The Long Shadow - ITV1 - Monday September 25th at 9pm

[Southeastdweller]

Anyone else looking forward to watching this seven part drama?

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-long-shadow-release-date-newsupdate/

Things were done differently back then in other forces. I worked in a big city as a civilian. I mainly worked for the vice squad but also did admin work in incident rooms. All of the rapes and murders of prostitutes in my force were solved while I worked there, I don't mean I solved them but I saw it happening.

We had snow in June in 75. No rain for nine weeks in 76.

1975 was the warmest summer since 1947 so yes it was a hotter than average summer, just overshadowed by 1976. I was on maternity leave and remember it very well.

We were on holiday at the end of May beginning of June. We were in Devon and it didn't snow, I think that was in the north east? The weekend and Monday were bad and people were packing up and leaving. On the Tuesday the sun came out and we had a fabulous week. I think it was the Wednesday before the rest of the country got hot. The rest of June and July got very hot and we moved house and it was hell.

It snowed in Cambridge. Not for long and obviously it didn’t lie but I remember standing and staring out of the window open mouthed.

It was miserable in Devon, wet and windy and dull. I felt so sorry for the people who packed up and left as I swear once they were all on their way the sun came out. I always think the drought in 76 was actually started in 75, the reserves must have been low.

On the goodnews front the hosepipe ban ended in Devon this week. It has been on for over a year. It was hilarious in August with all the rain but us with a hosepipe ban. I live close to the beach so it was water everywhere.

A,long time so staff must have thought he need to.be there ,I was a mental health nurse for over 20 years although I never worked in forensics
His wife had schizophrenia I believe so maybe he had some learned behaviour ?
Wether he truly had a psychotic illness or was a psychopath I don't know but being in a special hospital.would have meant he would never have been released, as even when a,sentence has been served if the psychiatrist feels a patient needs to stay in hosputal.they can keep.them not that I imagine he would ever have been released anyway
I'm not defending him at all.even if he did have a psychotic illness he could still.have been a psychopath .

The other thing that made 1970's urban areas seem really dreary were the Sodium street lights. They gave off a really watery, anaemic yellow light that didn't do much to cut through the gloom. My LA only got around to replacing them in my old street a few years ago, and every time I came home in the winter it reminded me of trailing around after dark in the 70's.

Actually reading Wikipedia he was sent back to Durham so staff at broadmoor must have felt he was mentally well enough at that point and his sentence was converted to a whole life which wss very obviously appropriate wether he was ever truly psychotic I don't know but he was certainly evil.

This case was before my time, but after watching episode 1 I've watched the Netflix documentary.

I can't believe the police believed the tape and letters were legit, without even considering the possibility they could have been a hoax from the onset. Maybe they would have caught Sutcliffe sooner if it hadn't been for the incompetence of those investigating.

I know it them back for years ,even when some of his survivors, said he had a local.accent they refused to.believe it pure arrogance
But it wss also.the 70,s and early 80,s apparently they had so.much evidence but it would have all.been on paper it would of been difficult to keep.track and cross reference stuff.

Held *

You had people reading the statements and making index cards, lots and lots of index cards.

Yes I think it was the first time that the fuzz realised the need for more computerised record keeping.

I was looking for some background and just found this

https://secretlibraryleeds.net/2019/07/12/report-into-the-investigation-of-the-series-of-murders-and-assaults-on-women-in-the-north-of-england-between-1975-and-1980/

One of the most compelling elements of the Sutcliffe case, and one which features prominently in art and literature about the murders, is the heavily criticised police investigation. West Yorkshire Police interviewed Sutcliffe nine times but were infamously led astray by a hoax tape sent by a prankster with a Sunderland accent – a critical error that left Sutcliffe free to kill several more women. Dismissive police attitudes towards women have also come under scrutiny. ..

they also have a link to the official report

When I was a baby/toddler in the late 70s/early 80s my parents lived in a flat near the docks and off the the road that would have been the red light district. They've told me that they'd often see one woman in particular who was always dropped off and collected by her husband every night outside where we lived. They've always really struggled to get their heads around it as something about a woman's husband facilitating or maybe forcing her prostitution just feels especially fucked up.

I did wonder about the way the programme showed her 'on one last job' before her murder. Literally down to making the point that she had already made £10 of her desired £15. That seemed like they were trying to artificially up the stakes and increase the sense of tragedy. Which was just unnecessary. I also thought that the bridesmaid dress plot was contrived, especially saying it was £8.50 but she'd need shoes and jewellery so £10 wouldn't do. But if it had, she'd have been safely back in the van before Sutcliffe got to her. I thought those details were very weirdly plotted, tbh. Even down to the bridesmaid dress part because it's an American thing for the bridesmaid to pay for her own dress, not British.

I think you’re reaching a bit @Wanderingowl. How did your parents know it was that woman’s husband, not her pimp? Of course he could easily have been both. It’s a drama, not a documentary.

Because it was obvious and it's an area where pretty much everyone knows everyone by only a couple of degrees of separation. And while it might be a drama, it's a drama about real people many of whom are still alive today, like Jenny's children. And about women who might still have been alive today. Adding deliberate elevation of the stakes, like showing her with her two fivers, when she has stated that this is her last night doing this and has a goal of £15, so that we can feel that extra rush of tension and tragedy, is unnecessary.

How could it be obvious that a man collecting a woman was her husband and not her pimp - or both?

The families of those poor women were involved in the development of this drama, they seem content with the way it’s handled. If they’re not, they’re keeping very quiet.

Ahh even Katherine Kelly has fallen prey to the trout pout phenomenon

I'm not sure if she has tbh I thought she looked very natural and unfilled?

I don’t think she has, her lips look pretty normal to me.

Yes, I remember them as being dull orange. Just a half-hearted dim orange light. I also remember thinking how much nicer they would be if they were white lights instead of orange, even as a child I thought they were awful and didn't accept them (aesthetically )

I preferred the older lights! They always seemed warm and cosy to me as a kid.

I had a friend from Bingley in Yorkshire who knew his family. She said they were a weird bunch but he was seen as not as odd as his brothers!

I remember clearly going on a school trip and all the women were chatting about the letters and saying he was from Newcastle.

Apparently Sutcliffe was interviewed 9 times. In the end it was a PC’s suspicions, checking the loo after he’d been I think, and finding a screwdriver, that finally got him.

I do remember my mum and her friends being scared. If they went anywhere once dark they always went with a man or my dad would meet her etc This was in Manchester. It was a really awful time.

I thought it was a good first episode, framing the conditions and attitudes of the time quite well.

In my hometown (Lancashire) our street lights are now so dim its like we've gone back to the gloomy seventies and it can be quite unnerving walking on a quiet street alone.

I was a Southern kid in the 70s. I remember going to visit relatives in Yorkshire was like stepping 20 to 30 years into the past in terms of shops and attitudes. That bus was surely too old for 1975 - but maybe not in Leeds?

I do remember hearing about the murders on the radio - maybe after three or so. It was all very much dismissed as “just prostitutes” - I was so innocent I thought they meant Protestants and was alarmed because we were CofE.

The Netflix documentary made it clear there was a massive amount of police bungling and chaos. I found this a very unconvincing portayal of the police treating it as “the big case” from the start. I don’t think they did.

But in terms of drama, this has really given me the creeps so must be doing something right.

I’m watching the Netflix at the moment in parallel …they were swamped with paperwork guess that was how policing was then …