On the other hand, there has always been a proliferation of minority sects to challenge the imposed orthodoxy, as if the need to resist must constantly find new outlets. ‘The fisherfolk of the Buchan coast have been described as apt to embrace every new form of religion on offer.’5 ‘Born again’ Christians and followers of the Faith Mission were by no means unusual from the nineteenth century onwards; one of Nilsen’s distant relations on his grandmother’s side, Jeanie Duthie, was well known and respected in Broadsea and the Broch for her good work on behalf of the Mission, and his mother belonged to the same sect for a time.
Perhaps this radicalism, demonstrable in so many ways, and curiously blended with congenital fatalism, accounted for the longevity of the Buchan race. There are many instances of fishwives living beyond their hundredth year, as blunt and argumentative as in their youth. You do not grow tired of living when you always have something to say. Their dry humour and loquacity rarely deserted them, and you could easily be detained for hours in conversation with a fishwife.
Almost the entire population of a fishing village was related through intermarriages stretching back centuries. In a very real sense, one might say that the village inhabitants were one large family of a few hundred individuals. A stroll through the well-kept and scrupulously clean cemeteries perched on high land overlooking the sea all the way down the coast reveals the same names over and over again – Stephens, Duthies, Whytes, Ritchies, Sims, Nobles, Watts, Buchans, often with the same Christian name recurring, to the extent that one can only distinguish one grave from the other by the dates.
Two consequences arose from this repetitive inbreeding. In the first place, there was the inevitable prevalence of both mental and medical disorders cropping up in the genes of one generation or the next. Some families had a history of dumbness, others of deafness, and some of insanity. Quite frequently, insanity would not be recognised as anything more than a quirk of character that relations merely became used to, or a tendency to depression which they tolerated, but five of Christian Watt’s cousins were tainted with mental illness, and she herself spent the second half of her life in an asylum. She did not consider herself a lunatic, but wrote with plaintive intuition that the public should be educated to acknowledge that mental disorder was an illness. ‘Probably the most tragic factor,’ she said, ‘is that the person can be as right as rain one day and tragically sick the next.’6 It is a reflection worth bearing in mind when we turn to Inverallochy and the ancestry of Dennis Nilsen.
The second result of having so many families which bore the same name was that the name was finally hardly ever used. Nicknames, or what in Buchan are called ‘tee-names’, became the essential, the only mark of identity. If a street with ten houses harbours eight families called Duthie and, for example, half a dozen daughters called Elizabeth, the only way to distinguish them is to call them something else. Hence one might be called ‘Jeanie’s Betty’ and another ‘Kirsty’s Leebie’, while actually they were both christened ‘Elizabeth Duthie’. Tee-names are sprinkled throughout the history of all these villages and endure almost to the present day. It is only the generation born since the Second World War which has abandoned them.
Broadsea, to the west of Fraserburgh, has in the last thirty years been embraced and swallowed by the town, though it retains its distinctive Lilliputian character which astonishes the casual visitor who may wander off College Bounds, a main thoroughfare out of Fraserburgh, and find himself amongst houses scarcely higher than himself or in a square paved with sea-shells. Going out of The Broch to the south, however, after the broad, crescent-shaped beach of Fraserburgh Bay which offers four miles of pale yellow sand and long tides, the twin villages of Cairnbulg and Inverallochy remain unchanged and inviolate. Here the sand gives way to a rocky coast, and the houses huddle together in a haphazard way as if they had been thrown like dice and settled where they landed. In 1699 a list was drawn up of those men permitted to go to sea from Inverallochy as whyte fishers (i.e. not herring), and of these five were called Duthie, three were Stephens, and one bore the name of William Whyte. From all three families is Dennis Nilsen descended.
Willian Whyte (pronounced in Buchan Doric as ‘Fyte’) must be regarded as Nilsen’s senior male ancestor on his mother’s side. The Duthies and the Stephens come in by marriage, though how frequently before comparatively recent records it is impossible to tell (besides which, illegitimate births, mostly undocumented, were always a feature of village life). The Duthies were celebrated for their hard-working and ambitious character. Sir William Duthie of Inverallochy rose from a fishing butt and ben to become Member of Parliament for Banffshire, and Sir John Duthie of Cairnbulg was an eminent barrister who restored Cairnbulg Castle.
There were two Duthie sisters who bring us close to the present day and may be said to write the preface to Nilsen’s story. Elizabeth was known as ‘Wussell’s Leebie’, and Ann as ‘Wussell’s Anniekie’. Wussell’s Anniekie married James Ritchie and gave birth to several sons, some of whom were unstable. Their tee-name was ‘Pum’. William Pum tried to drown himself several times, while Jim Pum was a mental depressive all his life. Wussell’s Leebie married James Duthie and had a son and two daughters. The son, Andrew Duthie, perished in the waves when his great-nephew, Dennis, was an adolescent; his body was washed ashore some time later, his small fishing-boat never recovered. Of Wussell’s Leebie’s daughters, one was called Christian Ann; she never married, but died in a mental hospital some fifteen years ago. The other daughter, Lily, known as Wussell’s Leebie’s Lily, is still alive (1984) and is the grandmother of Dennis Nilsen. Lily was born in Cedar Cottage, Main Street, Inverallochy, a house typical of the ‘butt and ben’ variety with its line stone protruding from the wall, on which was hung the basket of fishing-lines. Her mother, Wussell’s Leebie, was one of the fishwives who carried fish into the ‘near country’ to sell and barter for farm produce. The house and its line stone can be seen today. Not far away, on the corner of Frederick Street, Inverallochy, is the house where Andrew Whyte and his three brothers lived. They had the tee-name ‘Daw’ (pronounced ‘Dar’), so when Andrew Whyte married Lily Duthie, to the villagers it was Andrewkie Daw who wed Wussell’s Leebie’s Lily.
(Yet another strand in this complicated ancestry hauls in the most unexpected figure. Andrew Whyte’s mother, known as ‘Jeanie Mam’, was a Stephen. She had a curious habit of staying indoors all winter and not appearing until the month of June, which led some villagers to call her ‘the June rose’. Euphemistically, she was said to be a ‘droll creature’, but people knew well enough that the Stephen family had occasionally been prone to mental instability of one kind or another. At the same time, they were famous for intellectual brilliance. One branch of the Stephens had moved first to Ardendraught and then south to London, and produced at least one manic depressive, J.K. Stephen, who was eventually committed to hospital and never released. One account goes so far as to name him as the notorious Jack the Ripper. Another offspring was Sir Leslie Stephen, editor of the Dictionary of National Biography and father of Virginia Woolf. It is well known that Virginia Woolf suffered from depressive illnesses and committed suicide. Through his great-grandmother, then, Dennis Nilsen must be a very distant cousin of Virginia Woolf, in so far as the ancestry of both climbs back to a Stephen in Cairnbulg/Inverallochy.)
Andrew and Lily lived first at Inverallochy, then at Broadsea, and finally settled in a new house in Academy Road, on the very edge of Fraserburgh, backed by open fields. At the end of a grey granite terrace, the house was divided into two flats, one above the other, the Whytes occupying the top flat. In the meantime, they had had a son and two daughters, Lily and Betty; Lily would one day marry Robert Ritchie, and Betty would break ranks by marrying a Norwegian soldier called Olav Nilsen, but not before she had earned the reputation of being one of the most beautiful girls in The Broch.
The cycle of booms and recessions in the fishing industry had left some fishermen relatively prosperous by the middle of the
twentieth century, others frankly poor. Andrew Whyte was one of the latter. A proud and honest man, much respected in the community, he attached overriding importance to the stern principles which had guided his life and left him incapable of compromise. He would not drink or go to the cinema, and habitually wore dark, sober clothes, with a fisherman’s jersey and cap. As he was also tall and handsome, he cut a distinctive figure, and there were not many in The Broch who did not recognise the good-looking but sombre Andrewkie of Inverallochy. Unfortunately, his pride did him poor service, as it made him loath to take orders and reluctant to assume the subservient role necessary to hold down a job. A hard worker when respected, he would turn sullen if treated in what he thought was a cavalier manner. Consequently, he changed boats too frequently and found himself in time of poor harvest having to suffer the pain of seeking charity from the state. To many, signing on for unemployment benefit was a necessary nuisance, but to Andrew Whyte it was a humiliation. In times of hardship, his wife Lily would supplement the family income by cleaning other people’s homes as a charlady.
It often happens that people who have no real achievement to boast of will boast of imaginary ones. Andrew Whyte was a man full of stories designed to impress. He had seen so much, he knew so much, he had so much to teach the young, or indeed anyone who would listen. He could claim kinship with people who were the subject of current interest lest he run the risk of being overshadowed, though the actual relationship might be distant. People were used to Andrew’s ‘blowing’ and did not respect him the less, for he was a regular worshipper at church and brought up his daughters well in spite of a discouraging lack of funds. As he was so often away at sea, Lily spent more time with the children than he, but it was always his powerful influence that was felt in the house. He lit his pipe with a piece of paper, to save the matches. He was ‘saving for a drifter’ they said, to buy his own boat one day.
Their daughter Betty was a source of considerable pride and not a little anxiety. By the time she was twenty years old, she had grown into a young woman of beauty and natural elegance, the kind that men like to have as models or pin-ups on their walls. She enjoyed the attention which her prettiness provoked, and was not slow to feel the stirrings of rebellion against the excessively strict principles of her father which, were she to adhere to them fully, would keep her indoors most of the time. But he was away at sea, and her mother did not have the heart to prevent her going out to taste the frivolous pleasures of youth. Betty Whyte was one of the first to dare to go to cafés alone at a time when a young woman was expected to be escorted. She also had an absorbing passion for dancing, a passion that was unlikely to persuade her she could have a good time at home.
When the war came, it brought days of terror to Fraserburgh, an unaccustomed whirlpool of excitement, and a husband for Betty Whyte.
After the fall of France, Fraserburgh underwent a dramatic transformation, as thousands of soldiers and refugees swept in. As the nearest point across the North Sea from Nazi-occupied Norway, it was firmly expected that an invasion would be attempted on the Aberdeenshire coast, and an influx of Polish and Norwegian forces, together with Royal Scots, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Lancashire Fusiliers, and a huge Pioneer Corps to serve them all, suddenly increased the population from 10,000 to about 40,000. The Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force were nearby, and many radar stations were hastily assembled along the coast, as well as an Air Sea Rescue Unit at Fraserburgh Harbour. With Czech, Polish and Norwegian refugees to care for at the same time, the place was seething with strangers, creating a rare atmosphere of tense excitement and delight in the sudden change of pace. Every available inch of accommodation was taken for troops, many of whom were billeted in the wooden bothies of the fish-curing stations dotted along the coast from the harbour in both directions. Some schools were likewise commandeered, with the result that children were squeezed three or four to a bench in the remaining schools and were loud with enthusiasm when school was suspended for a day so that they might go down to the beach and help make sandbags. On such days the beach was black with people working, even making sandbags to protect the headstones at Inverallochy cemetery, and the new spirit of comradeship dislodged neighbourhood enmities which had endured for forty years.
The invasion never came, but the bombers did. In waves of fifty they flew over Fraserburgh so low one could see the pilots’ faces, and more often than not Andrew Whyte would be in the street shaking his fist angrily at them. Of the many raids, certainly the fiercest took place on 5 November 1940, when it seemed as if the whole town would be flattened. The picture house, the Macaulay Institute, the Congregational Church, and hundreds of shops and houses were all on fire, sparks flying into the night air and flames pouring down chimneys into living-rooms. There were people streaming out of the town carrying blankets and suitcases when it looked as if the Germans would not pause till they had obliterated the town. In the morning, a heart-stirring reveille on bagpipes was heard in the chill November dawn, and the cemeteries were kept busy for three days.
Not surprisingly, when the fires had died down and periods of relative peace ensued, while the old folk gave thanks to God, the young were expressing their relief in other ways. All the cafés of Fraserburgh were packed nightly with soldiers and their girlfriends, bent upon enjoyment. There being a paucity of girls, a number of married women fell victim to the obvious temptation to flirt, and as in other towns during the war, illegitimate births increased measurably. One particular café called ‘ Hell’s Kitchen’ was the scene of excessive entertainment and frequent brawls, the novice whores of the town using it as their headquarters. (One of these women was notorious for taking mustard baths whenever she missed her period, an event which was never secret as the smell of mustard clung to her for days afterwards.)
Of the troops scattered in billets all over town, among the most popular were the Norwegians, for in spite of their apparent cold and aloof manner, they were observed to be very kind and helpful to the local population, particularly the elderly, and not commonly involved in fights. The Free Norwegian Forces, fighting against the occupation of their homeland by the German invader,fn1 were housed in the Dunbar’s Huts, the Highland Institute, Brucklay Castle, Fishfirs Mansion, St Peter’s School, the Saultoun Hotel, Dalrymple Hall, and the Fraserburgh Academy Annexe. At this latter, the Academy Annexe, lived a Norwegian officer of striking good looks whose name was Olav Magnus Nilsen. Many of the Fraserburgh girls had noticed his brooding figure and heard romantic tales of his escape from the Nazis. A hint of cruelty about the eyes did nothing to diminish his attraction, and nobody was surprised when he eventually took up with Betty Whyte. The manner of their meeting was entirely accidental.
Betty Whyte had become something of a local celebrity. The Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Company of America had moved its entire operation and personnel from London to Cairness House, once the home of General Gordon, and was devoting considerable effort to devising recreation for the enlarged community. At a beauty contest they had organised, Betty Whyte had emerged the clear winner. She was a regular dancer at Broadsea Hall, packed so tightly every evening it was locally called ‘The Battle of Britain’. One evening, as she was coming out of a café in town, she was accosted by a soldier who suggested he would walk her home. She declined, but the soldier was persistent. A row developed on the street, the soldier gripped her by the arm, and Betty grew alarmed. At the moment she thought he was about to strike her, another man appeared from nowhere, pinned the soldier against the wall and made it clear he must leave the young lady alone. This was Olav Nilsen, and from that moment Betty fell in love with her rescuer. It was not long before there was talk of marriage; Andrew and Lily Whyte were not happy with the idea, but their daughter was a headstrong girl trapped by the compelling demands of emotion. She married Olav Nilsen on 2 May 1942.
From the first it was clear that Nilsen had but a scant idea of his responsibilities, and even that little could be suppressed beneath the immediate exigencies
of his military duties. He always had a ready, and frequently genuine, excuse for his absence, with the result that he and Betty never formed a family unit and never made a home. There were three children – Olav, Dennis and Sylvia, conceived on brief visits – but Betty continued to live with her parents and sister, and the children therefore grew up in their grandparents’ house. Betty afterwards said that she had rushed into marriage without thinking, that it was an unhappy episode which ought never to have happened and which spoilt her life. Her second son Dennis was later made painfully aware of the fortuitous nature of his birth, and listened to his mother’s warnings on the sad tragedy of a failed marriage and ruined life. Olav Nilsen, he wrote, ‘in the heat and uncertainty of war, married my mother primarily on lustful grounds and ignoring some irreconcilable cultural and personality differences which doomed the match to failure.’7
Betty and her three infant children shared one room at 47 Academy Road, a home within a home, and very tiny. In this room Dennis Nilsen was born, on 23 November 1945, and in this room, nearly seven years later, he would witness a sight which troubled him so deeply that he never recovered. Mother occupied one bed with Sylvia, while Olav Jnr and Dennis occupied the other. Dennis and his brother were never friendly, possibly because Olav had at least seen his father, which Dennis had not. He was closer to his sister Sylvia, but even that relationship had no profound source. In all essentials, Dennis gave the impression of a misfit, a child whose heart remained obstinately closed, whose secret imaginary life nobody could fathom. He was quiet, withdrawn, intensely private. ‘As soon as I could toddle as a small child my mother was always in despair looking for me,’ he has written, speaking of himself as ‘a wanderer at odds with his fellows’.8 Certainly he wandered. He made a habit of walking off without a word to anyone and disappearing, so often that his mother was forced to tie the garden gate with string to prevent his escape. Nor would this hold him in, for he soon devised a way of crawling under the gate and pattering uncertainly down the street. He was, by his own account, an ‘unhappy, brooding child, secretive and stricken with inferiority’. Had a psychiatrist crossed his path, he might well have discerned the signs of a boy unsure of his identity.
Killing For Company Page 5
