Anne – ITV Documentary
This review previously appeared in issue 159 of the TRUE FAITH hard copy fanzine.
I’ve written on these pages before about Hillsborough, reviewing books and the seminal news events following a tragedy which touched me more than any other in my lifetime. I’m far from alone as a supporter now in my late 50s who experienced what it was like to be a supporter in the period preceding the disaster at the Leppings Lane End. Indeed I’ve been part of crowds in the exact pen where death visited ordinary football fans doing nothing more than supporting their team. But I don’t want to cover that here. It is all well documented.
If you are clued up enough to be reading TF on a regular basis then you’ll be familiar with the machinery of the tragedy as well as the venality, lies and cover-ups that followed and caused such insult and pain.
There is enough of a body of work for those to rely on if anyone wishes to go into that. In my opinion HILLSBOROUGH by Phil Scraton is a towering work which more than sets the record on what went badly wrong at Hillsborough, who was responsible and who hid the truth and lied. I also point to the writings of David Conn (The Guardian) one of few national journalists to follow the case in forensic detail.
This series in which Maxine Peake plays the lead role of Anne Williams, mother of Kevin Williams who died in the crush at Hillsborough came via ITV, had worried me as I’ve never really considered them the best at covering these subjects with the expertise and sensitivity they demand. But they did. Peake delivers a typically superbly human performance.
It is obvious that the central theme of the drama is a mother’s grief for the loss of her 15-year-old son. The series isn’t a forensic narrative around the tragedy and the search for justice, though the broad sweep of Anne Williams’ campaign and the many indignities visited upon bereaved relatives continues to be jarring, thirty-three years after the tragedy.
The narrative is the humanity, grit and determination of an ordinary woman and those thrown together in disaster and their refusal to go away, be quiet and mourn alone. The drama focuses upon the refusal to be fobbed off by the great juggernaut of government, with Anne Williams’ central role in the campaign for justice set as simultaneously heroic and tragic.
Anne Williams was the genuine article as a working class hero but the loss of her marriage and damage to her own and her family’s lives cannot be ignored. Hers was a life of bereavement which threatened to consume her as well it might.
The drama was perfectly acted, beautifully filmed and curated. Not for the first time I sat through coverage of this disaster moved to tears and anger, three decades and more later. You should watch this if you haven’t.
I’d also recommend Hillsborough Voices (Kevin Sampson). I’ve tried but can’t get my hands on Anne William’s own book, When You Walk Through A Storm.
Michael Martin – @TFMick1892
