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We don't get to choose our memories. For me, it's the horror that will remain

The Observer

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June 01, 2025

It was meant to be a day of joy for Liverpool. Instead, the awful minutes I lost touch with myfather-in-law and son will haunt me for ever

- Rory Smith

We don't get to choose our memories. For me, it's the horror that will remain

There are moments from that weekend that I want to become memories. The sight of my seven-year-old son, Ed, hearing the first strains of You'll Never Walk Alone rising up from the vast crowd on the Strand, instinctively lifting his scarf above his head, and picking up the lyrics. My father-in-law's voice cracking just a little as he told me how much it meant to watch Liverpool lift a league title with his grandson.

I want to remember the way Ed could not keep still as he waited for the bus carrying the players to arrive, that he had to keep checking he had not missed them. I want to remember the smoke from the flares blotting out the sky, and the bus carrying the Liverpool team emerging from the mist, and the smile on my son's face.

I want to associate that weekend, more than anything, with the feeling I had once they had gone past and the sea of people on the Strand started to break. I had, I told my father-in-law, done my best. My son was at Anfield to see Liverpool win the league. He was there again to watch them lift the trophy. He had seen the parade. If he doesn't turn out to be a fan, it is not through my lack of effort.

But I know, too, that we do not get to choose our memories. I wouldn't claim to have suffered genuine trauma from what happened on Water Street last Monday. To do so would be self-centred, self-indulgent, profoundly disrespectful: to those who were hurt, to those who must have feared for their lives, for all of those who must now try to find a way to come to terms with what they experienced.

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