One of Your Own
Page 45
Until he is found, there is no way of knowing if Keith Bennett lies in the Shiny Brook area, as Peter Topping thought, based on information given to him by the child’s killers, or whether there are other victims, as those involved in the original investigation suspect. Topping’s belief that ‘W/H’ referred to Wessenden Head may or may not be correct; it might just as easily refer to Woodhead, or to White Moss, which appears in large letters close to Hollin Brown Knoll on Ordnance Survey maps from the mid 1960s.27 However, among the photographs recovered by the police in 1965, there must be one indicating the grave of Keith Bennett, featuring some identifiable landmark – identifiable to his killers, at least. The detectives from the original investigation, as well as the farmer whose land was desecrated by the couple and the mother of their last-known victim, are all in agreement on one issue: while Shiny Brook undoubtedly had to be explored, the probability that Keith Bennett lies closer to the graves of those whose fate he shared is equally worthy of consideration.
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were keen on codes, riddles and private jokes. There was a time when they planned their perfect murder, lying together on a picnic blanket behind the rocks on Hollin Brown Knoll. A time when they walked across the wind-harrowed hills where they buried their victims, scorning the ‘maggots’ down in the city. A time when they took photographs of each other in a slam of wind on the black boulders above the reservoir where the deserted mansion stood in the shadow of trees, as Motown music poured from the transistor radio. A time when they made a pact to share their secrets with no one else, when they were ‘so close, we knew exactly what was in each other’s minds. We were one mind.’28
In the weeks after their arrest, during the early days of her separation from Ian Brady, when she was hunting for literary allusions to the landscape they had left behind, Myra Hindley copied a poem by Charlotte Mew into an exercise book. Read with the knowledge that at least one of their victims remains in his secret grave, its meaning twists and darkens like the road through the stark hills of the green-lit moor:
Moorland Night
My face is against the grass – the moorland grass is wet –
My eyes are shut against the grass, against my lips there are the little blades,
Over my head the curlews call, And now there is the night wind in my hair;
My heart is against the grass and the sweet earth, – it has gone still, at last;
It does not want to beat any more,
And why should it beat?
This is the end of the journey.
The Thing is found.
This is the end of all the roads –
Over the grass there is the night-dew
And the wind that drives up from the sea along the moorland road,
I hear a curlew start out from the heath
And fly off calling through the dusk,
The wild, long, rippling call –:
The Thing is found and I am quiet with the earth;
Perhaps the earth will hold it or the wind, or that bird’s cry,
But it is not for long in any life I know. This cannot stay,
Not now, not yet, not in a dying world, with me, for very long;
I leave it here:
And one day the wet grass may give it back –
One day the quiet earth may give it back –
The calling birds may give it back as they go by –
To someone walking on the moor who starves for love and will not know
Who gave it to all these to give away;
Or, if I come and ask for it again
Oh! then, to me.29
NOTES
Part I – Pariah: 20 November 2002
1
* * *
1. Myra Hindley, letter, 20 February 1997. From the David Astor archive, private collection.
2. National Archive, Myra Hindley Home Office files, HO 336/131.
3. Ibid.
4. Anon., ‘Hindley Cremated in Private Funeral’, BBC News online (21 November 2002).
5. Ryan Dilley, ‘Few Witness Hindley’s Final Journey’, BBC News online (21 November 2002).
6. Anon., ‘Jeers as Hindley Cremated’, London Evening Standard, online edition (23 November 2002).
7. Bill Mouland, ‘Myra Gets the Funeral Her Child Victims Were Denied’, Daily Mail, online edition (21 November 2002).
8. Bridget Astor, author interview, London, 28 July 2009.
9. Neil Tweedie, ‘Theme for Hindley’s Funeral Was Repentance’, Daily Telegraph, online edition (22 November 2002).
10. Father Michael Teader, author interview, Suffolk, 3 September 2009.
11. Anon., ‘Date Set for Hindley Funeral’, Daily Mail, online edition (19 November 2002).
12. Terri Judd, ‘Controversy Over Final Resting Place for Hindley’, The Independent, online edition (18 November 2002).
13. National Archive, Myra Hindley Home Office files, HO 336/114.
14. Some of the many epithets used to describe Myra Hindley over the years. ‘A disgrace to womankind’ is Hindley’s own phrase, taken from a letter she wrote to Ann West in the 1990s.
15. Nicci Gerrard, ‘The Face of Human Evil’, The Observer (17 November 2002).
16. David Rowan and Duncan Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’, The Guardian (18 December 1995).
17. Ian Brady was sentenced to three life sentences to run concurrently; Myra Hindley was sentenced to two life sentences and one sentence of seven years to run concurrently.
18. Brian Deer, ‘First Degree Photocall Lifts Murderer’s Image’, The Times, online edition (29 October 1989).
19. Myra Hindley, autobiography. Reproduced with the kind permission of Andrew McCooey.
20. Duncan Staff, author interview, Bristol, 18 June 2009.
Part II – Gorton Girl: 23 July 1942 – 21 December 1960
2
* * *
1. Joe Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan (London: Chipmunka Publishing, 2009). Quotations from online edition (no page numbers): www.chipmunkapublishing.co.uk.
2. Myra Hindley and Nina Wilde, ‘Older and Wiser’, Verdict (January 1996).
3. Myra Hindley, autobiography. Reproduced with the kind permission of Andrew McCooey.
4. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Emlyn Williams, Beyond Belief: The Moors Murderers – The Story of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley (London: Pan, 1968), p. 113.
8. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
9. David Rowan and Duncan Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’, The Guardian (18 December 1995).
10. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
14. Ibid.
15. Emlyn Williams Collection, Preliminary Notes, Ref: L3/4, National Library of Wales.
16. Myra Hindley, letter, 1988. From the David Astor archive, private collection.
17. Peter Topping, Topping: The Autobiography of the Police Chief in the Moors Murders Case (London: Angus and Robertson, 1989), pp. 134–5. Ian Brady strongly disputes Hindley’s claim: ‘It is fashionable nowadays to blame one’s faults and crimes on abuse as a child. I had a happy childhood. But Myra Hindley’s allegations obviously are framed to exploit a variation of the theme.’ (Anon., ‘Keep Hindley in Jail, Says Ex-Lover Brady’, BBC News online, [27 August 1998].)
3
* * *
1. Myra Hindley, letter, 2 March 1999. From the David Astor archive, private collection.
2. Joe Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan (London: Chipmunka Publishing, 2009).
3. Duncan Staff, The Lost Boy: The Definitive Story of the Moors Murders and the Search for the Final Victim (London: Bantam Books, 2008), p. 67.
4. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
5. Myra Hindley, autobiography. Reproduced with the kind permission of Andrew McCooey.
&n
bsp; 6. Staff, The Lost Boy, p. 71.
7. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
8. Ibid.
9. David Rowan and Duncan Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’, The Guardian (18 December 1995).
10. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911), online edition at the Free Library by Farlex (www.burnett.thefreelibrary.com).
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London: Abacus, 2006), p. 48.
17. Myra Hindley, autobiography. Reproduced with the kind permission of Andrew McCooey.
18. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
19. Fred Harrison, Brady and Hindley: The Genesis of the Moors Murders (London: Grafton Books, 1987), pp. 47–8.
20. John Deane Potter, The Monsters of the Moors: The Full Account of the Brady–Hindley Case (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), p. 243.
21. David Marchbanks, The Moor Murders (London: Leslie Frewin, 1966), p. 126.
22. Anne Murdoch, author interview, Manchester, 28 May 2009.
23. Jean Ritchie, Myra Hindley: Inside the Mind of a Murderess (London: Grafton Books, 1988), p. 5. With kind permission of Jean Ritchie, copyright 2010.
24. National Archive, Myra Hindley Home Office files, HO336/110.
25. Marchbanks, The Moor Murders, p. 122.
26. Allan Grafton, author interview, Manchester, 25 August 2009. Bob Hindley received financial compensation for his works accident, which enabled him to sponsor the football team.
27. Ibid.
28. In The Lost Boy, Staff mistakenly refers to Beasley Street and Bannock Street as if they were two separate places.
29. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
30. Ibid.
31. Myra Hindley, autobiography. Reproduced with the kind permission of Andrew McCooey.
32. Mo Stratham, author interview, York, 26 March 2009.
33. Gorton & Openshaw Reporter (21 June 1957).
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Born to Kill?: Myra Hindley, documentary (Stax Entertainment, 2006).
37. Harrison, Brady and Hindley, p. 47.
38. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
39. Allan Grafton, author interview, Manchester, 25 August 2009.
40. Ibid.
41. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
46. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
4
* * *
1. Gorton & Openshaw Reporter (19 July 1957).
2. Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London: Abacus, 2006) pp. 29–30.
3. Ibid. p. 460.
4. Ibid. p. 464.
5. Myra Hindley and Nina Wilde, ‘Older and Wiser’, Verdict (January 1996).
6. Joe Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan (London: Chipmunka Publishing, 2009).
7. Jean Ritchie, Myra Hindley: Inside the Mind of a Murderess (London: Grafton Books, 1988) p. 17.
8. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
9. David Marchbanks, The Moor Murders (London: Leslie Frewin, 1966), p. 127.
10. Ritchie, Myra Hindley, p. 10.
11. Allan Grafton, author interview, Manchester, 25 August 2009.
12. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
13. Marchbanks, The Moor Murders, p. 127.
14. Emlyn Williams Collection, Preliminary Notes, Ref: L3/4, National Library of Wales.
15. Ritchie, Myra Hindley, p. 12.
16. David Rowan and Duncan Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’, The Guardian (18 December 1995).
17. Emlyn Williams Collection, Preliminary Notes, Ref: L3/4, National Library of Wales.
18. Allan Grafton, author interview, Manchester, 25 August 2009.
19. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
20. Ibid.
21. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
22. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
23. Ibid.
24. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
25. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
26. Ibid.
27. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
Part III – This Cemetery of Your Making: 21 December 1960 – 6 October 1965
5
* * *
1. David Rowan and Duncan Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’, The Guardian (18 December 1995).
2. Joe Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan (London: Chipmunka Publishing, 2009).
3. Ibid.
4. Jonathan Goodman, The Moors Murders: The Trial of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady (London: Magpie Books, 1994), p. 13.
5. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
6. Earlier sources claim the engagement ended in 1960, but Hindley firmly dates the break-up as occurring during her first months at Millwards.
7. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
8. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
9. Ibid.
10. Duncan Staff, ‘Portrait of a Serial Killer’, The Guardian (18 November 2002).
11. Emlyn Williams Collection, Preliminary Notes, Ref: L3/4, National Library of Wales.
12. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
13. Emlyn Williams Collection, Preliminary Notes, Ref: L3/4, National Library of Wales.
14. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Emlyn Williams Collection, Preliminary Notes, Ref: L3/4, National Library of Wales.
18. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan.
19. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
20. Ibid.
21. Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London: Abacus, 2006), p. 572.
22. Rowan and Campbell, ‘Myra Hindley: My Life, My Guilt, My Weakness’.
23. Ibid.
24. Janie Jones, The Devil and Miss Jones: The Twisted Mind of Myra Hindley (London: Smith Gryphon, 1988), pp.122–3.
25. Hindley told her prison therapist that it was months before she and Brady progressed sexually, but the account in her autobiography is one she frequently repeated elsewhere.
26. Chapman, Out of the Frying Pan. Although Myra does not give a precise date to which Christmas Eve, it must be 1961 since it was before the murders. By the end of 1962, she had renounced religion.
27. Myra Hindley, autobiography. Reproduced with the kind permission of Andrew McCooey.
28. Peter Topping, Topping: The Autobiography of the Police Chief in the Moors Murders Case (London: Angus and Robertson, 1989), p. 111.
29. Myra Hindley, autobiography. Reproduced with the kind permission of Andrew McCooey.