FORMER Mayor and deputy leader of Warrington Borough Council Mike Hannon is travelling to the Isle of Man this weekend to visit the site of the Summerland disaster – more than five decades after two young Warrington men lost their lives there.
Mike is making the journey to pay his respects to Alan Barker, 20, from Woolston, and Sean Kelly, 21, from Fearnhead, who were among the 50 people killed when fire swept through the Summerland leisure complex on Douglas Promenade on August 2, 1973.
The two young men were friends and former colleagues of Mike.
Mike worked with Sean as an apprentice bricklayer, while the pair also socialised together and went to the local disco.
Now, after years of campaigning and dialogue with people on the Isle of Man, Mike believes the time is right to return to the place where his friends’ lives were cut tragically short.
Speaking ahead of his visit, Mike said: “After years of dialogue with my friends in the Isle of Man I thought it should be only right and proper on behalf of Shaun and Allan to visit the site that took their lives and hope that this small gesture goes some way in getting closure on their lives and bring about a fresh new public enquiry that looks into all the issues that brought about their early death.”
The Summerland fire remains one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Isle of Man.
Mike Hannon when he was made an Honorary Freeman
Around 3,000 people were inside the leisure complex when fire broke out on the evening of August 2, 1973. The blaze spread with devastating speed through the building and 50 people lost their lives, while many more were seriously injured.
Alan Barker and Sean Kelly were among the youngest victims.
Alan had been working at Summerland and was due to pursue a career as a fingerprint officer with the police. Sean was working as a bricklayer.
Previous accounts have recorded that Alan escaped the building but returned in an attempt to help others. The tragedy has never been forgotten in Warrington.
In 2013, on the 40th anniversary of the disaster, a memorial to the victims was unveiled, with Mike Hannon paying tribute to the two young men he had known personally. At the time he said: “I knew both Alan and Sean very well”, recalling his work with Sean as apprentice bricklayers and their social life together.
Fresh inquiry campaign
Mike’s visit comes as the long-running campaign for a fresh investigation into the disaster continues.
The original inquests returned a verdict of “misadventure”, a conclusion which campaigners and bereaved families have strongly criticised.
The Justice for Summerland campaign has been seeking fresh inquests, arguing that the original verdict unfairly suggested that those who died had somehow contributed to their own fate.
Earlier this year, campaigners took their fight to the Isle of Man courts after the Attorney General rejected an application for fresh inquests.
A two-day hearing took place in Douglas in May, with the court reserving its decision.
The campaign argues that advances in forensic science and modern investigative techniques could allow questions surrounding the disaster to be examined in a way that was not possible more than 50 years ago.
Mike’s journey this weekend therefore carries a deeply personal significance.
He is not simply visiting a historic disaster site.
He is returning to the place where two friends from Warrington went on holiday and never came home – and where, more than 50 years later, he still believes questions remain unanswered.
The original Summerland complex was eventually demolished, but the site remains a place of remembrance.
For Mike, standing there in memory of Alan and Sean will be a personal act of remembrance – while also renewing his call for the circumstances surrounding their deaths, and those of the other victims, to be properly examined.
More than half a century on, the fight for answers continues.
