Nearly 30 years ago inspired by my mother’s stories I carefully ‘clipped’ this article from my family’s newspaper. It was my first commemorative social-material practice of Duncan.  My mother had commemorated Duncan through her social reminiscences; she explained that her cousin ‘Big Dunc’ was a huge boy who would walk her to the bus stop sometimes.  He wouldn’t let anyone tease her about her grammar school uniform of a gingham dress and straw boater. She also recalled how everyone wanted him on their team when they played football in the streets of Dudley.

My cutting was part of a stabilised family social-material practice of commemoration, to maintain the presence of dead relatives pictorially.  The process of ‘clipping’ (like the clicking of a camera) designed such an artefact. The image of Duncan was then afforded a special place in my commemorative network and its preservation has afforded this piece of paper its own commemorative network. Here, it is now an electronic artefact threaded back into a collective commemorative network.

Through my teenager years- when keen to impress potential ‘chaps’ (as they say in Dudley), I would accidentally-on-purpose let slip to their fathers, that I was a relative of the footballer Duncan Edwards.  I believed this ancestral link to a famous sporting legend afforded me some flicker of ‘special-ness’ by association. I would often collude with ‘well-impressed’ fathers to further design a commemorative network around our verbal agreement that Duncan was a ‘bostin’ player’ and his death had ‘robbed us all’. Often unable to contribute to our commemorative network, my potential ‘chap’ would stand around impatiently whilst we eulogised about some old footballer who died years before we were even born.

My Duncan story did not always have the intended impact but although I left Dudley I took this clipping with me and still have it today- even though I have moved many many times.

I am ultimately a researcher of the dead, I can sometimes forget that death in sport- as a result of participating in or supporting sport is thankfully very rare because I am immersed in a morbid daily reality.

However some days can be overwhelmingly poignant reminder of our mortality and fragility and I am reminded just how devastating the loss can be. 

I woke to the shocking news of the death of the 33 year old British Indy car driver Dan Wheldon in Las Vegas http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/oct/17/dan-wheldon-emberton-grief?newsfeed=true  

Today was also a news day that was full of reports that MPs would be debating the Hillsborough petition for all documents that related to the 1989 tragedy to be released to the public.

Sport and death coming into our everyday lives.

My research explores the Munich Air Disaster and the commemorative practices, memorials and events that have continued to evolve for over 53 years. From those I have spoken to; who are actively remembering those who were 'lost' as a result of the crash-it appears that the drive for them to commemorate is a need to 'bear witness to a life', however brief. It is important to pass on the truth about that person- their life and death- to others. I cannot overstate the passion and dedication of some who have tasked themselves with this commemorative task.

It's been a sad day and one where many of us have become commemorators by 'bearing witness' to the events of the day.