One of Your Own

by Carol Ann Lee

  It fell to Bill to inform Bob Hindley that Maureen was dead. He took the news badly and four months later, on 7 November 1980, died of a heart attack. His son-in-law felt it was for the best; the elderly man had been plagued by gangs of teenagers who knew that he was Myra Hindley’s father and threw bricks at his windows and shouted abuse through his letter box. Again, Myra informed the prison authorities that she had no wish to attend the funeral, although her reasons were different, since she had never been reconciled with her father. It was another 14 years before she began to make her peace with him, telling her prison therapist: ‘I’ve only recently understood why he was the way he was. His experiences in the war produced violence in many men; my dad was no different.’8

  Although Bill continued to visit, bringing Sharon with him, and her relationship with her mother grew even stronger, Myra sank into a deep depression towards the end of the year. At the start of 1981, she wrote to Lord Longford that she had asked to be placed on Rule 43 (solitary confinement), which was refused: ‘These feelings have been building up inside me for a long time now. I can trace them back clearly to when Maureen died, because – personal grief apart – I was beginning to realise that someone whom youth and health guaranteed to be around when they finally let me out wouldn’t be after all . . . Maureen’s death . . . crippled me with grief.’9 She brightened when, following a relaxation of British law, ex-prisoners were granted the right to correspond with and visit inmates, resulting in a torrent of letters for her from Rachel Pinney, Janie Jones and Carole Callaghan, among others.10 She also sought solace in affairs; an internal memo dated 1 September 1981 states that Myra had been found in a compromising position with another inmate and lost 14 days’ privileges as a result. In protest, she went on hunger strike. A report on her progress two months later observed: ‘She does possess a strong will and character, but has always shown a feeling for others which would appear genuine and not entirely self-centred in character. I think in particular this relates to her own family and to one or two close friendships she has struck up with other inmates. Whilst the nature of her inmate relationships has, on occasions, been questioned, I think they simply reflect the constraints and experiences imposed by long-term imprisonment.’11

  Myra had passed another Open University course and began her next, Man’s Religious Quest, which she was forced to drop after breaking a heel in the prison gym. She set her academic ambitions to one side, but told friends she hoped to complete an external MA in English Literature either at Durham or London university in the future. In letters, she scoffed at the idea that her studies would have any influence on her chances of parole: ‘After all, what will it matter to the decision-makers that I’ve obtained a degree, when I wasn’t sent to prison because I was illiterate? The public are only concerned with the myth they’ve been saturated in.’12

  Two new and hugely influential people entered her life: Peter Timms and David Astor. Timms began his career in the Prison Service as an officer at Wakefield Prison in 1952 and after various promotions became governor of Maidstone, where he met Lord Longford during one of his regular visits to East End gangster Charlie Richardson. Through Longford, Timms met former Observer editor David Astor, who used his name and connections to lobby for various causes, including the early anti-apartheid campaign. At Astor’s request, Timms became a trustee of the prison arts charity, the Koestler Trust. Longford pressed both men to help Myra. ‘He wasn’t getting anywhere,’ Timms recalls. ‘Not in terms of getting her case thought about seriously. He said to David, “You’re a press baron, what can we do?” So David and I went to the House of Lords and had a cup of tea with Frank. I said there was really no point in being involved unless Frank shut up. Frank was one of the world’s angels, really, but every time he opened his mouth about Myra it was a disaster. He said, “But you can’t expect me to stop saying things altogether”, and I said, “Well, just shut up a lot then.” And, in fairness, he did, and when he couldn’t stop himself, he told us about it.’13 David Astor’s widow, Bridget, recalls: ‘David and Frank were very good friends; Frank was a contemporary of David’s older brother, Bill. Frank and David discovered they had various social concerns in common, though they quarrelled violently on other issues, but neither of them really minded and they were extremely close. David was particularly interested in prisoners because he had a half-brother who was jailed for homosexuality in the 1940s for about six months.’14

  Timms is at pains to point out that he never argued for Myra’s release: ‘That’s not why I got involved. I know people think I said that, but I didn’t. All that concerned me was that she shouldn’t be treated differently to any other prisoner because of her name, her crime or her gender. She was entitled to justice like every other prisoner.’15 His first attempt at intervention concerned Pope John Paul’s visit to Britain: ‘I rang the chaplain to the Archbishop of Westminster beforehand and said, “Look, I think that if the Pope were to ask to see Myra Hindley, that would be enormously liberating for this country. People are locked in a vicious cycle of bitterness fuelled by the press. I think the Pope could create a whole new climate of the way in which we approach people who’ve done awful things.” He said no. I said, “Well, get the Pope to at least ask about her then. On the record if possible.” But he didn’t.’16 In the meantime, Astor wrote to Myra – they corresponded for several months before meeting – explaining why he thought people in general were so staunchly opposed to her and Longford’s efforts on her behalf: ‘The public associates both of you with something which they are frightened of in themselves. It is generally admitted that violence towards children is much more prevalent than people generally like to admit. My wife and I think that every parent instinctively knows that the possibility of this happening is present in all parent–child relationships. But of course this is something of which most people are very much afraid and about which they feel very ashamed.’17

  Myra gained a new solicitor through another long-time friend, Sara Trevelyan, who introduced her to Michael Fisher: ‘Myra liked him. He was a wonderful solicitor, quite radical, and at that point I felt hopeful that we might be able to help her.’18 Fisher shared Astor’s opinion that Myra had been obsessed with, and intimidated by, Ian Brady, and believed that if they could convince people that she had changed radically since her conviction, then she might have a chance of freedom. But an early attempt to rehabilitate her in the public eye rebounded, when Fisher persuaded Myra and her friends and family to meet two journalists, Linda Melvern and Peter Gillman. Myra gave her first prison interview to Melvern and wrote 6,000 words in response to her questions. The subsequent article appeared in the Sunday Times under the headline ‘The Woman Who Cannot Face the Truth’. Myra was horror-struck at the unfavourable piece, as were Fisher and her other supporters. It was many years before Myra believed any journalist could be trusted at all. She warned friends who mentioned talking to the press: ‘Remember Linda.’19 She was further agitated when she heard that Ian had been visited at his own request by the police. Ian told them nothing but knew the news of the meeting would rattle her.

  Myra had petitioned to return to Holloway and was transferred in 1983 – but to somewhere far superior. Cookham Wood in Kent was built in the 1970s and originally housed only young men, but was adapted to accommodate the rising number of women prisoners. When Myra arrived on South Wing, she remained in her cell for two days until other inmates had absorbed the fact that she was there. When she ventured out, the attacks were harsh but few and she was ecstatic about the relaxed atmosphere in comparison to Durham and Holloway. She was allowed to study every afternoon, limiting her prison work to the mornings, although she was delighted to be assigned to garden duty, and could furnish her cell with her own choice of curtains, bed linen, rugs, plants and pictures, as well as toiletries, records and books. She was able to sit in her cell chatting with friends and wrote to Carole that her new billet was ‘as different from Durham in every respect as a Matabele Zulu warrior is to yer average Wall Street ex
ecutive . . . I’ve just looked at the calendar to see what date it is . . . the 19th[April]. A shattering alarm bell reverberated around my whole head. Seventeen years ago today I was climbing up the steps to the dock in Chester Castle. And the judge and jury are still sitting in condemnation . . .’20

  Ann West was photographed standing outside the prison gates in protest against the move. In the previous three years, she had twice taken an overdose of the tranquillisers she relied upon, and voluntarily admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital; she had also become close to spiritualist Doris Stokes, who she believed was able to communicate with Lesley. She would have been incensed to discover the effect Cookham Wood had on Myra. Sara Trevelyan, who was married then to Jimmy Boyle, a former gangster who had served time in Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison for a murder he claimed he hadn’t committed, recalls: ‘She really blossomed. She grew tanned and slim, healthy-looking again. At Cookham Wood there were trees and gardens, lighter buildings and more pleasantness generally. I didn’t see her often because it was much further away for me to visit, plus my children were very young. The challenging part was that Jimmy always said, “she isn’t telling the full truth”. He had much more street sense than me and challenged her about it, but she didn’t say anything.’21

  Myra was happier than she had been for a long time. She had several short-lived affairs in Cookham Wood, which crime writer Val McDermid, then a journalist, highlighted in an article in the Sunday People.

  Shortly before her first visit from David Astor, Myra wrote to him about the ‘scurrilous’ press, quoting from Jane Eyre: ‘I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. A memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure.’22 Sounding very much like a pupil trying to impress a teacher, she asked: ‘Would you agree with what Charlotte Brontë says a few pages earlier, that remorse is the poison of life, repentance its cure or antidote? I think that remorse can be poisonous if one tortures oneself with it; it can wear one’s soul away if not tempered by sincere repentance and a desire for forgiveness . . . It’s not that I will not but that I cannot express remorse for something I haven’t done.’23

  In September 1983, Astor visited her with Peter Timms (now Revd). On another occasion, and several times afterwards, they were joined by Bridget Astor, who recalls her first impression of Myra: ‘Have you seen the Longford film? Well, she was nothing like that. There was nothing of Myra in that portrayal; that was a little mouse, but Myra was self-assured – she knew who she was, had a good sense of humour and was relaxed. She had great dignity and you could feel that she was nicely amused that David and I were there. She was calm, very well-read, clued-up on politics and highly intelligent. I found her incredibly easy to talk to. I saw her quite often after that, I should think on average about every six to eight weeks. She knew her rights, too; she could have been a lawyer if she’d wanted to be. I think she could have done anything with her life, really.’24

  Nonetheless, Myra’s studies faltered without the assistance she had grown accustomed to from an Oxford University graduate who had helped her in the past. At the end of the year, she failed her exam for the honours degree and temporarily set aside her studies. She was angry that a letter had reached her from Patrick Downey, Lesley’s uncle, which included the line: ‘I would still be prepared to kill you and stand trial for my crime.’25 An internal memo notes that her primary concern was ‘the possible influence the Downey family may exercise upon her release’.26 When she didn’t respond to his letter, Patrick wrote again and contacted the press. On 20 May 1984, Myra asked the prison governor to intervene, declaring that although she was worried about seeming ‘callous’ for not replying to his letters, ‘I’ve always felt threatened by this family . . . I really do feel very threatened,’ and declared herself ‘equally as haunted [as the Downeys] and hunted, not just by my own past actions but by their increasingly threatening campaign’.27 There were no more letters from Patrick Downey.

  A few weeks later, Myra was attacked in her cell. An inmate sneaked in and dragged her from her bed to the floor, beating Myra about the head with a shoe. Her recovery was slow; she was also experiencing chronic hot flushes as she went through the menopause and worried perpetually about her ‘parasite’ stepfather, whom she feared was spending all her mother’s money on beer.28 She grew despondent in the wake of the attack and shelved her Open University course. On 23 July, she was transferred to the prison hospital, where she remained for two months. One of her most pressing anxieties was the thought of her niece learning the truth about her; Sharon was then approaching double figures and knew only that her auntie Myra had done ‘something bad’ in the past. Myra was unable to sleep, even with medication – cannabis was her only weapon in the struggle against stress-related insomnia.

  When her despondency lifted sufficiently for her to be sent back to the wing, Myra swapped jobs, working in the library and on reception, and prepared tea for senior officers. She spent hours knitting in her cell for the children of other prisoners and their families and friends. In a letter, she reflected: ‘That’s what I’ve missed . . . I’ll never be able to have a baby now and I would have liked one so much. I’d have loved to have been a mother but I’ve no chance now. If I got out tomorrow, I’d still be too old.’29 Although through circumstance her affairs were restricted to women, she was excited by the visit of a group of firemen to Cookham Wood, and tickled when she prepared tea and none of them recognised her. A prison officer – who, like all the other officers, called her Harry ‘because it goes with Hindley’ – told her that the men had asked about her and were puzzled when they learned she had been in their company. She began to take pride in her appearance again, buying expensive shampoo to wash her auburn hair, and asked another inmate to apply her make-up and nail varnish.30 She was interested in politics and supported the Labour Party; she watched the news twice a day and read The Guardian. Her rediscovery of Catholicism didn’t deter her from exploring other religions and mysticism: she enjoyed reading horoscopes and delving into the I Ching. She wrote a lot of spiritual nonsense in letters to her friends: ‘. . . feel me slowly around you – I’m weaving a green and gold web of mystical, magical strands, I’m spinning a calming cocoon of quiet sanity, an oasis of tranquillity . . .’31 Unknown to her, Ian was weaving a web of his own, and aiming to trap her within it.

  Ian’s cell in Gartree Prison was bare but for a bed, bucket, table and chair, and the view beyond the window was too bleak even for him. He declared that his crimes ‘were the acts of a madman. I don’t deserve any sympathy and I would never seek it. I want to spend the rest of my life inside. I want to die in jail.’32 Towards the end of 1984, he allowed journalist Fred Harrison to visit him; they had been exchanging letters for a year, after Lord Longford had telephoned Harrison to commend him on the accuracy of an article he had written about Ian for the Sunday People. No one else had visited Ian for years; he couldn’t bear the idea of his mother seeing him on the hospital wing, where he had begun to imagine voices emerging from the radiators, questioning him about his crimes. At night the prison staff heard him cursing in his cell, where he slept on the chair rather than in bed; he often required sedation. He spent his canteen money on anything sweet and refused to exercise but left crumbs for birds on the window sill, shrinking back from the view of the misty marshland at night: ‘I expect a 1930s Dracula to come out of the dark.’33 Harrison sensed that Ian was readying himself to talk about the past and bided his time.

  In Cookham Wood, Myra wished Anne Maguire luck when she gained her release after being transferred there for the last year of her sentence: ‘She knew I was going to fight what had happened to my family and she got Lord Longford involved. When I won my case, Myra sent a message through him to say that she was happy we’d proved our innocence.’34 She said a different goodbye to Carole Callaghan when her former fellow inmate sold her letters to the Daily Star. She accused Carole of having ‘syphilis of the brain’.35

  Her spirits so
ared when she learned that a Prison Review Committee had recommended her for parole. When the news broke in the press, Danny Kilbride told The Sun that he would kill her if she were released. He recalls: ‘I was arrested on Hindley’s instructions through her solicitor. The police wanted me to retract what I’d said, but I wouldn’t. Her supporters never gave a thought to what we went through, as a family. It tore my mum apart and it affected my parents’ relationship with us – we couldn’t move because they were so protective. I had to take one of my mates with me when I did my paper-round, otherwise my dad wouldn’t let me do it. I remember the first time I asked my mother if I could go all-night fishing. She said no and I said, “Well, I’m going.” Typical teenager. But I couldn’t do that to her. Then three weeks later, when my mates asked me again, she said, “Go then, but be careful.” It used to break my heart, watching her trying to play with the young ones while she was crying for our John. When I became a dad, and my kids wanted to go out, I’d be right there. They’d be playing with a football or a cricket bat and I’d be watching every move. I realise that in a lot of ways that was unfair, but I couldn’t help it. What happened to us affects you in ways you can’t imagine. Life would definitely have been easier for my family if she’d have just accepted her punishment.’36

  In May 1985, Home Secretary Leon Brittan announced that the Parole Board had recommended that Myra Hindley should spend at least another five years in prison before being considered for release. Myra was shattered by the news. She poured her resentment into a long-winded letter to Brittan, telling him that her religious beliefs were the only thing preventing her from taking her own life. She labelled him her ‘mental executioner’ and ended with her favourite quote from Jane Eyre. Nellie was moved to give a rare interview: ‘It’s better she dies there than comes out of prison and gets killed out here. Myra’s been in prison all these years, so what difference could it make if she stays there forever? If Myra came out, she couldn’t come here. I don’t know where she would go. People wouldn’t let her alone. She might as well die in prison. Poor Myra. Life means life for Myra. For others it means just a few years. When they call her a beast or a devil, they don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know her. She’s still my daughter. I love her just like I always have done.’37