Beyond Hillsborough

Joanne Halliday

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781783191345
• eBook ISBN: 9781783196333
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"Know what happened, understand what happened and remember what happened." Hillsborough Survivor Beyond Hillsborough is a verbatim play, written and set in 2012, that explores the personal consequences of living with the Hillsborough tragedy. Following extensive, never before heard interviews with survivors, bereaved family members, politicians, police and journalists, the play interweaves personal narratives taken directly from transcripts to present the truth. The play is fully supported by the Hillsborough Family Support Group, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign and Hope for Hillsborough. When writing the play the authors also received support from Max Stafford Clark and Jimmy McGovern. Royalties from sales of this book will be shared between the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, the Hillsborough Family Support Group and Hope for Hillsborough.

CHARACTERS

STEPHEN KELLY

his brother Michael died at Hillsborough.

HJC member.

SHEILA COLEMAN

academic researcher. HJC member.

JENNI HICKS

her daughters Sarah and Vicky died at

Hillsborough. HFSG member.

ROB WHITE

Hillsborough survivor.

NEIL SAMPSON

Hillsborough survivor.

FRIEND

writer.

ANNE WILLIAMS

her son Kevin died at Hillsborough. Set up Hope

for Hillsborough.

POLICE

Cheshire Police Officer.

Ambulance Worker TONY EDWARDS, Yorkshire.

ROGAN TAYLOR

journalist and broadcaster.

STEVE ROTHERHAM

Labour MP, Liverpool.

BRIAN READE

Sports journalist, Daily Mirror.

KENNY DERBYSHIRE

Hillsborough survivor. HJC member.

WENDY DERBYSHIRE

Hillsborough survivor. HJC member.

As audience enter and take their seats a montage of recorded interview extracts from news reports from 1989 on Hillsborough is played through speaker. Cast enter in blackout, lights come up to show cast staring out, stillness/angst. Lights down, montage of reports again and cast sit SR/SL. Two actors stand DSL/DSR.

ACTOR 1: On the 15 of April 1989 a football match was played between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, the neutral venue chosen was Hillsborough. Before 1989, Hillsborough was just the name of one of England’s famous old football grounds, but for the last 23 years the word, ‘Hillsborough’, has evoked memories of Britain’s worst-ever sporting disaster. Only six minutes into the game – play was stopped when it was realised that spectators on the terraces behind the Liverpool goal had been severely crushed. 96 men, women and children were killed and hundreds of others injured and left permanently traumatised. We’ll never know the full extent of the damaging legacy.

ACTOR 2: As Steve Rotherham MP said in the House of Commons, ‘there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened on the day and in the dark days, weeks, years and ashamedly decades that followed’. Instead of those at fault taking responsibility for their actions, a co-ordinated campaign began to shift the blame and look for scapegoats. To this day nobody has been held accountable for Hillsborough.

ACTOR 1: Using only words from transcribed interviews we are going to present the truth.

Soundtrack of montage, actors sit.

Act 1 – Introductions

Company sit and watch projection on screen in silence. They turn to face projected image of Andy Burnham MP at Hillsborough 20^th Memorial at Anfield.

PROJECTION/RECORDING/TREVOR HICKS: I’d just now like to introduce the Right Honourable Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

PROJECTION/RECORDING/ANDY BURNHAM: Remembering any loss of life on this scale is painful, (Pause.) it is even harder when a tragedy with no natural disaster but entirely man made. When it involves so many young people (Pause.) when those who lost most have suffered so many more dark days (Pause.) ever since. Hillsborough left deep wounds that will never heal (Pause.) its horror is not demeaned by the passage of time. The TVimages are still harrowing to watch, but today as the Prime Minister has asked me to convey, we can at least pledge that 96 fellow football supporters who died will never be forgotten. (Shout of ‘Justice’.) and he has asked us to think at this time (Crowd start to cheer, ‘Justice for the 96’.)

Projection ends.

Company chants in conjunction with recording.

MAN enters stage carrying his chair, wearing jeans, black Fred Perry shirt. Places chair DSR, stands behind chair, speaks directly to audience.

ACTOR 1: Stephen Kelly, now 59 years old (he won’t thank us for telling you that!). He lost his brother, Michael in the disaster.

ACTOR/S.K: (He sits.) Do you want to hear my Hillsborough story?

Beat.

WOMAN enters. Middle class. Beige pencil skirt, shirt and cardigan/jacket, court shoes.

ACTOR/J.H: Jenni Hicks, her and Trevor – their two girls, Sarah and Vicky were killed at Hillsborough. She’s an adopted Scouser!

ACTOR/S.K: I was out for a run when it happened. I lived in Penny Lane. I came home, my then wife, Christine and I went shopping and there were mobs of people all looking in windows watching televisions. What’s going on? All this carry on? I was a taxi driver at the time and knew I’d be going out to work that night. It was Christine that said, ‘what about your Mike?’ That’s my brother, he’s a red, I’m a blue. The city was flat that day even though Everton had won. I went home that night at about 4/5 o’clock. We had a circular table with a phone on it… The phone rang, it was ‘Steve, your Margaret has phoned and there’s no sign of your Michael yet.’ I thought he’s probably had a few pints, no mobiles then or Twitter – none of that business. I went to bed, went to sleep – but 7am, I sat bolt upright, woke my wife. I was worried about our Mike, I thought I should phone me mum, I left it to 9am to phone me ma to check she was OK.

So I phoned the number given on the TV – eventually I got through. I spoke to the police and gave an absolute description; long hair, he’d had an op 12-18 months before and he had a scar from his chest bone to his stomach, a fresh scar, still raised. He wore a ring on his middle finger, I thought it was weird but I bought it for him for his birthday so I knew. Sounds weird to say this, but he had no style whatsoever. The description I gave was Mike to a tee! They phoned me back and told me not to worry – no one of that description had been identified so I felt OK.

Beat.

ACTOR/J.H: When I lost my girls they were 15 and 19 at the time, they died unnecessarily so there’s only myself and Trevor on a personal level to fight for them, they’re not here, they’ve lost their rights, there’s only us to fight for them, it’s not about me, it’s about them. We lived in London at the time of the disaster, I mean the girls were brought up on football, they were keen Liverpool supporters you know, we were all season ticket holders at Anfield. Vicky was 15 but she was going to be 16 in the July, she was you know GCSE age, in fact she was going to do them next week. I think she had her French oral the middle of the week that she died, anyhow Sarah had been up at university in Liverpool since September so she’d only been out of Sixth Form college for months. She was 19 on the Monday and she died on the Saturday.

Beat.

There were, you know, survivors in the pens who remembered Sarah and Vicky and where they were. There were these two young guys and obviously Sarah and Vicky were just teenage girls at the time and erm, they said, ‘Oh we went…’ – they’re describing their day and how they got there and they go into the pen and they said, ‘we saw these two girls, who we now realised were the Hicks’ sisters and we thought, ‘ooh our luck’s in! cos we were standing next to them’ (Pause.) I, it’s, the disaster seems like yesterday and yet…it seems a million miles away as well, so it’s a very strange thing…very, very difficult thing. It seems like yesterday but seems like (Breathes in heavily.) yonks since I’ve seen the girls…so there’s the dichotomy it, it’s a dual thing this time thing. It’s a long time, but it’s, it some ways it’s, it’s flown over. Just keep saying…I keep asking, ‘What have I been doing for 23 years? Where has 23 years gone?’ (Pause.) Well I’m the Vice Chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, I’ve been involved in that right from the start, we were founded in the July of 1989 solely for the bereaved families, it started with next of kins and now there’s over seventy families that are part of our group so that’s a lot of people, so there’s a lot going on with that, organsising an’, I’m also on the subcommittee for the release of the documents, er and I’ve got a job and ha ha – I only work part-time ermm and Marks and Spencers were fantastic – if I need to go to London for meetings they’d change my days in work. Yeh, ermm and Trevor, he runs his own company, he’s remarried and got a new family and everything erm…but I, I do have other things as well.

Actors look across at each other. Beat.

ACTOR/S.K: To be fair I was getting a bit panicked… so I said to Christine, I thought sod it, I’m going, so I drove down to Lepping...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introductions
• Beyond Hillsborough
• Using Beyond Hillsborough in the Classroom