Henry Rose grave (? to 6th February 1958)

Perhaps a century will pass before the flame of the Busby Babes who died in the Munich Air Disaster will flicker out. For now the names of the footballers who died in the crash in 1958 live and linger. The deadly night claimed the lives of people who weren't footballers. Henry wasn't a footballer but he was quite famous in the newspaper world and here I am by his horizontal bones in the Jewish section in Southern Cemetery.

He was a glittering sports reporter for The Daily Express newspaper and even though he’s sometimes thought to be the “forgotten” man of the disaster he was a bit of a celebrity in the fifties. His stories alloyed contemporary British sport, society and culture. Sports features were a little stiff in his day and he was the first journalist to use the more sensationalist and opinionated style successfully imported from America. His prose was almost revered by footballers. His battle wasn’t only again drab sports reporting but anti-Semitism that was more prevalent in British society at the time. He was so revered that his funeral procession was well attended. It ran six miles from the famous Express building in central Manchester to Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-cum-Hardy where I’m stood. Around 1000 taxi drivers ferried mourners along the route free of charge.

I find these blooming Jewish cemeteries are nearly always padlocked shut. I had to scale a fence to gain entry. I'm not sure when Henry was born but he looks to be in his fifties. He wasn’t the only reporter to die that wretched day in 1958. The others were The Guardian's Donny Davies, the Daily Mirror's Archie Ledbrooke, Tom Jackson and Alf Clarke from Manchester's evening papers, the Daily Mail's Eric Thompson, the Daily Herald's George Follows, and Frank Swift, the former Manchester City and England goalkeeper.

I was the only person in the cemetery. Jewish headstones have a similar look but I found the one I wanted in a few minutes. Someone had visited before; there were a couple of pebbles on the grave. I added another but a curious squirrel thought I had nuts and lingered around. I reversed disappointment with bit of a Snickers. I did a salute and left.