I hope nobody minds me putting this here, but please delete it if you think it shouldn't be here. I just need to get this off my chest, so even if it is in the wrong place and it gets deleted, it's going to help me just to write it down. Please forgive me if it seems too self-indulgent.
I couldn't go to the match. I was working that day and couldn't get the day off, and I was warned if I took a sicky I'd get sacked. Good enough though I thought at the time, the boss let me finish at half past 2 so I could listen to it on Radio City at one of my mates. A load of the lads had gone though. What happened then, watching Grandstand, it was too much to comprehend. I was worried sick about the lads I knew were there, and I just could not believe what was happening to the thousands I could see suffering. Numb. What do I do though later on? The tradition was to meet up with some of the lads coming back from aways in The Oak, then meet up with the others in The Bank on Scotty. How could I go out knowing what had happened? How could I not go out and not be there for them if and when they got back? Guilt. Just not knowing what to do. We decided that we had to go. How could I look my mates in the face if I hadn't been there for them that day?
The abiding memory was being stood in The Bank while one of the lads told me that someone wasn't coming home. Even though he was more of an acquaintance than a friend, I knew him and his brothers and cousins well enough to feel sick to my stomach. But then, one of the lads told me that he's killed someone. He was stuck with his arm trapped around him and couldn't get it free. He felt the life drain out of this stranger and could do nothing about it. Tears are tripping me now thinking about it, it's like it was yesterday, but we stood there and cried together, me just holding him while Deacon Blue's Dignity played. Guilt. What could I possibly say to him? It pains me so much to remember the haunted look he had in his eyes, and maybe it's just with hindsight that I can say this, but the life had gone out of his eyes that night and it would never ever come back. A couple of years later and he killed himself. Guilt. Maybe if I'd said something different, helped him more somehow, he'd still be here. 22 years later, and three of my mates who survived it have all commited suicide, directly because of Hillsborough. I feel no less guilty about the other two lads. Four families I knew well, all destroyed because of that day. 96 families fighting for justice, and I feel so guilty about grieving for my friends who died after it. Part of me genuinely feels that the day should only be about the 96 and their families, and I feel so guilty that my thoughts are always with three other families.
And for the last 13 years, it has gotten worse instead of getting better. 14th April 1998, and my wife was in labour in The Women's Hospital expecting twins. I prayed to a God I don't believe in that they were born before midnight, but the boys were born at 12.55am and 1.23 am. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, a positive on the gloomiest day in the calendar. But every year, it gets even harder. The happiest day in my life and I know it's a day that I want and need to honour the memories of others. Guilt. Overwhelming guilt. How can I be happy and celebrating on such a horrible day? It's a disservice to the memory of the people I knew and the ones I didn't. How can I be sad in front of my boys on their birthday? I'm letting them down and failing them as their dad. Every single year, we hold our silence and the boys always make me so proud insisting that it doesn't make their birthday any less perfect. In fact, Aidan told me last week that he feels privileged to be able to pay his respects on his birthday. Kieran makes sure all their mates observe it too. But none of it stops the ache and the guilt I feel when the tears start running down my face in front of them, that I'm somehow ruining their special day. I'm not sure justice for the 96 will ever take these feelings away from me, and that makes me feel guilty and selfish. But all I hope is that it gives the families affected some peace of mind some day soon. They deserve it more than anyone else.
I know writing this seems out of character for me. Everyone knows I'm one of those people who just laughs and jokes his way through life. And I'm no different off RAWK than I am on it. But there's a reason for that. I've got a very rare progressive and incurable neurological illness. I don't know from one day to the next whether I'll even be able to stand up. I fall over all the time, break bones, split my head open, knock myself unconscious and generally smack my body into submission by the end of most days. Some people think I'm irreverent and much worse but the reason I am the way I am, the reason I like to laugh at anything and everything, skit everyone and sometimes forget where to draw the line is simply because for me, life is just too short, precious and fragile. I can only apologise to those I ever offend or upset, because it's never ever intentional. I refuse to feel sorry for myself and I just simply will not allow myself to be sad and miserable most of the time because at the end of every day, I'm still alive and I know that there are always others worse off than me. So forgive me for not taking anything too serious most of the year round. But one day of the year, I feel enough pain, sadness and guilt to last me the rest of the year through. In some ways it's too much, but in other ways I feel guilty for it not being enough.
Aidan and Kieran - thank you so much for understanding. I love you boys and I couldn't be more proud of you both than I am.
Ian, Dave, Paul, Keith, You'll Never Walk Alone lads. Ever. Never ever forgotten. Sean.