Lisa Nandy has told Oscar-winning film director Danny Boyle about her life-long Bury FC-supporting stepfather’s poignant last words about the club he loved.
She said he had asked her step-brother: “What’s the score?”
Ms Nandy said the troubled club, which was expelled from the Football League last year over years of financial issues, “tells a story about things that are being lost in Britain.”
She said the failure of the “powers that be” to step in and save Bury FC from collapse contributed to a feeling in northern towns that politics was pointless and couldn’t change anything.
The Labour leadership contender tonight releases a long-form conversation with the Trainspotting director, who was creative director of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.
The full conversation can be viewed on Facebook Premiere from 6pm.
Ms Nandy noted the pair had grown up in nearby towns.
Mr Boyle was born in Bury and raised in Radcliffe, a town around 3 miles away in Greater Manchester.
Ms Nandy said: “I went to college in Bury. My step-family still live there, my mum still lives there.
“It’s one of the reasons why in the last few years one of the things that’s really, really bothered people, not just there but all over the country, is the demise of Bury FC.
“So my stepdad was a season ticket holder at Gigg Lane. He went from a very, very young age.
“And he died a couple of years ago, but his last words to my stepbrother were “what’s the score?”
“And my stepbrother always says he wouldn’t have wanted to know the answer. It would have been “as usual”.
“But the demise of that football club I think tells a story about things that are being lost in Britain.”
She said towns like Bury and her Wigan constituency had lost major employers who had supported the community.
She said: “You had municipal socialism and you often had Labour councils who were controlling council houses and were able to give people council houses that they needed and were able to support all of those big institutions that really matter to people.”
She added: “And the collapse of Bury and the failure of the powers that be to step in and respond and to protect it I think it was such a big moment for a lot of people.
“This sense that politics and the system and the establishment not just won’t change things, but the belief that we can’t change things. It’s fuelling this idea that’s, ‘what’s the point of you all?’ Politics, just there’s no point to it all.
“And I really worry about that. And I wonder, is there away we can reconnect on that emotional level and protect the things that matter to people? That we can hear what matters to people and that we defend them.”
Mr Boyle remembered his experience in the run up to the Olympics, saying the British people had overcome their natural “cynicism”, and wanted “something to believe in.”
He said: “When we set up the Olympics, I remember there was a lot of cynicism about it. Because it seems to be a default position we have. I’ve had it about other things as well. I’m guilty of it just as much as anyone.”
Ms Nandy owned up to suffering from her own “northern scepticism”.
“But I remember seeing the torch arrive,” Mr Boyle went on.
“On the telly. And it was like fifty days out from it starting And I remember my sister. My twin sister who was a teacher her whole life. She went. I can’t remember where she went. She drove, I can’t remember where it was. She drove miles to stand in the rain in this crowd.”
He added: “This torch running through like that. And it was pouring down. But I remember looking at people’s faces – they want that – they want to come and they want to celebrate something together.
“You could see that in people’s faces as they stood in the rain waiting for the torch….
“And people really want this. They don’t want cynicism. They want something to believe in…
“And they’ll punish you if you bulls**t them about what to believe in. And rightly so…
He went on: “There’s an expression in film-making – where you cut out to the wide shot. And I think you’ve got to cut out. And when you cut out you’ve got to see yourself in time, our time, our future time. Not in history. Not jump back and see our place in history. You can do a bit of that, it’s obviously important.”
“But you’ve got to look at our future time. That’s not my time, because I’ve done my time, it’s really, it’s your time, in a way, to inspire for what’s possible for us given everything that’s going in place in that future time.”
