Joe Friel was 20 years old when he was shot in the chest by a British soldier in Derry's Glenfada Park on Bloody Sunday in January 1972. He believes he survived because he had turned his head to watch what was happening as another soldier walked across the little square and shot Jim Wray, lying wounded on the ground, for a second time.
This week Joe has been in the Guildhall in Derry, listening to the proceedings of the Saville inquiry, set up by Tony Blair last year to investigate the events of Bloody Sunday. He told me: "I know the name of the soldier who shot me. We got that information from their own statements. I don't want revenge. I just want to see him, here in Derry, to hear his account of what happened."
As well as those who died, 13 other people were injured. "There's 10 of us left now," another victim, Micky Bridge, said. He also believes he knows the name of the soldier who shot him, who has since died. "He claimed that he'd killed me, but here I am."
The strain of the hearings on these victims and on the families of those who died is etched on their faces. They sit in the splendid neo-Gothic hall where the hearings are taking place, or slip outside for a much-needed smoke, gathering together in a little huddle. Some of them are fearful that this inquiry, for which they have campaigned for so long, is in danger of floundering in a sea of legal arguments and delays which could fatally damage its credibility.
Lord Saville has made it clear that the proceedings will be as open and accessible to the public as possible. But already the Court of Appeal has ruled that members of the Parachute Regiment who were actually involved in firing shots on Bloody Sunday should be granted anonymity, overruling Lord Saville's decision that this would be allowed only in cases where potential witnesses felt themselves to be at risk of retribution.
The early part of this week has been taken up with considering an application that this anonymity should be extended beyond "the shooters" (as those who actually fired the fatal shots are described) to all those soldiers who were in the city on Bloody Sunday. The inquiry already has traced 1,878 soldiers and there is a possibility that up to 500 military witnesses could be called.
Counsel for the tribunal made the point that if all these witnesses (or even a fraction of them) have to be identified and referred to in evidence by letters, it could lead to major confusion. Lawyers representing the families fear that this could be used to sow doubt about the identities of the various soldiers involved.
There also has been an application that the soldiers should be allowed to give evidence in London. Both these propositions have been vigorously opposed by senior lawyers representing the families, who have argued that as much as possible of the inquiry should be held in Derry, so that it is open to those people who experienced, and still remember, the events that took place in this city so many years ago.
It isn't only the families of those involved who are worried that the whole inquiry could be undermined by long-drawn-out wrangling in the courts in Britain. One expert legal observer told me he feared Lord Saville might have been "knocked back" by the decision of the Court of Appeal and that he was now mainly concerned to avoid further legal challenges to his decisions.
There are political reasons for such concern. Documents which have been made available to the tribunal and which have come into the public domain show how vulnerable the British government felt itself to be after Bloody Sunday, and how determined it was to rebuff any attacks on its record. That defensiveness still exists in some quarters, particularly among those who were involved in taking crucial decisions at the time.
One lawyer representing the families said he had been shocked by the "chilly" atmosphere in the British courts, where the soldiers' appeal had been heard, and the hostility to the victims. "They are resented and thought of as pawns of Sinn Fein," he said. In Derry itself there is a growing suspicion that the British authorities, in particular the Ministry of Defence, are determined to frustrate the inquiry in every way possible.
A local politician who has been involved in the campaign for a new tribunal told me: "When Tony Blair established this inquiry, many of us hoped that the British government was preparing to admit that a terrible wrong had been committed and to apologise to the victims. Now it's beginning to look as though it's going to defend itself tooth and nail."
We must hope this view is unduly pessimistic. As Tony Blair himself said when he announced the tribunal last year, there have been very many victims in Northern Ireland before and since Bloody Sunday, on both sides.
But what happened in Derry in January 1972 "was different because, where the state's own authorities are concerned, we must be as sure as we can of the truth, precisely because we pride ourselves on our democracy and respect for the law, and on the professionalism and dedication of our security forces."
There is no doubting the commitment of Lord Saville and his two colleagues - Sir Edward Somers, a former judge of the Court of Appeal in New Zealand, and William Hoyt, Chief Justice of the Canadian province of New Brunswick - to establishing the truth of what happened on Bloody Sunday with "fairness, thoroughness and impartiality". One of their first acts after arriving in Derry last year was to visit the streets of the Bogside, where the 13 victims were shot.
The tribunal has gone out of its way to make the material it has collected as accessible as possible. A website has been established where details of relevant material are available and transcripts of each day's hearings are published.
There are enormously important issues at stake here, not only for the families directly involved, but in terms of the British government's commitment to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. There have been thousands of victims over the past 30 years. I have tried to write before in this space of the need to give public recognition to their grief and suffering.
On Bloody Sunday the agencies and forces of the British state were directly responsible for what happened. It is the task of Lord Saville and his colleagues to discover what happened and why. Any attempt to frustrate the inquiry's work will damage the relationship of trust between these islands.