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Karl Connor tells
How the horror show unfolded |
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Copeland will never quite be the same again,
following the events of Wednesday, June 2nd.
I was safely tucked up in bed – off work ill – when the news started
to filter through and I received a call from a relative warning me
not to go out of the house. I suspect most people in the area took
the news with a pinch of salt, and I found myself uttering the
cliché “things like that don’t happen here.”
I went downstairs and turned on the television. The breaking news
was that police in Cumbria were dealing with “an incident.” Never in
my wildest dreams could I have imagined that over the next few hours
I’d see a horror show set in my home unfold in front of me on the
rolling news channel. By mid afternoon they were saying at least two
had been killed, and then the Prime Minsiter said it was at least
five, and by four o’clock the internet was reporting that the death
toll could be as high as eight.
Finally, at tea-time, as the media arrived en mass in Whitehaven and
on Duke Street, a dumbstruck policeman stood like a rabbit in the
glare of headlights, and said that twelve people had been fatally
wounded by Derrick Bird, and that another dozen were in hospital.
They were hardly the lucky ones; but luckier than some.
Even watching these events unfold with my own eyes, recognising
shops and businesses in the back ground, I could not come to terms
with what was going on. Things like that did not happening in places
like this.
We live in a society that demands to know what has happened to whom
as soon as it occurs, and it didn’t take the social networking scene
long to start naming the names of the victims. Some of these were
people I knew, or at least knew of, and still I struggled to get my
head around what was going on.
I drove to Thornhill from Egremont in the evening, passing over the
bridge where Kenneth Fishburn had been killed and up Cringlethwaite
where a house window was boarded up, having been shot out, and still
I don’t think the enormity of what had happened had quite sunk in.
When you see something like this playing out on the television in
some far off land someone on the news always says something about
the community grieving. Perhaps my years in the newspaper world have
made me cynical, but before now I’ve always that that was just a
sound bite, a line people say. By Thursday I knew exactly what those
people who trot out that line meant. I was numb and I was grieving,
as we all were across the region.
I am more fortunate than most people in the area in that I haven’t
lost anyone who was close to me and I have been able, in a
relatively small way, to offer some assistance in dealing with the
aftermath. My media management experience has been of use to
Copeland Borough Council and they drafted me in to help their press
team cope with the deluge of calls and emails. I am grateful that my
employers, Sellafield Ltd, were more than happy to let me go to help
and have supported me at every turn.
As I write this, almost two weeks after the shootings, the phones
are still ringing and the calls are still coming in, although
fortunately not in such high a volume as they have been.
It is possible that we will never know quite what pushed Derrick
Bird to do what he did, and whatever reason is eventually offered up
it will be always be impossible for any of us comprehend it. Perhaps
then it is best that we never find out, and focus instead on staying
strong as a community and pulling together to help our friends and
neighbours who are grieving.
We must remember the twelve victims who lost their lives and give
support to their friends and families. We must also remember that a
thirteenth family is grieving. Derrick Bird’s family is suffering
too. His sons have lost a father, and they will be feeling the same
way as families of the victims. I only hope that they get the love
and support they need from this community at such a difficult time.
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Time to Find Our Bearings |
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Any political party needs to spend periods in
opposition, just as a tree needs to cast its leaves in winter
and gather strength for new growth in the spring. That does not
mean that the previous year was futile. Labour can look back on
huge achievements that have raised living standards for working
families and pensioners and given our hospitals and schools the
means to improve the services offered to patients and students.
However, for a party in government it is hard to focus on the
development of big ideas rather than the day to day
justification of its past and present actions. In opposition it
has time to think and find its bearings.
The Labour government has in the past thirteen years made both
great strides in the improvement of peoples’ lives as well as
making decisions that have severely tested our loyalty. We have
in our columns fiercely opposed Tony Blair's policy of following
George Bush into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While it has make
significant progress in lifting families out of absolute poverty
it has still allowed the gap between rich and poor to grow
intolerably. As Jonathon Miller said in a memorable conversation
with his audience at Rosehill, and as Polly Toynbee has argued
with irresistible logic in her book, Hard Work, the work of our
humble carers, those who bathe the elderly and do their
shopping, is shamefully undervalued compared with the bankers
who make themselves richer and the rest of us poorer by
speculating with the funds entrusted to them. Increasing the
size of the cake is no alternative to sharing it more equally.
In a world of finite resources people cannot make themselves
richer without making other people poorer. Governments have no
right to respect people more because of their wealth.
We have asked before in these pages why it is that senior
executives need enormous amounts of money to work effectively
while the rest of us work better when we are under threat of
losing our job. The received wisdom is an insult to all of us.
In opposition Labour must be vigilant and hold the Conservative
Lib Dem government to account for stealth measures by which will
impact on our lives by reducing the level of services we need,
but we must also recognise where we lost our way and find a more
constant star to guide our future actions.
May we also send our good wishes to Gordon Brown who had the
courage to face up to his mistakes and is now looking humbly to
a future in which he can raise funds for good causes rather than
seek the glamour of other high offices.
Peter Watson.
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