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/

Who was the last victim shown? Was that Jane McDonald?
I’ve just read a journalists interview with Sutcliffe’s father from a few years ago. Oh my word what an animal. The father actually said PS was the best one of his children. Apparently PS was the only one of his many children who kept in regular contact with him. He was a wife beater and adulterer. He also kept a leather whip which he used to hit his wife with and all his children, when he got tired of beating them with his hands. This was what his younger son claimed.
The journalist said PS’s father showed no remorse for the victims.
The younger son spoke lovingly of his mother and said the best times were when his father moved out of the family home and into the house across the road with his ow!

I shouldn’t watch programmes like this. They just fill me with rage to think of how many crimes could have been solved earlier and how many lives - usually women’s - might have been saved if women were only listened to and respected, regardless of what they might have to do to make ends meet.

i know, their interview of Marcella was just appalling

although you get characters like the one Lee Ingleby is portraying, in all occupations

They photo fit he didn’t give to the papers! It was spot on

My point was the police themselves said jane was an innoncent victim like the other women were not ,i worded it badly.

Jayne’s family publicly commented it wasn’t appropriate that the media divided the victims into ‘innocent’ and ‘not so innocent’.

(Posted this on wrong thread so reposting here!) I've only watched the first episode so haven't caught up with the whole thread yet, but wanted to say I grew up near Leeds in the 1970s and I think the title The Long Shadow is an an excellent one. The spectre of the Yorkshire Ripper cast a long shadow over the whole region at the time - I remember never being allowed to go out alone after dark (nor wanting to!) in my early teenage years until Sutcliffe was finally caught. That feeling has stayed with me to a certain extent because it was so heavily drummed into us - it continues to cast a long shadow. I also really like the way Emily Jackson has been portrayed. Sutcliffe's early victims were dismissed as prostitutes not only by the police but also in the newspapers. But of course they were more than that. The red bills and Emily's husband's seeming inability to understand them showed us what drove her to it - it was not just to pay for Christmas and bridesmaids dresses. Also her dancing at the Gaiety suggests where she might have got the idea. Swept off her feet on the dance floor and then pulled up short when she realises it's not a one-night-stand/quick fumble that the stranger wants, but that he's prepared to pay for it. So what's the difference? The sense that she would just do it temporarily to make a fast buck, but now she's forever labelled a prostitute in perpetuity. And somehow less worthy of investigation or sympathy than if she was simply a "respectable" mother - who wanted to provide for her children, the sort of woman who would put a pound in the charity collection at Christmas. I like the fact that we are seeing the women - Wilma McCann tucking her four children into bed - and not the violence. It is a story worth retelling for it to be told in a better way that doesn't trash the victims.

Very good post @LillianGish !

It is good to see it from the view points of the women trying their best.
One tucking their kids in, the other paying bills/Xmas presents etc.
Very sad last night they didn’t give the nanny job and she turned to selling herself…was it because she had dirty fingernails when she reached for the sugar…couldn’t think of anything else😒just so sad.

I have watched 6 of the 7 episodes. It seems strange they based some of the characters on real people while others are fictional. Donna is a fictional character I think? But perhaps based on one of the victims. Whereas other characters have the same name and have even been made to look like the victims they portray (eg Emily, Jacqueline etc).

I don't understand why they added Donna as a murder victim.,
Its not a fictional drama there were enough real victims

I guess they have family permission to use real names and use fake when the permission was not given.

I've just binged watched them all. I live in Bradford and regularly drive past that bastards house. I believe his wife still lives there or did until quite recently.
I'm a bit too young to have lived through this era, but all the women in my family have stories about how awful it was back then.

I think it was well done and appreciated the focus on the women and their lives. It's a crying shame that there still seems to be the same mentality in the police force of deserving and un-deserving victims.

All the victims names are correct and in right order except Donna Deangelo. I remember all the names of those poor women all too well as l worked as a barmaid during that period in the Manchester area.
I used to have to walk home through a housing estate l lived on the edge of it with trees and fields across from our house. It was truly petrifying because we knew he could be anywhere and had been in that area. I once walked bang into a young man coming round a corner as l was so busy rushing to get home and constantly looking behind me. I dont know who got biggest shock me or him.

donna de anglo was a fictitious character who was a composite of other prostitutes at the time in the area (it said so at the beginning). i think she was created to demonstrate that despite the severe threat street prostitutes were under, some police attitudes were still appealing towards them and they were still at risk of assault and rape from other punters, not just PS. it also highlighted the role of pimps in making them go back out on the streets when they didn't want to.

*appalling not appealing

Wss the taxi driver character real?

I've watched the whole thing and I thought it was very good. Sure - the attitudes of the time towards the victims and towards women in general were horrible. Such sexism, misogyny, victim-blaming and utter, disgusting arrogance. The way all the detectives were laughing and congratulating each other when Sutcliffe was finally caught (by another police force) after five years of bungling incompetence by W. Yorks Police was appalling.

I thought the way the women's stories were told was good though - they were humanised, the women who were prostitutes were treated sensitively and the reasons why they turned to prostitution and still had to go out on the streets when they knew the ripper was out there were well explained IMO. As for the locations, sets, 70s cars, wallpaper, clothes, etc - spot on as far as I can remember. The paisley pyjamas that Denis wore in one scene were exactly like a pair my dad had in green - I'd completely forgotten about them until I saw that scene.

another thing i've just thought of. The PC who went undercover as a prostitute, the male officers who were meant to be looking out for her, their attitude didn't surprise me.
but the uniformed sergeant she was in a relationship with seemed like a good guy at first but even he went down the slutty fantasy route by asking if she could bring the gear home with her for him. her face said it all, an overwhelming weariness of even the 'good guys' being dicks

'another thing i've just thought of. The PC who went undercover as a prostitute, the male officers who were meant to be looking out for her, their attitude didn't surprise me.'

That was just shocking. A new inexperienced PC. No training, just wear some more make up and use a radio. Fine that forensics weren't advanced in those days but the police all seemed so utterly useless it's no wonder he got away with his horrifc crimes for so long.

The character of Donna was Yvonne Pearson who was a real life victim of Sutcliffe, they just used a different for some reason, presumably because her loved ones didn't give their permission. Her friend who moved to London was also based on a real character and was murdered whilst on the game in London.

I’m watching at tv pace so not seen some of this yet….so far I think it’s v good

I haven't seen the taxi driver episode. There was a taxi driver wrongly suspected by the police who was put under a lot of pressure to confess, if that's the incident. I think he was called Terry Hawkshaw, or similar. He was taken to a police training centre and questioned for hours, while not being under arrest.

Yes that's the one so it was real.then
He also.had the misfortune to.have a beard very similar to.Peter Sutcliffe ,s .

I'm from Bradford and was born in the 1970s . The hospital where I was born was next to the red light district in Bradford. My parents didn't have a car then and my mum gave my dad a bag of her washing to take home. I was born in the early hours of the morning and the police stopped my Dad walking home wanting to know why he was out so late with a bag of women's clothes!

Sutcliffe's house was never demolished and his wife continued to live there after his conviction.

He was interviewed several times about his boot, a note from his wages and being in the area too I think. Because it was all manual records the three interviews were never linked so he was never suspected.

He was arrested for kerb crawling and he asked to go to the toilet behind a wall before being taken to the police station. When the officer took him to the station he noticed his similarity to a photofit on the wall. The officer went back to the wall where he was arrested and found a hammer and a screwdriver he had discarded.