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.
