It’d be hard to think of a better time to celebrate the life of Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams, brought so vividly to life in ITV’s drama Anne. [1]https://www.itv.com/hub/anne/2a5505
If we’re discouraged by Downing Street deceit as we try to cope with Covid, rising inflation and the rest, imagine what it was like for the Merseyside mum whose young teenage son died in the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster – and be inspired.
Her determined and dogged efforts to find out how and why 15-year-old Kevin died in Sheffield that day were obstructed for decades by governments of different stripe, the police and the justice system.
Along with fellow Liverpudlians she was smeared by Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper, Boris Johnson’s Spectator magazine and Margaret Thatcher’s propaganda machine.
Only in her dying days did Anne begin to sense that she and other Hillsborough families might start to sniff the justice they were so long denied.
But even now no one has been held accountable for the 97 deaths and the trauma suffered by their families and friends. [2]
https://www.theguardian.com/football/hillsborough-disaster+profile/davidconn
an.com/football
Anne Williams was not alone in her campaign, but as Anne painfully showed, she paid a heavy and often lonely price for seeking justice.
We owe a debt of gratitude to World Productions and to Maxine Peake who played Anne and then followed it up with a powerful documentary. [3]https://www.itv.com/hub/the-real-anne-unfinished-business/10a1036a0001
There are so many outstanding injustices crying out for remedy. Some, like Hillsborough, date from the last century. The debts of truth, like those of love, should be paid quickly, quickly.
References