This morning at UNISON's national health conference in Liverpool we held a moving minutes silence in memory of the 96 who went to Hillsborough to watch their team in the FA cup semi final and never made it home.
It's also workers' Memorial Day - a fitting and timely reminder of why much derided "health and safety" is actually A. Good. Thing. A very good thing. No one should go to work, or to watch a football match for that matter, and not come home. No one should lose their life because of a failure of organisations, employers or the state to meet their obligations to maintain people's safety to the highest standard expected and most up to date evidence base of the time.
I have followed closely journalist David Conn's excellent coverage of the inquests of those who died. What is most disgusting is not the failings on that day, but the subsequent cover up that goes right to the heart of the establishment and the maligning of the dead and the bereaved by that establishment; the police and the tory government of the day ably aided and abetted by a toxic and hostile media, most disgustingly the Sun newspaper. Thank goodness things have changed. Oh.
Over the years I have listened to the inspirational Hillsborough Justice campaigner Anne Williams, who lost her son Kevin aged just 15. Her premature death at the age of 60 in 2013 sadly means that she didn't get to see justice begin to be done. But as Margaret Aspinall told a packed Kop today "we will not leave this job half done".
Sitting on the Kop this afternoon I could remember so clearly the 13 year old year old me at home, sat on the floor listening to events unfold on the radio. I cannot begin to imagine the deep scars and vivid memories that being there that day has left. The reading out of names followed by the minutes silence was too much for some to bear today, with people hunched over in the stairwells, inconsolable. Some people were there in family groups, some couples supporting each other, and some alone. Many men sat alone, silently shedding tears throughout.
I didn't take any photographs in the ground or of the memorial as it didn't feel right. I was bemused by people taking group selfies during the service, but maybe that's me being uptight and out of touch with modernity? I feel desperately sad that a tearful man had to fight his way through people taking photographs of the memorial (and selfies in front of it) to hang a silver heart from the memorial, before pausing and kissing a name on the memorial.
I'm glad that people are still angry, because this is a fight that's not over yet. I'm proud that the trade union movement has stood behind this campaign throughout. I don't really understand the feeling of "needing to do something" (i worry is it grief tourism or narcissism) but I felt something strongly as I do each anniversary, and each day of the inquest. It was an honour to lay some flowers on the pitch on behalf of Turnstile Blues today. Their fight is our fight. Justice for the 96.
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