REMEMBERING IN OLDHAM

 

We are in Oldham, the full Manchester family; two girls, Dad and Mum, daughter to Nanny and Granda.

The girls are famished after an early morning swimming lesson. We are in a café for breakfast. It is on a rising street. In a window of the large office and retail building opposite, young girls in pink, yellow and turquoise taffeta dresses, each one numbered, pass to and fro, in competition readiness. Early mornings are busy for some younsters.

The café is a boho lounge, on Yorkshire Street. Décor is sofas, armchairs and ottomans, wooden tables and plain chairs, a mish-mash of faux nostalgia, creating a contemporary style. The wooden floors are bare, striped with coloured paint, in an organised Jackson Pollock style. It is warm and welcoming.

The manager serves the food. He is an immigrant, likely from North Africa or the Levant. The older girl has a small fry. The younger has her favourite – beans on toast, with added tomato ketchup. The ketchup comes in a tomato-shaped squeezee bottle, which delights her. Mum and Dad gently manage the ketchup ration.

It is her fourth birthday. The manager brings two kids’ portions of chocolate brownies, with a dollop each of ice-cream. One portion has a candle. He leads a(nother!) round of “Happy Birthday to You”, with added, hearty hip-hip hoorays. He is wearing a poppy, an emblem for remembering in Oldham.

Who is he remembering?

People climb the rising street outside the café. They are warmly dressed against the foggy chill. A brass band passes. Young people carry heavy instruments up the street. Their imperial purple uniforms underscore the shining brass of theirtubas, trombones, horns, trombones and cornets.

People in military dress appear, climbing the rising street. One carries a ceremonial sword. More people climb. They are on their way to Oldham’s War Memorial.

Who are they remembering?

Breakfast over, we leave the café. The two girls and Nanny go with Mum. Dad gets the other car, parked around the corner.

I, Granda, step out on to the sloping street. The manager holds the door for me. There is a poppy on the door. I thank him. He says he will be busy later.

I am on crutches, disabled due to critical illness, sixteen years before. I remember.

I hobble across the slope of the street. A lithe man, my age perhaps, wearing a fawn overcoat and a dark soft hat, approaches, close enough for us to exchange greetings.

‘Good morning’.

He is wearing a poppy.

Who is he remembering?

I move diagonally down the street, in the opposite direction to the people climbing towards the War Memorial.

A man wearing the blue-grey beret of the RAF passes, too far away for greetings.

Who is he remembering?

A family group, adults and children, with two whippets on leads, climb.

Who are they remembering?

Then a man, wearing the distinctive maroon beret of the Parachute Regiment, climbs the street. He is wearing a poppy.

He is too young to have been part of the murderous band who killed innocent civilians on Bloody Sunday in Derry.

Who is he remembering?

If we only remember our own combatants, our memories are skewed and partial.

Who am I remembering?

I remember John Kelly, who’s brother Michael, aged seventeen, was one of those murdered by members of the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday. John Kelly died a couple of days before my day in Oldham. He, along with other brave relatives of the victims of Bloody Sunday, strived for justice in an exemplary non-violent campaign. He and his allies are beacons in my life and in the world. 

They ripped up a foul report on the murders. They made a Prime Minister twist and declare the innocence of the murdered.

I remember John Kelly, on this day and hour, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

We had to wait until David Cameron gave his speech in the Commons before we came out into Guildhall Square to meet the people. 

When I came out that door I couldn't believe the scene that met us. 

The Guildhall Square was packed with people, and they were all smiling and laughing and cheering, cheering for us. 

I do feel that what we achieved, we achieved for those people as well, because Derry itself was injured on Bloody Sunday, but I think at that moment in time, a healing began. 

Everyone was able to come forward and say their loved one was innocent - and that really was incredible. 

It's something I will never, ever forget. 

I remember.

www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter