MY FAVOURITE SERIAL KILLERS
Alongside our native English genius for science, literature and mindless violence, we have produced some of the world’s finest - and most distinctive - serial killers. It may be regrettable, but they’re hugely popular entertainment figures; see the numerous shows on a dedicated Sky channel.
And I say English advisedly. The only Scots one can think of are ‘Bible John’, Nicola Sturgeon and Denis Nilson - who performed in the archetypally dreary English suburb of Muswell Hill.
Wales and Northern Ireland score ‘null points’.
As Orwell famously observed, there’s something intensely English - in setting, humour and style - about all of this grisly crew:
‘Saucy’ Jack the Ripper: What can one say? The founding father for true crime nut-jobs. And definitely English - I reject the absurd theories about Polish hairdressers or Russian anarchists. My candidate is Cross, who ‘discovered’ the first victim but was in fact finishing the poor lady off. His ‘Dear Boss’ letters are funnier than anything from BBC comedy for many decades.
Harold ‘Fred’ (to his friends and/or victims) Shipman: A damn good doctor if one avoided his legendary flu jabs. Thank God he was pre-Covid, or the death toll might have approached that suggested by the clown Ferguson, at Imperial College. Who can forget Fred’s blustering appearance - emerging from his Volvo in a green gilet - when the Hythe surgery was finally raided? The delightful Primrose completes the picture.
John ‘acid bath’ Haigh: A true gent, if one wasn’t being dissolved in sulphuric or hydrochloric acid. Terrific sense of humour. He went to the gallows with a note in his jacket pocket, requesting the suit was donated to Madame Tussauds.
John ‘just a whiff of gas’ Christie: Who can forget Dickie Attenborough’s performance, as he administered the ‘Carbon monoxide or, as we call it in the medical profession, C O two’? Truly hilarious, unless one was walled up in his grotty kitchen. But it has to be said, a more likable figure than most who now live in Notting Hill. On the gallows he complained of an itchy nose and Pierrepoint said ‘don’t worry, I can fix that’, pulling the lever.
Fred West: Half man, half werewolf he may have appeared, yet the ladies loved his cheeky grin and 70s sideburns. Expert builder, whose terrifying hooker wife Rose completed a model family where games of sardines had horrific endings. Fred was a typical shire-man, a warning to idiots who eulogise rural England.
Denis Nilson: Honorary Englishman and Stranglers fan. Keen on home cooking, Denis annoyed the local sewer men with what they thought was an addiction to KFC, bones and skin blocking the drains. One time too many - and the rest is history. Less dangerous than many Scots.