by David Smith
The possibility of a new home with Bert and the Duchess was mooted, but in the end David remained in Wiles Street with Jack. ‘Miss Jones, the landlady, moved out,’ he recalls. ‘She went to live in Chapel-en-le-Frith with her sister Martha. Dad took over the tenancy of number 13 and we carried on as before, just the two of us. I was never at home, though. I spent all my time with the Taylor Street Boys – Ferguson “Fergie” Lester, Paul and Tony O’Gorman, and a few other lads. We were a proper gang, though not as violent and territorial as gangs are today. But we got up to mischief all right, and there was a lot of rivalry with the Openshaw Boys, whose “manor” was on the north side of Ashton Old Road. We’d sneak into their pubs and hide razor blades in the soap in the Gents, and some of the boys wore Andy Capp hats with blades in the peaks, ready for a fight.’
One of the most notorious street battles occurred when the Openshaw Boys strayed onto forbidden turf to beat up Paul Cornwell (part of the Taylor Street gang) in front of his girlfriend at the Essoldo cinema. David gives a rueful grin: ‘Paul was a mate of mine. We all met up in Siv’s and decided to call in the “heavies” – the Deaf and Dumb Boys, who lived in Brooke House flats opposite Gorton library. It turned into a massive ruckus in Ashton Old Road. But there were lots of scraps like that. The police would escort us down the street in an attempt to stop aggro breaking out but as soon as their backs were turned we’d run up to the parked cars and rock ’em like hell to turn ’em over. I had an airgun as well, and once shot my mate Chris Hamnett in the leg when we were messing about on the croft. His mum used to complain about me to Granny Maybury.’
He’s quiet for a moment, remembering. ‘I was wild, but no more so than the rest of our crowd. And there was another side to me that only Maureen saw back then.’
* * *
From David Smith’s memoir:
This thing between us will never be love. That’s a word we’ll never share. Only years later with someone very different will the true meaning of that word become real to me. But the feeling between Maureen and me is genuine enough, in its own way.
For a while after Mum’s funeral everything is quiet. But the shift in my relationship with Maureen soon becomes clear to everyone. That’s when the trouble starts.
When I call for her, it’s a battle to get past the habitual folded arms and stony eyes of Nellie Hindley, but it’s even worse when Maureen calls for me. Dad hates virtually all women and can’t stand to see me happy with Maureen. When she turns up on the doorstep, he greets her with contempt and a wicked-sounding, ‘And what the fuck do you want?’ I shout at him for talking to her like that and he bawls back at me; she and I leave the house to a barrage of ‘fucking little bitch’ and ‘stupid cow’. Sometimes he flips his ace out after us: ‘You came out of a cunt and you’ve taken up with one.’ Maureen has to grab my collar then with all the strength she can muster, pulling me down the street as I spit venom over my shoulder.
This is the storm that worried me, but it’s not the one that’s about to break.
We spend our time strolling together through nearby Sunnybrow Park, with its neat paths and ponds. In Sivori’s, we’re no longer part of the gang but a young couple who need to be alone. There’s no frantic action up the back entries before saying goodnight any more; instead we cling and kiss until the clock calls us in.
One late June evening, I’m sat at home in Wiles Street waiting for Maureen. Dad slumps, sullen and seething, in his chair. The empty teatime plates are still on the table, food eaten in silence. When the knock comes at the door, we look at each other in united bafflement because that’s not Maureen; it’s a sharp, loud blow against the door that isn’t meant to be ignored.
I answer it and there she is: Myra Hindley, in fierce older sister mode, arms folded and make-up pristine, dressed for a night out but with a face you could weld iron on. A blonde anvil.
I prepare myself for a row as in a cold, quiet voice she tells me, ‘Get inside, this is private.’
I stand aside and she steps into the living room. Temper has drained the colour from her face even underneath the make-up, but she’s still perfectly in control. I purposely keep at least four feet between us, not wanting to feel her claws on my skin, and knowing that if it happens I’ll land out at her and we’ll end up punching the crap out of each other like two blokes.
When she speaks, it’s in a hard, deliberate monotone: ‘Maureen’s waiting for you on the corner. I’m here to lay down some fucking ground rules and, for your own good, you’d better mind yourself and listen for once.’ Seeing me start to protest, she jabs a finger towards my face: ‘Keep your mouth fucking shut.’
I don’t need telling again, but listen tight-lipped as she outlines the rules.
‘I’ve tried to explain to our Mobee what an arsehole you are. But for some reason she still wants to be with you, so I’m telling you now’ – the finger jabs again – ‘if you ever, ever, hurt her in any way you’re a dead man. Do you get me? A dead man. This thing between you both will be tolerated but you better mind your back because every step of the way I’ll be watching you, David Smith. Right? Every fucking step you take. Got it?’
I nod, livid, but realising it’s in my best interests to keep quiet.
Myra gives me one final glare before spinning on her heel and wrenching open the door. She lets it bang shut and I stand there for a moment, then turn.
Dad looks at me. He raises an eyebrow and goes slowly through to the kitchen. I take a deep breath, wait until Myra has had time to round the corner of Wiles Street, then go outside and into Maureen’s arms.
* * *
David’s schooldays were coming to an end. Music was still the greatest love of his life to date and in his leather jacket, T-shirt, drainpipe jeans and winkle-pickers, hair greased with Loxene, he bore more than a passing resemblance to Stuart Sutcliffe, the bass guitarist in the newly popular Beatles; Sutcliffe died from a brain haemorrhage that year, aged 22. David was already a huge fan of the band: ‘The Beatles blew rock ’n’ roll out of the water. They were thunderous. They were singing stuff that only black people sang. Suddenly Elvis became an old fogey and Cliff Richard was . . . well, he was never cool, in my eyes. The Beatles changed everything for us kids. We started dressing differently, walking differently, talking differently, even thinking differently. Lennon was my favourite – I loved his sarcastic twang.’
The ‘in’ place to listen to music was at Belle Vue: ‘The jukeboxes there were terrific, and all the teenagers would gather in front of them. The boys danced together outside the arcades, right in front of the jukeboxes, while the girls watched. There were dance-offs in Openshaw as well, on the top floor of a working men’s club. You could win ten bob if you were good. And again all the lads danced together at first, while the girls were with the girls. Then after a while you’d approach the girl you thought was the best mover and ask her to dance. The two of you would go crazy, surrounded by all these other couples on the floor, about twenty altogether, twisting like mad as the music got faster. The judges walked around, tapping shoulders until only two couples were left for the dance-off. My legs would feel like elastic bands, but I’d give it one more push, just to get that ten bob and be crowned the winner. I never bothered with the lass afterwards and she didn’t bother with me – it was just about winning, splitting the ten bob and then a friendly goodbye.’
He laughs at the memory. ‘I was a good dancer, you know. I taught Sammy Jepson, Wally King and the Cummings brothers how to do the twist in my bedroom. And in the living room I plastered one wall from ceiling to floor with magazine and newspaper photos of my musical heroes: Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, Susan Maughan, Chubby Checker.’ He gives his characteristic wry grin: ‘It was the only way I could afford to decorate the place.’
Then he remembers something else: ‘The other great thing was the fairground. When that hit town – wow. Once a year it came, in those long summer holidays, pitching up on the recreation ground (the “red rec”) opposite the Cummings�
�� home. That was rock ’n’ roll as it was meant to be heard – music blaring from the waltzer, with the smell of hot dogs and onions, and the sound of rifles going off on the shoot-’em-up stalls. It was fantastic. Us local boys would stand at the rail, jealous as hell about the fairground boy who walked easily between the spinning waltzers, whacking the tubs to make them go faster while the girls screamed and laughed. On the speedway they used to shout, “The louder you scream, the faster you go.” I’d stand with my mates, glaring at the fairground boy all night, thinking, “I hate him.” Music never sounded so good as it did then.”
David left school that summer, 1963. By then, his involvement with the Taylor Street gang had led to petty crime. ‘It was wicked stuff,’ he recalls quietly, the laughter fading from his face. ‘We’d break into people’s houses and take whatever we could carry. I’m acutely ashamed of it now – just thinking about it makes me physically cringe. Why did we do it? God only knows. Me and Tony were the most adept at breaking and entering, but it was me and Sammy Jepson who were caught. We’d stolen a quantity of electrical goods for Sammy to pass on to his contact, who just happened to be his sister’s boyfriend. When we appeared in court, Sammy was sent down, but I was treated more leniently. I had a probation officer, of course, having been in trouble before, and in my pre-sentence report the illegitimacy “issue” was highlighted – I think that was used as a bit of an excuse for my actions, in all honesty. That, and being an only child.’
David appeared in court on 8 July 1963. He was placed on probation for three years on charges of house-breaking and larceny, and store-breaking and larceny. His most recent brush with the law was the talk of Gorton only for a short while. Less than a week later something happened which reverberated around the streets like a thunderclap in the clear summer skies.
On 12 July 1963, David’s 16-year-old neighbour, Pauline Reade, vanished.
* * *
From David Smith’s memoir:
Ian Brady is a lanky oddball of a fella, quiet and aloof. He appears seemingly out of nowhere as Myra’s boyfriend. I spot him occasionally in front of Granny Maybury’s house on Bannock Street, getting on or off his 200cc Triumph Tiger Cub, wearing his crash helmet and long coat. Beneath his outer clothing is the waistcoat and suit he’s had tailor-made from a ‘club man’, paying for it on the weekly. He wears turn-ups on his trousers, which is odd for someone his age, and stands out a mile from the rest of us. I can’t help but shake my head when I see him, this gangly, long-legged weirdo in his old-fashioned suit riding a bike that’s no bigger than a scooter. He ties a couple of cans to the back of the Tiger Cub if he’s sleeping at Myra’s house to stop kids taking it for a spin.
Often he and Myra pass me on the street, the two of them astride the bike, heading into the countryside, where no one else ever bothers to go. Some nights Myra tells Maureen not to call at their gran’s because Ian is busy recording on his eight-track machine or developing rolls of film. These instructions become commonplace, an accepted part of the routine. Occasionally, I see Ian arriving at Myra’s house on a Friday evening, carrying the cheap red wine he gets from the off-licence shop on Stockport Road (close to his home in Longsight’s Westmoreland Street); the shop has large wooden barrels on the counter where customers can fill their own bottles. And on weekday mornings I usually see Ian and Myra leaving together for work at Millwards, where Maureen also has a job as a filing clerk.
A life of routine, week in, week out, so normal that the streets soon stop noticing them.
* * *
By midday on 13 July 1963, virtually every household in Gorton was talking about the disappearance of Pauline Reade. Her family scoured the streets frantically, asking people if they had seen Pauline, who set out from home the night before to attend a dance at the British Railways Social Club in Cornwall Street. She hadn’t been able to find a friend to accompany her because most mothers objected to the alcohol on sale at the club, but two girls who knew Pauline well had tailed her for part of the journey, incredulous at the thought of their reserved friend daring to go to the dance alone. They watched her pass by in her pale blue ‘duster’ coat, pink Twister dress, new white shoes and gloves, and waited to catch up with her not far from the club. When she didn’t appear around the next corner, they simply assumed she had returned home.
The police drew a blank in their investigation, which led to far-fetched rumours that Pauline had eloped with a fairground worker or run off to Australia. No one who knew her believed such tales, but the idea of Pauline getting into a car with a stranger was equally unthinkable. On 19 July, the Gorton & Openshaw Reporter highlighted her disappearance under the headline: ‘Gorton Girl Went to Dance: Missing’. A few days later the newspaper tried again, featuring a photograph of dark-haired Pauline on their front page; she looked strikingly pretty, giggling with her best friend while her brother Paul pretended to play a guitar. Canals were dragged, crofts searched, coffee bars – including Sivori’s – visited, fairgrounds torn apart and scores of people were questioned, but there was still no trace of Pauline.
‘The police knocked on our door a couple of times,’ David remembers quietly. ‘They wanted to speak to us as part of their routine inquiries – we weren’t suspects; no one was, in fact. Dad and me sat at the table, answering the coppers’ questions. They asked about the sort of girl Pauline was, whether I had noticed anyone suspicious in the neighbourhood and when I last saw her. None of us paid any attention to the rumours. Pauline wouldn’t have gone off with someone she didn’t know and she wasn’t the sort to do a flit with a boy, especially not one of those cocky fairground types. It was a strange, unsettling time. Her disappearance became the Great Unspoken Event, quietly simmering under the surface of normal life. There was a big wave of sympathy for the Reade family, even if no one knew what to say to them. I saw Mrs Reade very often, walking up and down Wiles Street, looking left and right, so lost, so alone. A mother in deep, deep distress.’
Three months after Pauline vanished, David had his first real encounter with Ian Brady. ‘It was October,’ David recalls, ‘and Maureen told me that one of her co-workers at Millwards had pinned her against a wall and tried it on. That didn’t go down too well with me, though I did wonder if she was making it up. If that really had happened, then Maureen would have been more likely to run crying to her sister. Believe me, Myra was well able to sort out any bloke. But Maureen told me this tale and the next day I went down to Millwards, spoiling for a fight.’
It was mid-afternoon when David arrived at the offices. He settled down to wait his opportunity in the tin-roofed cut-through area in the yard, hiding behind some chemical containers. It was dark by the time the offices began emptying: ‘Myra and Ian passed without noticing me and Maureen went by as well. I stayed quiet and, sure enough, out came this chap in his 20s. For a split-second, his eyes met mine. Then he bolted. I ran after him in hot pursuit, itching for that fight. He scudded past Myra and Ian, who were by their car with Maureen. I was gaining on him, but Myra yelled, “Hey! Pack it in! Get back here, you!” I skidded to a stop. Myra hissed at me, “Get in the bloody car. We don’t want any trouble. Get in the car.”’
David got in the car. Maureen said nothing but wore a smug little smile, quietly pleased that he’d rushed to her defence. ‘We sat in the back together,’ David recalls. ‘Ian hadn’t said a single word. He looked completely deadpan, sitting in the passenger seat next to Myra. She drove us home; it was only a few streets. On the way she asked, “What the bloody hell was all that about?” I sat there in a filthy temper and Maureen said in a timid little voice, “Oh, I’ll explain to you later, our Myra.” As for Ian, he said nothing again. Not a word. Just that expressionless face, staring straight ahead.’
One month later, in Ashton-under-Lyne, a twelve-year-old boy named John Kilbride went missing. His distraught family knew, as the Reades before them had done about Pauline, that John had no reason to run away from home. He was the eldest of seven, particularly close to his eleven mont
hs younger brother Danny, and a familiar figure about the streets where he lived for his habit of whistling or singing while he walked. John’s disappearance from Ashton market during the early evening of 23 November 1963 – one day after the assassination of President Kennedy – left police baffled again.
On Monday 25 November, the Manchester Evening News devoted their front page to John: ‘Dogs Join in Massive Comb-Out for Boy’. Ashton Market was torn apart in the search, while attics, sheds, rivers and areas of waste ground were painstakingly probed by police and volunteers. Three weeks later the local press reported on the ‘Mass Hunt for a Boy’, which had turned into the ‘biggest search ever mounted for a missing person’. By mid-December, the situation was desperate, as the press began interviewing clairvoyants in the hope of turning up something useful. But despite every conceivable lead being followed, and the indefatigable efforts of the Kilbrides themselves to find John, the trail went swiftly and irretrievably cold.
* * *
From David Smith’s memoir:
The Union, the Rembrandt, Liston’s Bar . . . every public toilet in the city, every night of every week. Train station piss-stones, viaducts and alleys, it’s always there. We’ve got Last Exit to Brooklyn before it’s even written.
There are evenings, many evenings, when Myra turns up at Wiles Street alone and throws herself into a chair, sighing to Maureen, ‘Put the kettle on, our Mobee, I’ve just dropped Neddie off in Manchester. He’s gone people-watching as usual, at Central Station.’ Neddie is Myra’s nickname for Ian. Then her lips curl into a smile: ‘Neddie likes to watch the maggots crawling about.’