Roses for a grandad who was lost at Hillsborough - PHOTO

But few sights yesterday can have been as poignant as little Tommy Biggadike’s tribute to the grandfather and uncle he lost at Hillsborough.As Liverpool fell silent to remember the 96 football fans who died in the stadium crush exactly 25 years earlier, the two-year-old – helped by sister Millie, four – gently laid roses in their memory outside Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough ground.His grandfather, Thomas Howard, was just 34 when he died in the Leppings Lane terraces along with his 14-year-old son, also called Thomas, or Tommy for short – just like the nephew who he would never get to meet.Across the Pennines, 24,000 people gathered at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium for a moving memorial service centred on a minute’s silence at 3.06pm – the time the club’s 1989 FA Cup semi-final against  Nottingham Forest was abandoned as  desperate fans spilled onto the pitch.The tribute was respected across the city, with even the Mersey ferry stopping half way through its crossing and barriers to road tunnels under the river lowered, before churches and civic buildings rang their  bells 96 times. Tommy and Millie were taken to Hillsborough by their father Steven Biggadike from their home in nearby Rotherham as they were unable to get enough tickets to join their mother, Gayle Howard, at Anfield.She was just eight when she lost her brother and father in 1989, and lays a rose for them both at every anniversary.‘They may not be here physically, but their name lives on in Tommy and in the stories we tell him and his sister about what they were like,’ she said.‘Millie knows they’re both stars in the sky and is always asking about them, and I’m sure Tommy will be the same when he’s a bit older.’Mr Biggadike, a 30-year-old accountant, added: ‘Tommy’s too young to understand it of course, but it’s important that he grows up to be aware of the losses that Gayle’s family suffered.‘His name is a tribute to his grandfather and his uncle – he was always going to be called Tommy if he was  a boy. He did really well – it was a very moving sight.’At Anfield, victims’ families were joined by the club’s past greats including Kenny Dalglish, manager at the time of the disaster, Ian Rush and Alan Hansen. Also present were current stars – among them a grave looking Steven Gerrard, the club captain whose cousin, ten-year-old Jon-Paul Gilhooley, was the youngest to die.Scores of football scarves donated by fans and clubs from across the UK and beyond were laid out on the pitch in the shape of a ‘96’.Traditional football hymn Abide With Me was sung before the names of the 96 fans were read out. At each name a light was lit on a large piece of sculpture entitled the Band of Life.As the time reached 3.06pm, the ground fell into silence, emphasising the hush that descended on the city beyond, followed after a minute by applause.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az