Stranded, without a spare pair of socks, thousands of us were homeless for a night when the Grand National was hit by a bomb scare.
I was one of the lucky ones who found sanctuary on a good Samaritan's sofa when the world's greatest steeplechase was postponed for 48 hours after an unprecedented evacuation of Aintree 25 years ago. It turned into an unforgettable episode of Socks and the Settee, a tribute to the warmth of Merseyside folk when legions of refugees needed a bed for the night.
To tell the truth, I had to look up who won the National in 1997 (New Zealand-bred Lord Gyllene, a 14-1 shot, romped home by 25 lengths) – but I never forgot the kindness and charity of Denise Glover: housewife, mother and an angel on the Ormskirk Road. Although your correspondent wouldn't have known the back end of a horse from the front, the Mirror had bought a share of renowned stayer Avro Anson, and I was despatched to my first Grand National in case we needed to administer a champion's nosebag in the winners' enclosure. We never even made it to Becher's Brook; barely an hour before starter's orders, at 2:49pm, a credible bomb threat was made by phone to the Aintree University Hospital in nearby Fazakerley.
At first, spectators were asked to clear the stands and congregate on the course itself. But when a second threat – also using a recognised code word – was received three minutes later at the police's control room in Bootle, warning of at least one concealed device, course clerk Charles Barnett announced the show was over and we were all required to leave. There had been several bomb threats from the IRA in the build-up to the 1997 General Election, and as 60,000 racegoers were shepherded out into the Melling Road, one of the displaced guests shuffling into a grey afternoon next to me was Labour deputy leader John Prescott.
Big John would enjoy a better result at the polls three weeks later, but for 20,000 spectators, staff, media and race personnel, there was the small matter of our cars being locked inside Aintree's gates. And nobody was going to be allowed to collect them until a full security sweep of the stands, concourses, car parks, 16 fences, three open ditches and water jump was complete.
At first, the stiff upper lip brigade was out in force. Most of the 36 competing horses were moved to nearby Haydock, and the air was thick with Churchillian defiance: We'll fight them on the Becher's. But towards dusk, the penny was starting to drop. Nobody was going to be allowed to collect their cars that night. And with every hotel room within a 25-mile radius snapped up, all of a sudden thousands were contemplating vagrancy.
Wandering aimlessly up and down the Ormskirk Road, barely 100 yards from my impounded Ford Escort, I noticed Fleet Street colleague Brian Madley standing in the bay window of a semi-detached home, relaying his account of a dramatic afternoon to the People sports desk on a landline. Denise, then aged 43, happened to be on her doorstep, surveying the chaos on her street, when she noticed me laughing and gesticulating at the late, great Madley – hand signals along the lines of, “How on earth did you manage that?”
She clocked me as another itinerant hack straight away. “Come on in,” she beckoned. “I've got my own press box in here.” To my astonishment, not only was Madley in full flow on the phone in the living room before he caught the last train back to London, but another familiar face, Sunday newspaper racing journalist Colin Cooper, was in the same boat as me: tired, hungry – and stranded.
The angel of Ormskirk Road swung into action. First it was cups of coffee and then, as night fell, Denise and her daughter Helen procured fish and chips, Chinese takeaway and half a dozen cans of frothy refreshment . Our reporter made his excuses, offered to reimburse them and tried to leave, but our host was having none of it. As the 10 o'clock news confirmed what we already knew – Aintree was locked down for the night – she insisted on extending overnight hospitality and I was kipping on the sofa. It was only after coffee and bacon sarnies for Sunday breakfast that the all-clear was sounded over the road and the 1st Battalion Stranded Motorists were allowed to collect their cars.
The National was hurriedly rescheduled for the Monday afternoon, and I travelled back to Aintree – this time by train, taking no chances with the car being impounded again. Before Avro Anson came in a gallant but distant sixth behind Lord Gyllene, I fulfilled a promise to call in on Denise for a brief reunion and a pre-race cuppa.
That was the last time I saw her, but you never forget kindness. Some 11 years later, when a portly scribbler was preparing to walk 140 miles with Lord Botham on one of his charity hikes for Leukaemia Research, she even rang the sports desk to wish me luck.
I wish I could knock on her door this weekend with a bunch of flowers to say thank you, a quarter of a century later, but sadly she is no longer there. God bless you, Denise. This one's for you – and Liverpool's host of angels who rescued the homeless in 1997.
