Feedback | 23 October 2004

Liverpool replies

I am a survivor of the Hillsborough disaster, so I imagine you can guess where this is going (Leading article, 16 October).

Unlike 96 less fortunate people, I was rescued from the Leppings Lane terrace on 15 April 1989 and so am able to provide a little bit of an insight into what exactly happened. Suffice to say, the findings in Lord Taylor’s report regarding the responsibility for the disaster being with anyone but the Liverpool fans were accurate. I can confirm this not only because I have read the report but because, of course, I was there. Not in the press box, not in another part of the stadium and not watching on TV, but actually among the dead and the dying. I was one of the people who was lifting the bodies of teenage children over the fence and being threatened with arrest by police officers for doing so.

The events surrounding Hillsborough do not fuel or form part of this perceived ‘victim’ culture that you accuse people from Liverpool of nurturing. The anger about Hillsborough is that over 15 years later the real truth about what happened is still not fully acknowledged or accepted. The proof of this, of course, is your own article, which once again attempts to re-affirm urban myths about the events of the day. I saw, heard, touched and even smelt those events, and if you think that all I or anyone else in Liverpool wants to do is use them as the poster boy for a ‘victim’ culture movement, then you are very much mistaken.

Ian Wadkins
Manchester

Whatever next? Will Private Eye be apologising to the cultured residents of Neasden for years of disparaging remarks? Can we expect Essex men and women to rise up in protest against countless comments relating to their morality and aesthetic tastes? Just wait till the Welsh list their grievances, and people from Scunthorpe identify the many comedians who have made fun of their town, and we will soon be spending all year saying sorry to each other.