Man knew exactly what to do after vital meeting in a pub

A man embarked on over a decades worth of vital work after listening to a podcast and a moving encounter in the pub.

Mik Parkin, 52, is a lifelong Liverpool FC supporter. For over a decade now, he has taken part in and organised several events to support families of the Hillsborough disaster.

Speaking to the ECHO, Mike said: “This started years and years ago. I was listening to the Anfield Wrap, back in 2012. A guy called Don Williams was talking about a run he was from doing from Hillsborough across to Anfield. I signed up for that.

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“I said to myself, Mik, you've been enjoying football for years but you’ve not done anything to help with Hillsborough, it’s time to pull your finger out.

“I wasn't much of a runner back then, so I drove the minibus. Then we had the meeting in a Liverpool pub where we met with Steve Kelly. Until you meet someone who’s been personally affected by it, you know about it but you don't fully understand it.

“After that, I was like, anything I can do to help these people, I’ll do that. Since then we've done a few different runs.”

Evertonian Steve lost his 38-year-old Liverpool-supporting brother, Michael, in the Hillsborough disaster and has since become a leading figure in the fight for justice.

Since this meeting, Mik and his wife Claire have forged close links with other groups supporting those who have gone through tragedies. In 2019, he ran from Sheffield, where he lived at the time, to Grenfell to raise awareness of the London tower block fire where 72 people died in June 2017.

Around this time, Mik, who now lives in Leeds, and other campaigners met at Hillsborough Oaks in Knowsley, a woodland area which was planted as a memorial to the 97 victims. Here, they also remembered the deaths of former ECHO journalist Dan Kay and Chris Lam, who were both tireless campaigners in the fight for justice.

It was here that doing more to support the Hillsborough Law, which would improve the process for receiving justice in instances such as Hillsborough and Grenfell. This is seen by many as the next step after the collapse of the trial of three men who faced allegations linked to the aftermath of the tragedy.

Mik said: “About a year ago, we were doing a memorial meeting at the Hillsborough Oaks where some of the old running team had got together. Our previous run had been to raise money for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and the children’s hospital in Sheffield. Margaret Aspinall was there.

“She said, ‘what we've all got to do now is get behind the Hillsborough Law’. It’s gone under the radar in the country but there's so many things it would massively improve.

“The big thing that it is going to change is a duty of candour, which applies to organisations including councils, the fire service and Post Office. If there’s a big incident, they have a duty to tell the truth and extra protection for whistleblowers.

“All over the country, we see the same problem happening time and time again. We’ve had the Hillsborough disaster, which has been going on for 35 years. Nobody has been convinced. We've got Grenfell - that was seven years ago now. We’ve got the infected blood scandal. We've got the nuclear test victims scandal. We've got the Post Office scandal.

“We’re missing out on stopping this additional pain for families. Why do we have to find out the truth by having to crowbar it out of people with thousands of pounds in legal fees?”

“The whole group of us were stood there and we'd recently lost Dan Kay. A year before that we'd lost Chris Lam. Both such absolutely genuine, wonderful guys. I turned to my wife and said, ‘we've got to do something.’”

Mike, Claire and other campaigners will be embarking on the Anfield to Grenfell Run this weekend. The 227 mile run will last from April 13 to April 20, starting in Liverpool, then to Manchester then on to Sheffield before finishing at the Grenfell Tower London, symbolising a journey from one tragedy to another, bound together by a shared commitment to justice and change.

Representing £10 for each mile of the journey, they aim to raise £2,270, shared equally between the two charities.

Mik said: “We’re doing the run because we’re passionate about Hillsborough Law. Half is going towards mental health charity Mind in memory of Chris and Lam. Half is going to the Grenfell Foundation, who are donating money themselves to organisations campaigning for the Hillsborough Law.

“They're all going through the same problem. We’ve learned, when people get together, it can make a massive change.”

In his day job, Mik is a Retail Area Manager for the British Heart Foundation and is also encouraging people to donate collectively a total of 2270 bags to their local British Heart Foundation charity shops, as knowledge of CPR is vital in response to all major incidents.

Mik is encouraging others to let MPs know about the importance of the Hillsborough Law with an election likely this year. He said: “They’re literally going to be knocking on our doors. We want this to be done in the first term of parliament.”

Further information about the run is available here.

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