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Newspapers and Magazines written for include: The Observer |
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April 15, 1989: 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death in Hillsborough stadium. Gill and Brian Caldwell were in the crowd. This is what happened to them. The photograph (left) is an unforgettable image of life in the balance. A young woman crying for help, her body pressed against a metal barrier, features contorted in pain and terror, as a mass of people push down from the terracing behind. To her side a man grips the barrier, unable to help. Had aid arrived a few seconds later than it did, Brian and Gill Caldwell would not be alive today. Now both in their mid-thirties, the couple are still recognisable from the photo. But their features, pinched with fear in the photograph, today seem different, softer and fuller in repose. In the kitchen of their comfortable house in the East Midlands market town of Melton Mowbray, they talk openly and, on the surface, calmly about the tragedy and its aftermath, but this impression is a little misleading. 'Every time you talk about it, you relive it, even now,' Brian says, as the couple’s two daughters, Elle (Eleanor), seven, and Stacey, nine, rush in to ask about their homework. 'You feel the emotion again,' Gill adds, 'some things come back, some are harder than the rest.'
Ironically, on the day of the fateful semi-final to be held at Sheffield's Hillsborough stadium, Brian was persuaded to go by fans of Liverpool's opponent's, Nottingham Forest (Nottingham is a twenty minute drive from Melton Mowbray). 'Friends at work sorted the tickets for us. I said, "I'm a Liverpool fan," but they told me not to worry. So we actually went to Hillsborough on a Forest supporters bus.' Arriving early at the stadium, the couple - Gill follows Liverpool but says Brian is the real fan - asked if it would be possible to get in at the end assigned to Liverpool fans, the Leppings Lane end. 'It was pretty empty when we arrived,' Brian recalls, 'we started off at the back of the terrace but there was lots of room, so I said we would get a better view from the front.' As the crowd built up before kick-off, Gill grew concerned. 'There was a bit of a squash at that time,' Brian says, 'like alot of football crowds in those days (before all seater stadiums were introduced as a result of Hillsborough), you'd get a surge as the crowd comes forward, then it would go back again. But then the next surge didn't go back and it got really uncomfortable.' For Gill, less used to football crowds, it was already too much. 'I would have got out then,' she says, 'if I could have. But there was nowhere to go. There was a great big fence in front of us. It just became more and more uncomfortable.' The barriers Gill refers to, so visible in the photographs of that day, had been put in place in grounds throughout the country to stop fans running onto the pitch. No one, it seems, had bothered to consider that these same fences might, in certain circumstances, become death traps. As the minutes ticked by, anxiety turned to fear and increasing pain. 'You were so crushed, you just couldn't breathe in,' Gill says. Was she aware of Brian at this stage? She shakes her head. 'You just go into yourself, concentrate on trying to breathe. You're not watching what's going on around you. Things start to get hazy, you're not thinking clearly. I couldn't turn my head or see anything.' Unaware of what was happening at the Leppings Lane end, the two teams had now kicked off, both Gill and Brian recall hearing the shouting of the crowd as the game started. At this point, their memories of the day start to diverge. Gill drew into herself - 'At the start, you hear the crowd, then it seems to go quieter. Things are happening around you but you're not part of it.' For Brian, at this point slightly less physically constricted, there was the added agony of being all too aware of what was happening to Gill. 'There was lots going through my mind at the time. I can see Gill. I'm trying to breathe, in fear of my life. And there are photographers running across the front. You're thinking someone help us here and people are taking pictures of us.' It was now, just before she passed out, that Gill believes she remembers the famous photograph being taken. 'I was shouting, "please help me, please help me", and shouting it so loud and I do remember this photographer turning around and taking a picture of me. I just thought, "why is he taking my photo, I just want someone to help me get out."' Brian was now beside himself with worry for Gill. 'When I saw Gill, and she was blue in the face, it brought me to my senses and I began screaming for someone to pull her out. There were police coming up to the fence by this time. But what little air you were getting was through the fence and now they were blocking it off.' Mustering what strength they had left, those fans who were able were trying to lift the worst affected over their heads to the neighbouring pen where people, arms outstretched, were leaning over to try and pluck them out. Brian remembers trying to reach up and then Gill disappearing as someone pulled her to safety. Not that Brian had any hope of seeing her again. 'I was convinced she was dead. By the time they pulled her out, there was no sign of life in her at all. Her body had gone floppy.' Brian, starting to feel light-headed, was near to passing out himself. 'It's hard to explain, perhaps it's the lack of oxygen. You start to lose the pain you get from the crushing, which really did hurt, and everything seemed to go into the distance.' Helped by two policemen, Brian managed to climb over the fence, getting his trousers stuck on a spike as he did so. The police laid him on the pitch to recover. 'I just kept asking where Gill was and they couldn't answer me. They said they couldn't talk to me because they had to help people.' With his breath back, Brian now began a desperate search around the pitch, where the bodies of the dead and injured had taken the place of the departed teams (the game had been abandoned after just six minutes). 'There were people lying all over the pitch, you saw people there and you knew they were dead, I saw people with denim jackets over their faces (Gill, like Brian, wore a denim jacket that day) and I thought, "is that Gill?" There was an ambulance pulled up behind a goal and I even went to look in there and they threw me out. Then I saw her. She was sitting against a wall in a corner of the ground. Someone was giving her oxygen from a cylinder. You can't describe the feeling of relief. As I arrived, she was starting to come to and we just put our arms around each other and cried.' Taken first to the Forest supporters end, then by ambulance to hospital, they recall being x-rayed (they were cleared) and sitting in the waiting room, Gill in a wheelchair, seeing the injured being brought in but now, as shock began to set in, their memories become more blurred. Unlike Brian, who had witnessed much of the horror on his search for Gill, she would not realise the extent of the tragedy until the next day. 'You just can't take it in. I didn't fully realise what was going on until I saw the footage on television. Just the enormity of it. The numbers of people who had died.' Sent home in a taxi, they had to break in when they arrived as Gill's bag containing the house keys had been lost in the crush (the bag was later returned, a clear refutation Brian says of the Sun's infamous accusation of looting Liverpool fans). Next morning, Gill went down to pick up the Sunday paper and saw the photo. 'It was such a shock, the last thing you expect. And I knew it was that photographer I saw.' That morning the photo was shown on a breakfast TV show and a presenter speculated as to what had happened to the couple. Brian's mother rang to confirm that they had survived and the two were invited to appear on GMTV the next day ('We were very nervous,' Gill remembers, 'we didn't know what to expect'). The Sunday Express took them to the Lake District while compiling a story and papers and TV crews from around the world interviewed them. The media interest continued for some weeks after the tragedy and though they dealt with it adequately, it was not a comfortable experience. 'You just kept thinking of those that had lost their lives, of the whole ordeal we went through,' Brian says. In one way, however, the photo and subsequent media attention were to have a beneficial dividend. 'To recover from any trauma you have to go over all the details,' Gill says. 'And each new person who interviewed us wanted the whole thing again. So it wasn't leaving any big chunks out. I think because Brian saw that much more than me, it helped him tremendously. It was therapy in a way.' The couple have also been able to help each other, Gill picking Brian - 'I think you have a more pessimistic nature than me' - up when he is down, which happens much less frequently these days. 'I also think it helps that we both went through it,' she says. 'We can both understand what the other went through. You don't think, "he's still talking about that", because we can both relate to it. We talk about it as often as we need to. There were difficult times in the beginning, but we've basically helped each other, that's why we felt we didn't need counselling.' They also believe that because they experienced the trauma together it has brought them closer as a couple. 'Had it been just one of us,' Brian admits, 'it could have had the opposite effect. But we've always been protective of each other too, always had a strong relationship.' 'We've been together a long time,' Gill laughs, 'it's twenty two years since we first met. We're good at talking to each other. If one is down, the other one will pick them up. Just getting through all this has made us stronger, I think.' They also believe the arrival of Stacey two years after the disaster, and then Elle, another twenty months later, has made a great difference to their recovery. The children, who pick up snatches of the interview as they bound in and out, are aware of Hillsborough and its meaning to their parents, if not all the details yet. 'It's part of our lives and, in a way, part of theirs,' Gill says, 'if they ask questions, which isn't often, we would answer them.' The children are also part of the way Hillsborough has changed the way Brian and Gill view life. 'You can't help think what might have been,' Brian says, 'especially with the girls. I mean they're our lives now and we love them to bits, and sometimes I look at them and think if Gill had died...she was maybe just seconds away... they wouldn't be here either.' Brian still has the very occasional panic attack, though these are much rarer than in the aftermath of the tragedy. On holiday recently he had to open the bedroom curtains at night to let the streetlight in, 'I felt trapped and I was breathing fast. I had to let the light in to make me feel I was in a bigger place.' Only recently has Brian ventured to Anfield for a game, an experience both he and Gill, who worried at home, constantly checking the TV for reports, found uncomfortable, though he also enjoyed the atmosphere of the live game again. Just hearing the name Hillsborough or Sheffield can still trigger images of the day in both of them. But the couple are acutely aware of those who didn't have the chance to face life again and their relatives who still campaign for the truth about what happened to be revealed. Watching the Jimmy McGovern film on Hillsborough was an emotional experience. 'We felt we had to watch it, even though it was very upsetting,' Gill says, 'in a way, especially for me, it was like seeing the whole picture for the first time.' They understand too the emotions of the relatives of the dead, for whom there can be no closure on the events of that day until someone accepts responsibility. 'In a sense, our fight was coming to terms with Hillsborough,' Brian says. 'Their fight carries on. If I had lost Gill, I would be with them. You feel so sorry for them, not only have they lost someone, they have to fight for justice as well. They need to hear someone say, "it was my fault" and they haven't had that.' For both of them, irrational as it may seem to outsiders, there is also a feeling of guilt. 'You do feel guilty that you are alive,' Gill says, 'when so many people died. Even now you look at the families who lost children and you think, what would they be doing now, they would be married and have children of their own.' As well as guilt there is anger too. Ironically, as a result of the Sun's accusations against Liverpool fans after the tragedy, they refused to buy either the Sun or its stablemate, the News of the World, the paper where they first saw the photo, again. On a personal level there was one positive outcome from the ordeal. At the hospital in Sheffield, Brian rang his mother to re-assure her they were alright. She, in turn, rang Gill's father and step-mother. 'From that day,' Gill says, 'they have talked.' On a wider level, both Gill and Brian have found their priorities have changed. 'We're much less materialistic now,' Brian says, 'we don't worry about the trivial things. You look at life in a different way. Life is irreplaceable, whether you have a nice car or nice house, it doesn't matter. If you have life, that's what matters.' See also 'Sold... to the gentlemen in Yemen' another article in the series Stories the World Forgot. |
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The following article on the 1989 Hillsborough disaster appeared in the March, 2001 issue of Eve.
Gill, now a teacher's assistant and Brian, who works for Pedigree Foods, met when he was 15 and she 13 and newly arrived in Melton with her father and step mother. 'We met in the local park,' Brian smiles, 'she was mucking about on the swings and I was playing football. We were childhood sweethearts really. ' Married in 1985, the only real anxiety at that time was the refusal of their respective parents to talk. 'My father and step mother weren't at the wedding,' Gill says. 'It was very awkward when they lived so near to each other. You'd visit one and have to pass the other's house.'