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Four Welsh lads in Liverpool

In the autumn of 1988, I embarked on my second year of study in Biomedical Sciences in Liverpool. Having lived in halls of residence during my first year, myself and three friends from Wales decided to seek a house share somewhere in the city. We soon settled on a mid-terraced property in Curate Road, Anfield. At £8 each per week, the affordability soon swung it. In those days, the Fair Rent Commission was still in existence so students were still able to get reasonable value for their money.

We lived close enough to Anfield football ground as to be able to hit it with a stone and perhaps the greatest irony was that none of us to my recollection were Liverpool supporters. Then as now, students were a large part of the population of Liverpool and we were generally well accepted by the locals and enjoyed living there. The bus to the city centre in the morning was still smoking upstairs and non-smoking downstairs. Either way, you stank of smoke when you got home but nobody cared really.

The living was still cheap in those days and I shared a house with three computer science students from Porthmadog, Caernarfon and Newport respectively. I can't recall either of us being overly conscientious in our studies and we certainly lived life to the full.

I was travelling back to Liverpool from Rhyl on the afternoon of April 15th 1989. In those days, I had to change trains at Chester and change again when I reached Hooton. That was where I was when the first news began to emerge of the events taking place at the FA cup semi final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough. Of course, there were no mobile phones then. I heard from a bloke at the station who had been listening to the game on his "tranny". It seems rather dated now to refer to a transistor radio but that was what we had in 1989.

When I finally arrived home that evening, it was as though the siren had sounded for a nuclear bomb. We had never seen Liverpool so quiet on a Saturday night. But the following day was something else. No buses, No cars, No taxis. No people. Curtains drawn. Pubs closed. Shops closed. Nothing. Nothing.

The full horror of the death toll soon became apparent and the four of us joined the mood of the city in grieving for the fans who never came home. My family has many fans of Liverpool football club and even though I am a lifelong Leeds fan, I will never forget the stark horrors of that time. It is not something I would ever want to experience again.

Today reminded us of most of what is wrong in British life. Of course I am relieved that eventually the families of those poor fans have received the verdict which they ought to have received all those years ago. But it is precisely the time it has taken which should serve to remind all of us of the dangers of power. When people in positions of power abuse it, real people and their families suffer. The establishment in our country has shown it's true colours for a staggering 27 years. Is that establishment confined to the police force? No, of course not. As with an iceberg, there are the obvious parts which we can't miss and there is the much bigger bit which we can't. This is all about power and protecting self interest. It does not speak of the country which I want to live in and I hope and pray that today's custodians of power and establishment figures are looking long and hard tonight at the legacy of that unforgivable attitude. As a bare minimum, people deserve honesty and integrity. That should be the bench mark of all of us.

May the 96 rest in peace.

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