You'll Never Walk Alone

Apologies for the sudden cut, I ran out of memory on my phone.

24 years

This time last year I expressed a hope that the truth would one day be known. This year it feels like a huge step has been made on that journey.
RIP All 96 of you, including Sarah.
YNWA.

One Day

One day.
One day that ripped apart so many families.
One day that ended 96 lives.
One day that left an indelible mark.
One day.
One day.
The truth will be revealed.
One day.

In Memory of Sarah and Victoria

Some of you may have been reading me long enough to remember the post I wrote two years ago today. Others may know about my 365 Day Project, a photography project I'm doing through Flickr. For today's photo I had a very strong urge to incorporate a photograph of Sarah's grave into my shot. The problems with this idea are many. Photos of Sarah's grave are to be found on the web but using them would infringe copyright. To avoid this I would really need to take a photograph myself, which would mean visiting her grave. Sarah is buried in Allerton Cemetery, only a 45 minute journey from my house, and actually less than half an hour from where I was this afternoon. However, Allerton Cemetry is huge, easily the largest cemetery I have ever visited in the UK and I had no idea where the grave was. I phoned Liverpool Council and spoke to a very kind man who told me that the record office could tell me the plot number and which section it was in, but that the turn-around for this would be within 48 hours. It seemed like a doomed mission.

However, I decided to go anyway. Cemeteries are calming places that sooth my soul when I am as restless as I was today. I have passed it before but never been in. I drove up the main drive and parked my car near the central chapel, with absolutely no idea where to go. I spotted a grave under a tree festooned with Liverpool scarves, but it was for a serviceman killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009. I wondered around in a large circle for maybe 30 minutes and spotted an urban fox, trotting through the cemetery towards the woodland area but nothing else. As I circled back again towards the chapel, resigned to giving it all up as a bad job, I saw the soldier's grave again and then, across the grass saw a tree with much older scarves hanging from it.



Amazingly, I had parked my car less than one minute's walk away.

RIP Sarah, Victoria and the other 94.

Twenty Years

Twenty years ago.

A fair Saturday afternoon.

I was packing my things ready to return to Liverpool for the last term of my first year. I was probably listening to Otway.

The doorbell went.

To my surprise I opened the door to a boy I knew from school, but hadn't been particularly close to at the time. He was on a year out and had dropped by on the off chance that I might be in. He became a good friend.

I offered him a cup of tea or coffee. He asked for a glass of milk.

Meanwhile 150 miles away, the girl who worked a few benches down from me in the chem lab went to a football match.

Whilst Nick and I were chatting, Mum was listening to the radio. As he left she came to tell me there had been some trouble at the Liverpool match. By the evening news it became apparent that this was no ordinary case of crowd trouble. As we were to find out later, it wasn't a case of crowd trouble at all, whatever some sections of the media wanted us to believe.

The drive back to Liverpool on the Sunday was sombre. As I returned to my Halls there wasn't the usual sense of laughter at reunion; people were subdued. I unpacked, grabbed my granny square blanket and went to my boyfriend's room. As I sat and crocheted the blanket that I am sitting on now, the evening news came on. The first victims of the disaster were named and their photos flashed onto the screen: sisters Sarah and Victoria Hicks, 19 and 15.

The shock was immense. Even now, the sensation of my insides turning to water vividly remains. I didn't know Sarah very well and it shook my world at the time; I will never be able to fully comprehend how the families feel and how they survive from day to day.

The Thursday after the disaster, a friend and I got a map, plotted a route and walked to Anfield. We joined the snaking queue to lay flowers. By the time we got there, the flowers covered half the pitch. The fences at the front of the Kop were a riot of colour, with football scarves and shirts from clubs across the country. The sense of grief was almost overwhelming. It was the first and only time I have been to Anfield. I spent a fair bit of free time that week at the Metropolitan Cathedral, just across the road from the Guild of Undergraduates. I found it then to be a place of peace.

Today the urge to be in Liverpool was overwhelming, so I went. Without A, I didn't think I could face Anfield and in retrospect I'm glad I didn't go there. My composure was wobbly enough as it was and 28,000 people singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" would have finished me off. Instead, I returned to the Met. I stayed for the two minutes silence, then sat outside listening to the bells of both cathedrals as they tolled 96 times.

RIP

Archive radio and photos are here.

Glitter and Sparkles!

Yesterday afternoon, A and I and my Mum and Dad fought our way through the result of the North West's severe weather warning (*cough* - a sprinkling of snow less than a quarter of an inch deep!) to go to the Manchester Evening News Arena to see the Strictly Come Dancing Live! tour. It was so cheesy - and I loved every single minute of it! Kate Thornton's sparkly shoes, Len Goodman's risque comments, Craig's deadpan delivery, even Christopher Parker's dreadful Paso Doble! A coped manfully with it, we were on the back row right at the very top, so looking at the dance floor was a little like looking at a Subbuteo table, which provided A and I with much laughter, pretending to flick the dancers around the floor. However, it wasn't really his thing, since as he said, watchign it on the screen was no different from watching it on the telly at home, apart from the fact that he couldn't lie on the couch and drink beer.

However, as he pointed out, it was probably no different from two week ago when I was less than thrilled by Newcastle's performance against Bolton at St James'. The last time I had seen Newcastle play was not long after Keegen took over the post last time around, in the Spring of 1992. They played a blinder of a game against Swindon Town, beating them 3-1. This time, the football was dire.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I went, since the pre-match atmosphere was ecstatic, but 15 minutes into the game, the Toon Army just stopped singing, as they realised that King Kev may have arrived, but his magic wand had obviously got lost in transit. Never in all my time of watching football live (and remember, most live footballl I've seen has been either Macc Town languishing in lower divisions or small club football like Whitley Bay Town) have I seen such an appallingly lacklustre performance. I have never sat at a live sports event before and wished I'd bought my knitting.

Nuff said.

Torn between two lovers...

Well, not really, but I bet that got your pulse racing, dear reader!

Today, Northwich Victoria played away at Oxford United. My current footie team, versus my first one. I was hoping to go with A and Dad, but A was too late coming down, so we didn't go. Maybe it was for the best, since the Vics were whopped by The U's. Divided loyalties in this case again! (When United played Macc Town in the FA Cup several years ago when we lived in Macc, A stood in the home end of the Moss Rose whilst I stood with the Oxford supporters in the away end...)

BTW, Dad's now had his first two sessions of radiotherapy. He seems to be bouncing since he's started on the hormone treatment, so I'm really pleased.

Wet Weekend

Well, this could describe the weather today, or it could just as equally describe me! It's too wet to go to see the Vics play and I feel a bit "urgh" anyway. There's nothing for it really, I'm going to have to sort out the office.

Now A found it very funny at the wedding to discover from some of my colleagues that the school caretaker has been giving them guided tours of my cupboard ever since I tidied it the day after we came home from the Walk (not something that I felt merited a blog entry really, even if I did turn a health hazard into a safe working environment). So he has decided that we need to build on this success and "sort out the Office". He makes it sound so easy. Actually, it will be a little easier because yesterday I gathered most of the papers up that were on the floor and put them into piles so I could actually walk across the room on carpet. But never the less, it is one of those jobs that you know needs to be done, that will give you a lot of satisfaction once you've done it, but doing it will be cack.

I will keep you posted. If you don't hear anything over the next few days, I have been buried under an avalanche of papers, old bills and schoolwork...

Trauma...

Well, I don't suppose you'll agree, but I think this is traumatic. Oxford United have been relegated to the Conference. For the first time since 1962, when they joined Division 4 on the demise of Accrington Stanley, they are not in the Football League.

The only up side is that this season, Northwich Victoria were promoted to the Conference, so they'll be playing them. This of course, gives A and I the same problem as when United were in the same league as Macclesfield Town and I would refuse to stand in the home end of the Moss Rose to watch United and he would refuse to stand in the away end! I recruited a colleague of mine at the time who, if he can't watch his beloved Norwich City will watch any match he can get to, so A wouldn't worry about me standing with a group of manic footie fans (He worries too much!) The funny thing was trying to explain to my cousin, a United season ticket holder who had come up to Cheshire for the match, why I was watching it with a bloke he'd never met before, rather than my husband...