Liverpool stops to remember Hillsborough

As 30,000 mourners packed into Anfield on the 15th of May 2009 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, elsewhere in the city the people of Liverpool were also paying their respects.

Speaking at the emotional service, Bishop of Liverpool Rt. Reverend James Jones said that the tragic events of 1989 “broke the heart but not the spirit of the Liverpool community” and this was no more evident than in the various tributes that took place across the city.

In the city centre, thousands of people stopped their shopping
or halted their working day to pay tribute to the 96 Liverpool
fans lost at Hillsborough. At 3.06pm (the exact time which
the FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham
forest was stopped 20 years ago) office workers gathered
together behind Liverpool Town Hall and observed a
two-minute’s silence in memory of the dead. Many wore
the shirts and scarves of both Liverpool and Everton and
complete strangers linked arms in a moving tribute.

In tandem with Liverpool’s churches and Cathedrals, a
small bell in the centre of Exchange Flags square tolled
96 times while buses, taxis and trains in the city were
temporarily brought to a halt. Only a few cars passed on the
otherwise empty Castle Street and Dale Street as the sound of bells rung out in the distance.

PCS, the trade union, had made a special request for employers to allow workers time to pay their respects and shop workers along Church Street gathered in small groups outside their stores and bowed their heads. At Liverpool One, hundreds of shoppers joined staff outside the closed Liverpool FC shop and Debenhams in silent reflection.

Professor Rogan Taylor, an academic and Liverpool supporters’ campaigner, believes that the behaviour of Liverpudlians only enhances the sense of solidarity that suffering brings to people. He said: “This is a city that has known quite a bit of it over the last 50 years or so and that’s one of the things that I think sometimes annoys people from outside of the city - that we’re well practiced in dealing with suffering. “

“Something else that suffering does is it brings people together, much more effectively than shared joy,“ he added. “Shared pain is a great stimulator of a sense of solidarity and identity. That’s why the identity of this city is so strong and why people know where they come from.”

We will remember