You'll Never Walk Alone

Tonight my son will sleep in his Liverpool home and I am grateful that he has followed his father to a city that is vibrant, diverse, funny, harsh but most of all compassionate. As a Yorkshireman I am proud of my roots and deeply in love with the moors and hills where I grew up yet I have a second home in a land of Gerry and his Pacemakers, in a place where I grew up and learned of wine, women and of course song.

People often say to me where have I enjoyed living the most? France? Switzerland? Kent? Yorkshire? Wiltshire? My answer will always be the same Liverpool.

This is the city that taught me how to be me, for the first time in my life I actually began to know myself there. I discovered who Trace Senior really was and believe me that took some sorting out. I discovered love, deep love and friendship that will never be put asunder. And to know my son is experiencing the same is of great relief to this slightly balding, overweight middle aged man.

Yet I have that luxury, the knowledge that I saw my son only a few hours ago and spoke to him on the phone whilst I wrote this blog. Tonight in Liverpool the families of 96 children, for they were all someone's child, cannot do that. They cannot do that because of institutional mismanagement, negligence and lies.

I am convinced that this report will go deeper to the heart of British politics and institutionalisation than even perhaps the Bloody Sunday inquiry. I am of the belief that elements of our society and so called ruling bodies were absolutely clear, long before today, of the nature of what had happened that fateful day April 15th 1989 at the Leppings Lane End of the Hillsborough stadium.

The question is what was known and by who and when? And what should we do about it?

Firstly let us be clear. Whatever is done it will not bring back those poor souls who died that warm spring afternoon in Yorkshire. Nor will it take away the 23 years of hurt that the families of the 96 have fought for justice. But it may bring some kind of closure, closure on a wound that festers on the very soul of our society that like an infected pussy carbunkle has been allowed to continue to grow by inaction, ineptitude and instictive self survival of a few in the know.

Everybody at that ground that day has suffered in some way. Everyone who has any connection with Liverpool or Nottingham Forest Football Clubs have suffered in some way. Everyone connected with the Taylor Report have been affected by the realities of what they knew and saw and did, or rather didn't say.

Yet at the end of the day there are people, powerful people, who clearly know more than they have told and it is those who have caused much of the suffering and they should be held accountable.

Will that happen? Possibly not, probably not. Why? because in the words of Mulder "The truth is out there" And we all know what happened to Agent Mulder.

This is without doubt a conspiracy of the highest order and I like a good conspiracy theory like the best of us. Unfortunately I fear this conspiracy will turn out to have real truth behind it.

Tonight as I go to sleep and think of those back in Liverpool and those connected with the city I will pray that those involved will sleep a little easier tonight as the healing process can begin. I hope that we as a great nation will help those in Liverpool to do that.

For one thing I am certain of, once you have been taken in as a child of the city then you will always be part of that city. Liverpudlians are known for doing that. Tonight however if this nation wishes to be truly great then we need, each one of us, to put our differences apart and to put our collective arms, and hearts around those who are in pain under the shadow of the Liver Bird!