Remembering the 15th April '89

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster. For those of you that don’t know about this, it was when a football stand in Sheffield, England, collapsed six minutes into a semi final match and killed (ultimately) 96 people. It was terrible and to this day remains the worst event in footballing history, in the UK and internationally.

I vaguely remember seeing it on the telly on the day, but seeing as John, my Mum’s boyfriend and subsequently hubby, had taken us away for a weekend in Great Yarmouth, I remember the weekend for something else entirely.

I was 15 and John had paid for me to have the room across the hall in the hotel we were staying at. I was in heaven. My first every hotel stay and I had tea and coffee making stuff, my own bathroom, a telly and two single beds. I picked the bed by the wall, put Brian the ginger teddy bear on the pillow, he was my teddy bear named after a boy I had a crush on when I was eight. We had spent the day on the beach, it had been sunny. We’d had dinner and about 10pm I’d said goodnight and sat on the bed watching telly for a little while. I imagine that Muv and John had also started watching telly, because parents don’t do anything else, especially on a dirty weekend.

I don’t know what time it was when I went to bed, but at about 1am I was awoken by a man climbing into bed next to me. This is going to sound strange, but I remember my Dad climbing into bed with my brother when he was unwell to comfort him, and my brother going nuts. I thought that perhaps John was doing the same to see if he’d get the same reaction (I would like to state, John never did anything inappropriate). As he climbed into bed the man said, ‘I don’t care if your Marilyn Munroe, I’m going to sleep.’

Now, I was a fifteen year old girl that just so happened to be having ladies things that weekend and as accidents happen, so had one that night. I was embarrassed by the warm red patch in the bed and climbed out of bed over the large sleeping stranger. Sat on the edge of the other bed was another man. I walked past him and went into the bathroom. Went to the toilet and then walked back into the room. There was a large man asleep on my bed, a pair of trousers on the floor next to it. The man on the other bed, looked at me and said, ’come here.’

I just turned and walked out of the room and knocked on the door opposite. I’m not sure how long I waited for a response, but I do remember hearing the telly on. When the door opened, John was standing in front of me.

‘There’s a man in my bed.’

My mum appeared at the door.

‘Jodie says there’s a man in her bed.’ John said.

John walked across the hall and into my room. I was taken into my Mum room. There was some shouting, before John appeared and walked down the hall, then returned with Hotel security or management. Could have been either, I was sitting on my Mums bed telling what happened, which, really was nothing, but could have been so much more.

I slept in my Mum and John’s room that night.

The next morning I asked if I could get my stuff from my room. I was told by John that he’d it all. I wasn’t allowed back into the room.

I asked for Brian, my Mum wouldn’t let me have him, ‘he needs washing’.

They told me later that the man who had climbed into bed with me had been a family man with three daughters around my age. He and his friend had come from the oil rigs and had been drinking. His friend (the one seated) had thought he could get his mate to let his guard down. The family man woke up about two hours later because Brian was wedged under his hip. This was the point where he realised what could have happened and being drunk didn’t know if it had, when he had beaten the other guy up so badly that my accident was a drop in the ocean of blood that covered the room. Light fittings where broken off the wall, pictures smashed and the window had been broken. Brian was blood soaked and needed to be washed at least twice before he could be returned to me. The ‘mate’ ended up in hospital.

For years afterwards, whenever this story was told, my Mum always thought it was hilarious that I was so casual about it when the hotel manager lady nearly lost her teeth coughing and spluttering at my reply to her question, ‘Are you OK my dear, nothing ‘bed’ happened to you?’

I replied with the innocence of a mid teen, ‘Oh it was alright, I just thought it was John.’