lives and families that they went on to build.

There are 96 people that were never given that chance. 96 ordinary fans that went to a football match one sunny day in April 1989 and had everything taken away from them.

We finally have the truth, Justice must come soon.

JFT96
YNWA

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