Ghosts

Peter Sutcliffe was sentenced to life imprisonment on my last day at school before my exams.

He died of COVID today.

Sutciffe was better known as the Yorkshire Ripper.

The Ripper was in the background as I grew up, the news covered the investigations, the false leads and the mistakes.

But he was caught, charged and sentenced.

He died in jail.

Yorkshire seemed a huge distance away from Norfolk, and it was, especially in the 1970s. But I have a short story to tell.

My second wife came from Leeds, and she said, and I have no reason to doubt here, that she escaped from Sutcliffe. One of her friends was killed by him.

How would i feel if I knew I cam so close to a horrible death? Would it affect me?

I don't know. I really don't.

She was badly affected by it, on top of not being the apple of her Mother's eye, she carried a lot of baggage. Then marrying a wife-beater, how much pain can one small frame take?

I don't show if she'll rest easier tonight, knowing he is dead. Someone with a legion of issues I don't think can reast easy. Maybe this will help.

England in the 1970s was a different place, the Ripper's victims were women of loose morals who, the police suggested, deserved it. A country wracked by industial strife, racial hatred and where woman ran for their very lives.

The past is a different country.

Part of the old country died today, and that's a good thing.