Ian Brady Moors Murder Yet Another Suicide Bid
February 12, 2008
Ian Brady , the moors murderer is reported to have been storing up pills with a view to killing himself. Suicide , we are told is what he has in mind but as this is the second time he has been found with these pills we have to wonder what it’s all about. After all , he must know from the last time that he could not hide such medicines for any long period of time and besides he could have killed himself several time with the number he had stored in his room.
There are those who claim that it’s all about him looking for attention. That may be true but personally I doubt it’s quite as simple as that. But if that’s all that’s left to a person , if that the only public way they can in some way validate themselves then what’s so wrong about that ? And many would say let him rot in his own private hell , but torture , and that’s what his living death has become , is never justified. Ultimately we have a duty of care to everyone. And especially to those who we call our enemy. None of this is ‘liberal’ hogwash. Showing respect for another’s humanity does not weaken us in any way.
But Brady will die soon. We will see more hate headlines such as greeted the death of Myra Hindley. In time Brady will be forgotten as indeed we will be also. Nothing will have been achieved. No dead children will rise from the grave and no mother’s tears will be magically undone.
Seamus Heaney Robert Lowell Elvis Presley. An Exercise in Name Dropping.
November 28, 2007
Some time ago , 25 years ago that is…..I met the poet Seamus Heaney. I never met Robert Lowell or Elvis but like I say , I did meet Heaney.
I wrote to him , as I said , about 25 years ago. I was having trouble getting some of his books , not his regular editions but privately printed limited editions of his , and so I wrote to him to see if he could help me in some way. I did not really expect to get a reply so I was delighted when he wrote back and suggested that I call down to see him. (I live , perhaps a mile and a half from Sandymount where his home is.)
As I was walking up Sandymount Road with Dublin Bay on my left I happened to meet him in the street. It was about 12:00 noon , sometime in late Summer and there was a pleasant sea breeze as we met and I shook his hand. I remember the first question I asked him. “What’s it like to be famous , to be the Elvis Presley of poetry ” ? Now that may seem a somewhat odd question or even a foolish one so let me explain.
I could of course have asked him some ‘profound’ question about the Greek poets perhaps but the truth of the matter is that I wasn’t really interested in his opinion of the Greeks or any other poets for that matter. Why after all would I be interested in another man’s opinion when I’ve got my own ? But I was interested to know what it was like to be famous. I had never met anyone really famous before and let’s face it , we are bombarded with images of the famous from the moment we become conscious of the wider world. So I asked him , “what’s it like to be famous “. And it turned out to be a good question because while still yet in the street he began to talk about just that.
He talked the of fact that he hadn’t actually made any money from the books he had published ( five at that point in time). That apart from his salary teaching he had not made any money from his fame at all. He told me how much he had paid for his house ( he got in just before the prices started to move upwards) and what it cost to put his kids through school and that sort of thing. We were walking along as he spoke and I think he was talking to himself as much as to me….he spoke of how it could be awkward , even embarrassing to be famous. He explained that he often might be in company with a fellow poet ( a better poet than him as he put it) and people would talk to him , ask his opinion while ignoring the sometimes older and better poet at his side. He spoke of the jealousies and enmities that it brought with it.
When we got to his house he brought me up to his study , a small room overlooking Dublin Bay , and we talked about poetry and poets. It was a pleasant experience apart that is from the smell. The smell , I hasten to say came not from his room but from the beach beyond his window. The sewage from all over Dublin City is deposited in Dublin Bay and in the summer it smells…it really smells. While I was there he was signing the sheets for his limited edition , “Poems and a Memoir”. Just the sheets of paper , the book itself had not been bound at this point. As I say , it was a really nice experience and before I left he gave me some of his own poems , drafts that is , with revisions in his own hand.
I called down to his house two or three times after that ( he invited me). To be honest I cannot remember what we talked about but I suppose it had to do with poetry. But I can remember one conversation….. We were sitting in his kitchen. By ‘we’ I mean there were two other people there , one a fellow who had something to do with Field Day Publishing and the other guy was some artist who’s name I have since forgotten.( I have a long standing interest in Irish art so the fact that I cannot even remember his name will give you an indication as to the nature of the ‘artist’). Well , there we were , the four of us , with a bottle of wine on the table and the sun streaming in the window. The conversation was ( as we Irish say) terrific. Somewhere along the way Heaney told a joke about Robert Lowell. It seems that when he was introduced to Lowell the American just looked at him and said , “My friends call me Robert , but you can call me Bob”. Ok , it’s not that funny but it sounds a lot better after a couple of glasses of wine. I was sitting with my back to the window , my chair slightly back from the table , almost a spectator and it occurred to me that this was the kind of little anecdote that biographers love to record.
Later , as I walked home I couldn’t help but think that yes , yes that little anecdote might well find it’s way into some biography of Seamus Heaney but I would most certainly have been airbrushed out of it. A sobering thought but a true one nonetheless.
And I did in fact later meet one other famous person , a serial killer called Dennis Nilsen……. Oh , and I passed Bono one day on O’Connell Bridge but I didn’t stop to talk to him so I guess that really doesn’t count.
You can find an interview with Heaney on Youtube by following this link.
Dennis Nilsen Speaks
May 31, 2007
The following are true quotes from the British serial killer Dennis Nilsen. They come from various sources but have all been authenticated. Most can be traced back to the book , “Killing for Company” by Brian Masters. If you know of any more ( and can give the source) then please let me know.
Am I mad? I don’t feel mad. Maybe I’m mad.
I seek company first and hope everything will be all right.
The only House of Horrors that I know of is 10 Downing Street.
I saw him…..at peace in the armchair. I remembered wishing he could stay in peace like that forever. I had a feeling of easing his burden with my strenght.
Loneliness is a long unbearable pain.
I stood there amazed. I found it all hard to believe , that I , Des Nilsen had actually done all that.
In the morning he was lying dead on one of the beds fully clothed. He was dead. I got the impression he wanted to go and I must have killed him. I can’t remember strangling him. I just sat there shocked.
I cannot bring myself to keep remembering these incidents over and over again. These are ugly images totally alien to me. I seem to have not participated in them, merely stood by and watched them happen–enacted by two other players– like a central camera
The last time I did that I was arrested. ( after being told by a police interrogator to throw his cigarette butt in the toilet.)
It was as easy as taking candy from a baby. I remember thinking “You will have no more trouble squire”. I felt that I was doing him a favor. I felt his life was one long struggle.
I don’t loose sleep over what I’ve done or have nightmares about it.
Dennis Nilsen: History of a Drowning Man
May 30, 2007
Serial killer Dennis Nilsen has lost his latest legal battle to publish his autobiography. The UK High Court said the prison service had the right to read and if necessary censor the manuscript before his solicitor returns it to him. Nilsen maintains that the book called Nilsen:History of a Drowning Man is a serious work. He began work on the manuscript in the early 90’s. He was refused permission to appeal.
On 4th. November 1983 he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of twelve young men with a recommendation that he serve not less than 25 years but this was later changed to a life tariff by the Home Sectary. This means that he will never be released from prison.
I did in fact meet Dennis Nilsen many years ago. Unlike Ian Brady or Peter Sutcliffe we rarely see anything in the press about Nilsen and even spending a good hour on the Internet will turn up very little information on him. Few books have been written about him but the one that is best know is Brian Master’s “Killing for Company”. This is an excellent book , one of the best true crime books ever written in fact. I bought it when first published and I remember that it received very favourable reviews from all of the quality press. It’s an intelligent and well written book which I can recommend without reservation.
