Southport
Southport
04/08/24 23:34
Southport is never in the news really. Maybe something about the dodgy pier or the general demise of Victorian seaside resorts, or maybe some powder-puff pieces about the annual Flower or Air Shows. But not much in the News news. Until this week. And needless to say I wish it was once again not in the news. I expect most of the UK wonder where Southport is (it’s neither south nor a port so the name doesn’t help). And it is most definitely NOT Stockport either.
It was my hometown and I grew up there until I left to go to university in Leicester in the second half of the 1980s. The murders this week of the young children at a summer dance class on a normal suburban road—between the town centre and Southport Football Club—and then the subsequent trouble after the peaceful vigil, hits too many points in my growing up there. And as for Banks, well my mum worked there for years at a mental health hospital (before the Tories suggested closed them all down and moving to a ‘no care in the community’ model) — I had a short summer job at the same hospital and did tomato picking in the greenhouses in the town too (hard, hot and very smelly work, but paid okay at the time—yes, a Brit picking fruit. Who’d have thunk it?).
When I was 16-17 I was at KGV sixth form college about half a mile from where the murders took place. The college was just next door to Haig Avenue where Southport FC play. I was amongst a group of students who managed to start their first Young Supporters Club at Southport. To be honest we’d just watched a lot of Murphy’s Mob on the telly and wanted to play pool and drink Coca-Cola during the week—a year later I’d be down the Baron’s Bar in the Scarisbrick drinking bitter before heading on to the Kingsway for Carlsberg and some Marlborough fags. You grow up fast really—if you get the opportunity. It was a lifetime ago. Even the idea of people smoking in clubs seems a distant memory.
Now Southport will forever be remembered by people who’ve never been there for the atrocity perpetrated by a teenager with a knife at a summer event for young children, who should have had a long life ahead of them (hopefully most of those attacked will). It seems the town will become synonymous with the nightmare event much as Dunblane or Lockerbie will always be remembered for the events there.
(L-R) Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Dasilva Agular, Bebe King
I’m hopeful but worried of course about the subsequent trouble that has been started by racist bigots and thick as shit followers and hangers on to the bile and bigotry spouted by the Farage/Yaxley-Lennon/Laurence Fox/Hopkins/Braverman brigade. Most people are good. There have been some nice moments amongst the subsequent riots and attempted trouble making in Southport and Liverpool: the woman with the handwritten poster declaring to everyone that there is ‘One Race: Human’ amidst the flying bricks taken from kicked down garden walls in Southport on Tuesday, and the woman with the ‘Nans against Nazis’ sign in Liverpool outside the mosque in West Derby. Then there was the Imam from the mosque coming out with chips and sandwiches for both the local antifascists and those that had come to cause trouble—the video of him speaking afterwards was great, as was the picture of him with his arms around one of the prospective bad guys. It gives me some hope.
Of course it is a nonsense that the trouble makers and those mobilising them through social media (and real media) have chosen to focus on Muslims and refugees (and, let’s face it, people of other races/religions). The ‘Stop the Boats’ proclamation has been permitted to be normalised and an accepted signature tune for these guys. It is wrong in every way. And to make it worse has absolutely sweet FA to do with the murderous events of Monday morning.
Oh, and while my mum and I both had work in Banks at one time and another and I studied at a college half a mile away from where the murders took place, what about my dad? Well he was a Southport policeman. Like I said, there have been too many points of contact in the news from these horrendous events. People are the same. We all want and need the same things for ourselves and our family; wherever we come from. Health, and sustenance: and security. It should not be a difficult idea to grasp.
I’ll remember Southport from growing up there with my family. It was a nice, safe place to grow up. Maybe a bit boring really. But boring can be good. Let’s face it, it doesn’t hit the news being boring. I suspect many people will now just remember Southport for what happened this week.
My thoughts and best wishes are for those that have been affected by the events of Monday 29th July.
It was my hometown and I grew up there until I left to go to university in Leicester in the second half of the 1980s. The murders this week of the young children at a summer dance class on a normal suburban road—between the town centre and Southport Football Club—and then the subsequent trouble after the peaceful vigil, hits too many points in my growing up there. And as for Banks, well my mum worked there for years at a mental health hospital (before the Tories suggested closed them all down and moving to a ‘no care in the community’ model) — I had a short summer job at the same hospital and did tomato picking in the greenhouses in the town too (hard, hot and very smelly work, but paid okay at the time—yes, a Brit picking fruit. Who’d have thunk it?).
When I was 16-17 I was at KGV sixth form college about half a mile from where the murders took place. The college was just next door to Haig Avenue where Southport FC play. I was amongst a group of students who managed to start their first Young Supporters Club at Southport. To be honest we’d just watched a lot of Murphy’s Mob on the telly and wanted to play pool and drink Coca-Cola during the week—a year later I’d be down the Baron’s Bar in the Scarisbrick drinking bitter before heading on to the Kingsway for Carlsberg and some Marlborough fags. You grow up fast really—if you get the opportunity. It was a lifetime ago. Even the idea of people smoking in clubs seems a distant memory.
Now Southport will forever be remembered by people who’ve never been there for the atrocity perpetrated by a teenager with a knife at a summer event for young children, who should have had a long life ahead of them (hopefully most of those attacked will). It seems the town will become synonymous with the nightmare event much as Dunblane or Lockerbie will always be remembered for the events there.
(L-R) Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Dasilva Agular, Bebe King
I’m hopeful but worried of course about the subsequent trouble that has been started by racist bigots and thick as shit followers and hangers on to the bile and bigotry spouted by the Farage/Yaxley-Lennon/Laurence Fox/Hopkins/Braverman brigade. Most people are good. There have been some nice moments amongst the subsequent riots and attempted trouble making in Southport and Liverpool: the woman with the handwritten poster declaring to everyone that there is ‘One Race: Human’ amidst the flying bricks taken from kicked down garden walls in Southport on Tuesday, and the woman with the ‘Nans against Nazis’ sign in Liverpool outside the mosque in West Derby. Then there was the Imam from the mosque coming out with chips and sandwiches for both the local antifascists and those that had come to cause trouble—the video of him speaking afterwards was great, as was the picture of him with his arms around one of the prospective bad guys. It gives me some hope.
Of course it is a nonsense that the trouble makers and those mobilising them through social media (and real media) have chosen to focus on Muslims and refugees (and, let’s face it, people of other races/religions). The ‘Stop the Boats’ proclamation has been permitted to be normalised and an accepted signature tune for these guys. It is wrong in every way. And to make it worse has absolutely sweet FA to do with the murderous events of Monday morning.
Oh, and while my mum and I both had work in Banks at one time and another and I studied at a college half a mile away from where the murders took place, what about my dad? Well he was a Southport policeman. Like I said, there have been too many points of contact in the news from these horrendous events. People are the same. We all want and need the same things for ourselves and our family; wherever we come from. Health, and sustenance: and security. It should not be a difficult idea to grasp.
I’ll remember Southport from growing up there with my family. It was a nice, safe place to grow up. Maybe a bit boring really. But boring can be good. Let’s face it, it doesn’t hit the news being boring. I suspect many people will now just remember Southport for what happened this week.
My thoughts and best wishes are for those that have been affected by the events of Monday 29th July.
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