Another year on and still families wait for answers

The annual Birmingham Pub Bombings Memorial will take place in a month's time with so many questions about that dreadful night and subsequent investigations still unanswered, says CHRISTOPHER STANLEY

- CHRISTOPHER STANLEY

21 NOVEMBER 2024 marked 50 years since the Birmingham Pub Bombings of 1974.

The people of the city of Birmingham, supported by the Birmingham Mail and other local media, expressed their respect for the 21 victims of this act of IRA murder.

This was an important collective act of mourning and remembrance lead by the relatives of the victims, and a silence fell across the city.

Both civic leaders and local dignitaries were in attendance. A member of the Royal Family delivered a message on behalf of the King. A Junior Government Minister and the former Mayor of the WMCA lead the important citation of the names of the dead.

The Junior Minister, Jess Phillips, had previously done so when those names were read in Parliament for the first time 10 years before.

For the relatives of the murdered and the people of Birmingham, a city marked by symbolic emblems of this tragedy, the annual act of remembrance is an important aspect of catharsis. But this act does not erase memory, salve the pain of violent loss or lessen the anger and resentment.

And next month it will be 50 years plus 1.

Everyone is one year older.

Margaret Smith, the mother of Maxine Hambleton whose short life was destroyed in the pub bombings before it had really started, will be 92 soon.

Margaret's family will carry the burden of the loss of their sister, and grandchildren may continue to do in remembrance of their aunt, whose life was violently curtailed.

They will bear the absence, the anger and the continuing questions of doubt.

51 years and the questions of doubt remain and accumulate.

These are the questions which the families continue to ask and to demand answers to.

These are the questions that were not answered by the inquest into the deaths of the 21 that was resumed in 2019.

These are the questions that were not asked by that inquest or were excluded from being asked.