The Truth

This has been a tough week for me.
I thought after 23 year I might be able to deal with the findings of the Hillsborough Independent Panel Report. I thought I had my feelings under control and could take it in my stride. I couldn’t.
As I watched it unfold, from Cameron’s speech in parliament, to the last moments of the vigil in Liverpool I have cried, beaten my fists in fury and felt the guilt of survival all over again. It never goes way, it only lies hidden.

The despicable behaviour of those charged with protecting us on that day has me enraged. The cover up, beyond even the belief I already had about the goings on, aghast. The dignity and strength shown by the people who made it happen, humble.

This is not just a momentous day for the families and friends of Hillsborough victims, and those of us injured but surviving, it’s also a day that transcends football, and sport. It is a result that should reverberate throughout every football ground, and through every supporter, regardless of their allegiance.

It could so easily have been you.

I was one of the lucky ones. The report showed that dozens of people could have been saved if they had been treated correctly at the scene. Mine was saved by the selfless quick actions, and disregard for the policeman who pronounced me dead on the pitch, of a few fellow fans, who pushed me over the fence, gave me mouth to mouth and carried me unconscious out of the ground on advertising hoardings. They got me into an ambulance and I was taken to hospital. I have never met any of them. I was in touch with one lad once, but he was too traumatised to meet me. They, and everyone else there that day, should be proud of their actions. They have suffered horrifically since through no fault of their own.

What happened that day, and in the intervening 23 years, is a lesson in the venal nature of some in positions of authority when protecting themselves, and their institutions when they spy a way out, an escape from being held accountable. The pursuit of the truth has been difficult. Ordinary, working class people, stricken with grief, looking for answers and justice for 23 years, while having doors continually slammed in their faces and told to move on, forget about it, stop whinging.

They are an inspiration; the perfect embodiment of dignity, tenaciousness and fighting spirit.

Those responsible for the lies, the deceit, the betrayal of trust and the hateful covering up of their own culpability must now be held properly to account.

Those in the South Yorkshire Police who failed to carry out their jobs correctly then deliberately changed witness statements, tried to find criminal links by referencing the dead with criminal records, and took blood alcohol readings from children to try to blame alcohol.

Those in the press who thought that their print-and-be-damned actions were in the public interest, but were nothing short of disgusting lies designed to scapegoat, smear and denigrate 96 innocent men, women and children.

The government of the time that saw an opportunity to wage their class war against the industrial workers of this country, outside the factories, mining towns and docks.

Sheffield Wednesday football club, for their unwillingness to ever accept their part in the disaster by owning and leasing out an unsafe, crumbling stadium unfit for purpose.

And the FA, those bastions of all things inept and wretched, for their lack of awareness, their willful disregard for stadium safety reports and their typically pathetic attempts to avoid any connection with the events of April 15th 1989.

I hope the families and friends of the victims feel they have won a victory, I hope they can find some peace, and I hope that the new inquests they want are forthcoming.

For those who were responsible, took no blame and spent 23 years lying, shifting blame and treating the dead and their relatives with utter contempt. I hope they are truly ashamed and disgusted with themselves. And I hope they experience some of the horror and guilt they’ve so willing to pile onto others for the past 23 years.

Is the end nigh?

Whilst browsing in my local Waterstones recently I watched someone pick up a novel, read the back, look it up online on their phone, order it, then put the book back on the shelf and leave.
I mentioned this to an erstwhile colleague of mine from my stint working in the same shop in my student days. ‘Happens all the time’ she said ‘We’ve become a showroom for the internet’.

Now I’m no Luddite, and regularly use Amazon, but it’s a disconcerting thought that bookshops as we know them might become extinct in our lifetime.

Since 2006 the number of independent bookshops in the UK has fallen by nearly 500. That’s a third of the total. Of course, it’s impossible for these shops to survive in a publishing world that has been decimated by supermarkets piling high and selling the latest toss from the mind of Katie Price, or the new cookbook from one-man-culinary-juggernaut-and-occasional-drum-worrier Jamie (no need for a surname). It’s basic free-market economics.

But what about the rest of us who would like more choice than the 12 books the publishers and supermarket buyers have decided we’re worthy of? And how can any bookshop survive in a world where they are continually undercut by online giants operating without the wage and premises costs of those who have to deal with customers face to face in a shop?
That’s before we even consider the impact of e-books.

Since the decline and fall of Borders there is only one high-street chain still fighting. Waterstones are struggling, of that there is no doubt. The heady days of 3 for 2 are long gone, replaced with buy one get one half price. They have diversified into more games and electronics, and have given stationers Paperchase a new home since Borders disappeared. They try harder too, with creative table lay-outs and window displays, but now have noticeably less staff to guide potential customers. Another ex-colleague told me he dreads dealing with the increasing number of befuddled and downright nuts people who come into the shop now.
So what can they, and independent booksellers do?

It’s true they need to encourage more people in, and once in to spend, but to me it’s all about reminding readers that there is more out there than mass-produced pap – and more to buying a book than clicking a mouse.

A bookshop is a special place, somewhere quite unlike anywhere else. It is a repository of wonders, somewhere that can change your life, unique.

I hope the iconic ones will survive - Hatchards and Foyles in London, and Booksoup in LA, for example, but it is telling that Village Voice in Paris closed at the end of July 2012, after 30 years due to online competition and e-book sales.

I don’t want to look back in a few years and wish I could go into a bookshop again. I’m going to do my best to resist the urge to use Amazon all the time, and at least sometimes go in, browse, enjoy the look, smell and ambience of the shop, and the delights on offer, and spend my money in there.

It’s got to be worth a couple of extra quid to save something wonderful that could otherwise end up a distant memory, hasn’t it?

Reading: What a carve up! by Jonathan Coe
Listening to: Shootenanny by Eels
Watching: Breaking Bad, Season 5