Munich Air Disaster 1958

It's hard to believe that almost half a century has passed since the unspeakably tragic loss of the Manchester United team on Thursday 6th February 1958. I was at Demesne County Infant school in Langley, a council estate near Manchester. I had no interest in football up to that point. When Miss Brown, the Headmistress (later honoured as Elsie Brown MBE) called a special assembly, I naturally assumed it was to sing "Happy Birthday to me" since I'd turned 7 the day before. but when this dignified and controlled woman wept on the stage before several hundred children, I must have "egodecentred". I knew for the first time in my life that something bigger than self defines the world around you. Emotionally, if not geographically, I've been a "red" ever since.