The second big change I made in my life was in January 2008, when I quit smoking! I’ve not had a cigarette since January 7th

My latest challenge, and perhaps it’s going to be the biggest change of all, is to lose weight.
On May 14th I started on a weight loss programme called LighterLife and by yesterday, just 11 days later, when I was weighed by my counsellor, I had lost a whopping 1st 1lb (7kg)!! I’ve still a long way to go, but I’m determined to succeed.

Yesterday was the Third Round of The FA Cup and Liverpool were playing against Arsenal. It was being televised live on the BBC. The Kopites decided it was a perfect opportunity to gain maximum exposure for the Hillsborough Justice Campaign and show their feelings to the BBC about them employing Kelvin MacKenzie.
They made banners and organised a mosaic made from red and white cards, spelling out “The Truth” to be displayed in The Kop, while chanting “Justice for the 96″ for the first 6 minutes of the match. The relevance of the 6 minutes is how long the Semi-Final FA Cup Tie in April 1989 was played for before being halted.

The Truth Mosaic in The Kop - Photo used with kind permission of Stephen Poynor (redforlife at RAWK)

In the weeks before Christmas it was revealed that Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun newspaper, had been hired by the BBC to present a Christmas Day programme on BBC Radio 5 Live. Liverpool fans were horrified to hear about this, how could the BBC employ this man to present a show for them at all, let alone on Christmas Day? On many forums petitions were organised (11,000 signatures were collected), and many sent emails to the BBC complaining about the choice of presenter. They did have a small success with these actions with the programme being moved to Christmas Eve.

On the 15th of April 1989 a dreadful tragedy took place at the very start of the FA Cup semi-final game held at Hillsborough and it cost 96 Liverpool fans their lives.

As of today, the bereaved families and those fans that were injured and/or mentally scarred by the events of that tragic day have not seen justice done. Despite an inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor, which stated that the official cause of the disaster was the failure of police control, many people still (wrongly) believe it was caused by the fans turning up drunk and late for the match and forcing open a gate which led to the fans being driven by momentum into the narrow tunnel that lead to two, already overcrowded, centre pens in the Leppings Lane End of the stadium. Yes, many fans were late arriving, mainly due to traffic delays and a large crowd did build up outside the turnstiles, but instead of delaying the kick-off, a decision was made, by the police, to open a set of exit gates and allow the fans to get in quickly. More and more fans were entering the pens, completely unaware that fans at the front of the pens were being crushed against the fencing at the front.

As fans were having the life literally squeezed out of them, the game kicked off. Despite pleas for help from the fans, the police did nothing to help. In fact not only did they do nothing to help, they actually tried pushing fans, who had managed to climb over the fence, back into the pens. 6 minutes into the game the police finally realised this was not an attempted pitch invasion, but was a life threatening situation and the game was stopped.

Still the catalogue of errors by the police continued. While fans were doing their best to help fellow fans escape, were attempting to save lives, give the kiss of life and CPR to dying men, women & children, the police refused to allow the many ambulances and paramedics waiting outside the ground access to the pitch and the dying and injured. Fans tore down advertising boards and used them as makeshift stretchers, running across the pitch with them trying to get them badly needed medical assistance.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the national press carried stories over the following days of shocking behaviour by Liverpool fans towards the police & the victims. The editor of The Sun newspaper, Kelvin MacKenzie, even used the front page headline “THE TRUTH” with “Some fans picked pockets of victims”, “Some fans urinated on the brave cops” and “Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life” as sub-headlines. The story that followed these headlines claimed that fans had attacked, robbed and urinated on police officers, ambulance crews, firemen and victims. These claims were very quickly found to be untrue and all the newspapers published a full apology immediately, all except The Sun newspaper that is.

The people of Liverpool and Liverpool fans countrywide were incensed by the headlines and to this day a boycott of The Sun continues strongly, with people refusing to even read it, let alone buy it. A lot of newsagents in Liverpool still refuse to stock the paper.

It took just over 15 years for The Sun to publish an apology, a cynical attempt to regain a circulation that has never recovered from the boycott on Merseyside, an apology that went on to blame rival papers for a “campaign of hate” against The Sun.

Kelvin MacKenzie further angered the people of Liverpool and the fans as recently as November 2006 by saying he’d only apologised in 2004 because Rupert Murdoch, The Sun’s owner, had ordered him to. He said “I was not sorry then and I’m not sorry now”.

Relevant links:
Memorial Page
The Hillsborough Justice Campaign
RAWK
Video footage of ‘The Truth’ protest

He was born on 18th November 2006 at 9.23pm, and weighed a very healthy 8lbs 9½oz (3.900kg) and measured 23″ (58cm) long.
My lovely ‘daughter-in-law’ let me be in the delivery suite for her labour and his birth, and I am so glad she did, it was a wonderful experience to see my first grandchild enter the world. My son and I both cried tears of joy when he was born. Mother & son are both doing very well.

Proud daddy holding Lucas at 16 minutes old

14 hours old

2 days old

4 days old with his great grandmother

The last photo I took before leaving to come home

As some of you may know, he has ADHD and has caused me plenty of heartache and stress over recent years.
On Monday 4th September he started a one week LiFE Course with the London Fire Brigade.
I wasn’t sure he’d complete the week, especially as he hasn’t even managed to attend more than a couple of hours education in the past year, but yesterday was his “Passing Out” ceremony!!

The week started with 14 young people taking part in the course and ended with just 9 completing it. During the week they had to learn how to use the hoses, climb ladders safely, rescue ‘people’, use breathing apparatus in a pitch black, smoke filled building and become part of a team. each achievement was recognised with a certificate which made a collection of them and put into a portfolio, which they can use as references when applying for jobs (it’ll even help them get into the Fire Service if they want to do that).

Yesterday was the final day and parents, carers, friends and local dignitaries were invited to watch the young people put on a display of what they’d learnt during the week and to watch them being presented with their portfoilios and a lovely framed photo of the whole team and the LiFE Trainers (fire fighters who volunteer on their days off to help these kids) posing in front of a fire engine.

Here are a few photos from the day…

Roll call at the start of the display.

Dom (the one not wearing a helmet) and others watching kids vs firemen in a ‘hose race’

The fire engine ‘arriving at a shout’. Dom is sat in the back.

Dom climbing a ladder to do a ‘rescue’.

Dom rescuing a ‘victim’ from a ‘fire’.

Dom helping to take the ‘victim’ to the first aid post.

End of ‘duty’ roll call.

Getting into postion ready for presentations.

Dom receiving his portfolio & framed photo from his LiFE Trainer, Chris.

Clutching his portfolio and photo, so proud of himself, he’s finally achieved something good

The wonderful guys who gave up their free time to help these kids.

Well done son, I’m so very, very proud of you!!

What better way to spend it than sitting watching hunky firemen? I had been invited to go along to a local fire station to see the ‘passing out’ parade of some kids who had spent a week taking part in a ‘Life’ course run by the London Fire Brigade. These kids get to learn how to roll out the hoses, put out ‘fires’ (not real ones), rescue people from burning buildings and car accidents, climb ladders safely, how to put casualties into the recovery position and to check they’re breathing ok. They also get to wear the full fireman’s kit all week, and learn how to use the breathing apparatus and even get to ride in a fire engine. It’s not all fun & games for these kids though, they have to follow strict rules & regulations otherwise they’re off the course. Out of the 17 kids that started this week, only 12 made it to the end of the week, and those 12 looked so proud of their achievement when they were presented with a portfolio containing all their achievements of the week and a lovely framed photo of the whole group dressed in full fireman kit, and the firemen who trained them, posing in front of a fire engine. After that we were given a lovely lunch, provided by the Fire Brigade.

The beauty of this is… I have another day like it to look forward to, as my youngest son is being referred to take part in the course, so I’ll get to see him at his passing out parade

The match was an exciting game and with the Liverpool fans outnumbering the Hammers fans in the flat by something like 15 - 2 (the 2 being me & my youngest son) you can imagine the noise each time Liverpool managed to equalise and the slightly more sedate celebrations when West Ham once again took the lead hehehe. It was a shame the final outcome had to be decided on penalties, but someone had to win, there could be no rematch at a later date.
Both teams played fabulously and did their fans proud. After an hour or so of being in with the Liverpool fans in the street while they celebrated, we made our way back to the car and begun the horrendous journey home. It took almost two hours to get out of Cardiff on the Motorway… the speed we were driving at was something like “I can walk faster than this” speed! We eventually arrived home at 12.45am this morning, feeling totally exhausted but having enjoyed ourselves.

Congratulations Liverpool!!

We’re meeting up with my eldest son, a Liverpool fan and who now lives in Liverpool. It should be an interesting day, especially as me & my son are Hammers fans.

GO HAMMERS!!!!!

I spent the rest of the day working and looking forward to the birthday dinner my daughter was going to be cooking for me. I arrived home… no wonderful cooking smells greet me as I open the door. My daughter was up in bed, burning up with a fever & feeling very poorly. After checking on her, running up & down the stairs with drink, mobile phone & medication, I went to find today’s mail and all my birthday cards… No cards

But there was a letter threatening me with court action from a loan company I haven’t dealt with in over a year!

They were threatening to take me to court for having an outstanding balance of £0.00 and for falling behind in payments to the sum of £0.00 … that’s not a typo, it IS zero, coz I don’t owe them anything!!! In bold text I was instructed to contact them within 24 hours of receiving the notice. Fine… except… where’s the contact telephone number? In fact… where’s any telephone number? This evening I rang my mum to see how she was (she’s not been well the last few days) and to let her know the good news about the baby. We spoke for about 20 minutes before she remembered to wish me happy birthday. I was beginning to feel like today was just any old day, and not my special day. Then I cooked myself my birthday dinner and sat here all alone eating it.
I think my 46th birthday can be one that is forgotten… does that mean I can claim to be a year younger than I really am? hehehe