Tribute to Warrington bomb victim Tim on what should have been his 40th birthday
COLIN PARRY ON LOSS OF HIS SON IN IRA BOMBING
THE parents of schoolboy IRA bomb victim Tim Parry will today mark what should have been his 40th birthday, 27 years after he died.
Grieving Colin and Wendy Parry recalled the devastating moment their 12-year-old son’s life was cut short by terrorists as he went on a shopping trip.
Everton fan Tim had gone to Warrington town centre in Cheshire to buy replica shorts worn by Toffees goalkeeper Neville Southall, when one of two IRA bombs exploded in a bin next to him in March 1993. He died five days later.
Johnathan Ball, three, was also killed in the blasts. Colin said: “The light that always shone from Tim’s eyes, was extinguished that day leaving a void that nothing could ever fill.
“Five days after the bomb blast, Wendy and I had the worst decision any parent will ever have to make, when we gave the surgeon at The Walton Centre’s Neurosurgical Unit permission to switch off Tim’s life support machine.”
Colin and Wendy will spend today with Tim’s sister Abbi, 38, and brother Dominic, 41, to honour their son.
The couple, both now OBEs, set up the UK’s first Peace Centre, through the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Colin added: “The Peace Foundation and the Peace Centre that we created has perpetuated Tim’s and Johnathan’s names.
“We hope and pray it continue to do so long after Wendy and I have
GRIEF Colin paid tribute to his son
Tim was killed by IRA blast in March 1993
gone, when we hope to join Tim.” Colin also paid tribute to his son, whose “short life was never empty or quiet for long”.
He said: “He was the extrovert, the joker and the one who could gather and harvest friends quicker than anyone I’ve ever known. Dom and Abbi were always there beside him if he got himself into any trouble… apart from on the fateful morning of March 20, 1993.
“Tim was a man on a mission that morning. He had gone into town to buy a pair of Neville Southall football shorts, because he had saved a penalty for the school football team. Little did he know his trip was to be futile because the £11 in his pocket was not enough to buy those shorts. But of course, fate dealt him a far worse.”
The bomb blasts also left 56 people injured, including mum Bronwen Vickers, who lost a leg.
Colin and Wendy’s charity works for peace and non-violent conflict resolution.
Their Warrington Peace Centre helps young people, victims of terrorism and communities in conflict. Foundation chief executive Nick Taylor said: “When we see the iconic picture of those two young boys it is hard to think as them as adults, and Tim aged 40 and what could have been. The work we do in Tim’s memory is about preventing what happened to him happening again.
“I think he would be amazed and proud of what has been achieved over two decades.”
■ Labour claims funding Boris Johnson promised the foundation has yet to materialise and its
support services may close.
BLAST Aftermath of bombing will
The light that shone from Tim’s eyes went out, leaving a void