Hungerford: One Man's Massacre

by Jeremy Josephs

  On the Sunday after the massacre representatives of the three religious denominations associated with Hungerford offered words of comfort to the afflicted town. Each battled hard to reconcile the random massacre with belief in God. The Reverend Salt was well aware that the eyes of the world would be firmly focused upon him that day: 'On that particular Sunday I knew there would be a lot of press interest. So I thought I might have to be a little bit careful as to what I said. But something would just shoot out of a biblical text. That hasn't happened to me since the tragedy. I was just so busy that I simply didn't have time to sit down and meditate. And yet it just flowed. It is God-given. You are just given the additional strength. In fact the best sermons always come out of your actual pastoral situations.'

  Among the passages chosen for the day in the Alternative Service Book was II Timothy, Chapter 1, verse 7: 'God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, and love, and self-control.' Psalm 34, verse 18, reminded parishioners and press alike that: 'God is near to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.'

  'Humanity produces Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin as well as Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King,' the vicar went on to tell more than 300 people who crowded his parish church to overflowing. 'God gives us the power to do good and the power to do evil. God respects us as his sons and daughters and gives us freedom of choice. The events of last Wednesday leave us numb and empty. We mourn those that have been killed and grieve with those who still suffer, whether physically or mentally. I think all of us feel weak and helpless and we come before God asking for His help and healing.'

  A church assistant, Mrs Trudi Pihlens, then read out a slow litany of the names of all sixteen victims. After a momentary pause, she added: 'Michael Ryan: may God have mercy on his soul.'

  In Hungerford's Roman Catholic church, Father Tim Healey was likewise asking a series of questions to which he was quite unable to provide any answers.

  'What are we to think - that God did not love these people? To think that is to suppose that God did not love his own Son. To conclude that their deaths were devoid of meaning and purpose is to suppose that the death of Christ is devoid of meaning. Can we say that God lost control of events last Wednesday? This would be to deny that God is God.'

  The Church of Our Lady of Lourdes stands in Priory Road, where Ryan killed four of his victims. The priest was clearly shaken by the sheer proximity of the killings, saying: 'We all acknowledge that we live in a somewhat violent society but we never believed events such as these could come so very close. Thus it was that death and injury was to visit and stalk even the very road in which this our small church is situated. It is a nightmare from which we want to wake up.'

  The Superintendent Minister of the Newbury and District Methodist Church, the Reverend David Hawkes, addressed himself, by contrast, to Michael Ryan's state of mind: 'Such are the impossible questions that plague us and would undermine our struggling faith. But surely no one would want to suggest that Michael Ryan was anything but insane at the crucial moment, and a berserk mind is as much a natural disaster as a freak storm or a mountain avalanche.'

  While the churchmen were having their say, Michael Stewart was preparing to have his. The Coordinator of the Bradford Fire Disaster had travelled down to Hungerford to see if he might be able to help. In fact he helped a great deal, and his talk at St Lawrence's church entitled 'Sharing the Experiences and Problems after a Tragedy' was particularly well received. He was anxious to ensure that the lessons learned at Bradford were passed on without delay, and he did his best to encourage people to think of the longer term.

  Don Philip, however, a social worker with Newbury District Council, made an important distinction between the football-stadium fire at Bradford and the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise off Zeebrugge, which had taken place a few months earlier: 'They were terrible accidents. Whereas this incident had an element of evil. One problem which we have to face here is that whereas people were looking for scapegoats in the other disasters, here they haven't got anything other than a corpse to blame.'

  And it was certainly true that to many people the crazed gunman was indeed nothing more than an evil corpse. Not to his relatives, however, for whom matters were far more complex. Ryan's cousin, David Fairbrass, explains: 'We feel mixed emotions about what happened. My own feeling is that he was sick. No normal person would do that sort of thing. My mother is a victim as well. We are all victims. Life won't be the same again. This will always stay with us.'

  In the Fairbrass household there was an atmosphere of stunned silence and disbelief. Although they had first heard Ryan's name mentioned on the BBC's nine o'clock news bulletin, they had not been informed officially that their relative was indeed the perpetrator of the massacre until two o'clock the following morning. Throughout that night and afterwards, they remained in shock. Stephen Fairbrass, Ryan's uncle, was initially too upset to make any public comment on the matter, despite an avalanche of requests by the media. But eventually he too spoke out: T can't believe he could do this. He didn't seem big enough in any sense of the word to go out and do such a terrible thing. He never seemed to have the will to do anything properly. Now we must live with the shame of being connected to this man. I still can't believe that the Michael Ryan I knew is the one who gunned down these people, including his own mother. There was no doubt that Michael was spoiled, but surely this does not explain what he did. I have met many spoiled children and they don't turn into killers.'

  Ryan's suicide in the John O'Gaunt School had not heralded the end of the police operation. For the emergency response now gave way to the twin roles of supporting the people of Hungerford and the huge task of investigating the incident. Over the next three weeks, more than fifty CID and other specialized officers were to be involved in bringing the investigation to a satisfactory conclusion. Enquiries were carried out to locate next of kin and witnesses. A sweep search ensured that everyone was accounted for and that no injured or dead person had been overlooked. The Casualty Bureau, opened at three o'clock that grim Wednesday afternoon, operated continuously for the following forty-eight hours, dealing with almost a thousand enquiries. A CID Major Incident Room was set up at the Thames Valley Police's Training Centre, using the Autoln-dex computerized crime investigation system. And in addition to the four vehicles of the deceased, a further eleven cars were recovered from the various scenes of crime.

  'On the Sunday I met Douglas Hurd at the police station,' Ron Tarry recalls. 'He was quizzed about the gun law by the press. Because we all went along to the shell of Ryan's house and saw his gun cabinet and so on. He asked some very searching questions. I was more impressed by the Prime Minister's visit, though. In fact after her visit, one town councillor, a local Tory, asked me in for a drink. I told him how well I thought she had done. This chap said that this was what he had been telling me for years, and that he would go off straight away to get me an application form to join the Conservative Party. We often used to kid one another, so I replied: "No thank you - she wasn't that bloody good!'"

  Sue Broughton, then the assistant senior librarian at Newbury and community librarian at Hungerford, realized early on that the town's library, situated just off the High Street, could have an important role to play in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. Acting on her own initiative, she assembled a unique body of material, turning the small library there into a comprehensive information centre. All of her documents had at least one theme in common: how to help people rebuild their lives after the tragedy. It was a facility which was to prove extremely effective during the next few months, widely used and appreciated as it was by the people of Hungerford, and for which she would later be honoured.

  Ernie Peacock, chairman of the Hungerford Town Band, wondered whether the fête and dog show planned for the Sunday after the massacre and originally intended to raise money for the band, should be cancelled. After consulting widely, he finally decided that it should go ahead, but that all the proceeds shou
ld go instead to the Tragedy Fund. That Sunday there was an atmosphere of mourning in the air. On the fairground on Hungerford Common the Union Jack hung at half-mast on a short pole hammered in earlier that morning. Band members stood to attention dressed in black, and the proceedings began with prayers and hymns. Ron Tarry, always on hand, spoke of how the people of Hungerford were weeping, some of them silently perhaps, but weeping nonetheless.

  By the end of the day Jean Strong, on the cake stall, had made It70, selling home-made scones and walnut cakes and bunches of onions from people's gardens. Her customers insisted on her keeping the change. On another table, among the mugs and saucers, were laid two toy pistols with a picture of a running commando behind them, and priced at £1.50. By the end of the afternoon's rather strained proceedings, they had still to find a buyer.

  In the week following the tragedy, the epicentre of the stress it had caused was inevitably the market town itself. But many other people, many from out of town, had been affected too. Indeed a good number of the police officers who had had indirect responsibility in the earlier stages of the massacre were themselves soon reporting many of the symptoms of stress. The Thames Valley Police acted speedily to make stress counselling available, through the offices of the Force's Welfare Officers, in addition to liaising with a trained counsellor and a consultant psychiatrist.

  Still riding on a tidal wave of spiritual support and Christian love, the Reverend Salt continued to administer his own brand of counselling. 'I don't know what we really mean by bereavement,' he would later reflect. 'Maybe we are talking about trying to release pain. But I think, initially, for many people, it may just come out as physical pain. Just as, if I was to jump on someone's foot, they might howl. And there was indeed this immediate, physical reaction. Then there's also the mental pain - the kind of thing you get when a small child hurts itself but doesn't actually cry until it catches up with mummy. And then, of course, there can be a kind of spiritual pain in trying to reconcile and get meaning from all of that'

  Ron Tarry was experiencing every one of these pains. But he could find no meaning in anything that Ryan had done. He decided, however, unconsciously perhaps, that to a certain extent his own grief and questioning would have to be deferred, for there was simply too much work to be done. During the first week after the tragedy Mayor Tarry was seldom out of camera shot. There were times, during those first few days, when representatives of the media would be queuing at his doorstep in Sarum Way.

  'I thought that this was a role I could usefully carry out. In fact when I announced the creation of the Tragedy Fund, on the balcony of the town hall, there were hundreds upon hundreds of press there. I am amazed to this day that I wasn't absolutely panic-stricken. But you gain the strength from somewhere. I knew what I wanted to say. It was a challenge. I thought I could do it. That I had to do it. And that it had to be me. So, again, I would say to myself, "Just be yourself. Don't put on any airs. Just be yourself.'"

  When the broadcaster and journalist Sandy Gall had read the news on ITN's News at Ten that Wednesday evening, he had begun thus: 'Hungerford before today was known as a peaceful town.' He could hardly have put it more succinctly, for as the modest Mayor went on to explain on that same news bulletin: This town will never be the same again.'

  FOURTEEN

  'Jesus Christ bless you, Hannah'

  As the Hungerford Family Help Unit began to establish itself, and cash and cheques continued to arrive at the town hall, so the funeral parlours of Berkshire suddenly found themselves with business they would rather not have had. For despite the previous week's surge of activity, ranging from the visit of the Prime Minister to the rather sorrowful staging of the local fête and dog show, not a single burial or cremation had taken place. Sixteen funerals were thus awaited.

  PC Roger Brereton's funeral was scheduled to take place on Thursday 27 August. But Liz Brereton was to see her husband before that: 'I asked to be taken to see him at a chapel of rest. He was lying there looking like he did when I first met him. He looked so young. I could tell by the look on his face that he hadn't died in agony. I remember making some stupid remark like: "Doesn't he look well." And then I told him that I loved him very much.'

  It was their last private moment together, for Roger Brereton's funeral was very much a public affair. Over 400 people attended, including 250 police officers representing most of Britain's forty-three forces. Douglas Hurd was present for the service at the parish church of St Mary's in Shaw-cum-Donnington, on the outskirts of Newbury. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Mr, later Sir, Peter Imbert, attended too. Seven uniformed police motorcyclists led the funeral cortege, with a twenty-six-strong police guard of honour lining the path to the tiny sandstone church. Six officers carried the coffin, draped in the Thames Valley Police flag, whose Latin motto translates as 'Let There be Peace in Thames Valley', and upon which PC Brereton's cap had been placed. Softly, the organist played The Lord is my Shepherd'. The Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police, Colin Smith, paid tribute to his constable: 'It is so tragic, but perhaps appropriate if his hfe had to be so cruelly cut short, that he should die when, aware of the risks, he went right into the centre of a very dangerous situation with the clear intention of trying to help save the lives of the people of Hungerford.'

  As the service continued, Liz Brereton looked around the packed church. All around her tears were being shed. Her two teenaged sons, relatives, friends, policemen, policewomen, officials of all kinds: they were all unable or unwilling to restrain their grief. Not Liz Brereton, though: 'I wanted to cry. But I just couldn't. All I experienced was just a few tears when they handed me his cap after the cremation. But that was all.'

  The Reverend Salt was wrestling with a dilemma of an altogether more practical nature. It was clear that, with Hungerford continuing to be the focus of worldwide media attention, especially now that the funerals were taking place, his words to the bereaved would receive widespread publicity. And it was equally clear that many VIPs were going to attend. Nor had the vicar ever officiated at the joint burial of a husband and wife, a fate that now awaited Myrtle and Jack Gibbs, into whose house Ryan had stormed. He was to succeed, however, in finding the additional strength necessary to carry him through those early, traumatic days. While it was unthinkable to simply repeat the same sermon for each funeral, the Reverend Salt was nonetheless able to identify a common theme. This was that what mattered most was the knowledge that in terms of death people are not divided, either with God or, in Hungerford's current situation, as a community.

  Funerals and fund-raising went on simultaneously. Plans were soon in hand for a wide variety of events. An all-star rugby match was arranged in support of the appeal, and a celebrity cricket match. As a housebound pensioner was offering to make soft toys to sell, with the proceeds going to the fund, organizers from the Welsh male-voice choirs of Llanelli and Cwmbach gathered to see how they too might be able to help. Amounts ranging from as little as 2p, from children's pocket money, to cheques for up to & 10,000 continued to find their way to the fund. A member of the Rootes family contributed £5000, and a local garage donated a Nissan car worth the same amount.

  Celebrities from the world of entertainment discussed the making of a record, the royalties from which would go to the appeal. The pop singer Sinitta, the Coronation Street star Chris Quenten, the EastEnders actor Leonard Fenton and the singer Marti Webb liaised via their agents to see if they might not be able to collaborate on a project. Meanwhile, a sponsored cycle ride was being organized, in addition to a mass display by the Kent Para-scending Team. Even a local thief appeared to have been overcome by an outbreak of conscience. Having stolen the contents of a collection box for the fund from the Halfway House pub in nearby Kintbury, he telephoned the pub's manager to inform him that not only would he be returning the cash, albeit anonymously, he would also be adding a contribution of his own.

  That telephone call was made on Friday 28 August, the same day as the funeral of Sue Godfrey, Ryan'
s first victim. She was buried at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in her home village of Burghfield Common. More than fifty wreaths were laid in the churchyard, and over two hundred mourners were present, including the two Wiltshire police officers who had found Sue's body, riddled with bullets, in the Savernake Forest eleven days earlier. Hannah and James Godfrey heard the Reverend David Smith speak of their mother's great kindness. Both were clutching cuddly toys, as if, one newspaper put it the following day, 'teddy eases the pain'.

  The vicar asked a question to which he was unable to provide even the hint of an answer: 'Why did it have to happen, especially to someone so gentle, so loving, so caring, so much involved in the community in which she lived a life spent caring for others? Someone described her as a small person in a big uniform with a big heart and an even bigger smile. She was always bubbling over, she was always smiling, and even the most sick and pain-stricken patients had a different glow come over them when she was in their presence. With her sudden and tragic passing we know it can never be the same again. An area of life, a familiar voice, a known footstep has sadly disappeared and cannot ever be recreated.'

  Unaware of why she and her brother were the centre of attention, Hannah clung tightly to an aunt with one hand and to a rag doll with the other. Her pink dress and yellow ribbons echoed the flowers that were strewn beside the path to her mother's grave. It was not Hannah's first visit to the church in recent days, for she had attended the latter part of a service the previous Sunday, immediately after religious classes that day. Then, the Reverend Jeffrey Daley, kneeling before the altar, had laid his hands on the little girl's blonde hair and uttered the words: 'Jesus Christ bless you, Hannah', whereupon almost the entire congregation had broken down with the raw agony of grief.