| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Watching a thing on Fred West at the mo - I never realised he said he was haunted by the spirits of his victims. Apparently they wouldn't let him rest, his daughter even appearing in his prison cell. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
That's because he's insane. Have you read Happy Like Murderers? Don't; it's nightmarish and very upsetting. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
You see I like reading about murderers and stuff. It's odd, I can't decide why some things upset me and some don't. Like I could read this book but won't watch Funny Games. It looks like the metal plate did for Fred (and us); everyone says he changed overnight after he got that put in. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Could anyone -heaven forbid it happens - ever write about the murder of their child or close relative or friend? Try and address it through fiction? I think I could. I think it would be therapuetic. | ||
| Guy (Guy) Username: Guy Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.39.57.151 |
My gut tells me that if something like that happened you'd never stop writing about it (in one way or another). Either that or never write a word again for fear of what came out.. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Lovely Bones by alice Sebold is an attempt by the author to deal with her own rape as a child through fiction. Halfway through ewriting it she was compelled to write a factual account as well to exorcise the demons - figuratively speaking. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
I wonder if a person can filter these events, get pleasure from them later? I once read an anonymous anecdote by this woman who said she was raped in her home by an ugly mexican. she said it was awful but that it cropped up in her sexual fantasies often. Billy Connolly said a similiar thing about being abused by his dad; he said it was partly pleasurable, and that that stuff needs to be addressed. Carefully. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Could anyone -heaven forbid it happens - ever write about the murder of their child or close relative or friend? I've been writing about my son dying or being taken away from me ever since he was born. I think, subconsciously, my resoning is that if I write it, it will never happen. :-/ | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
Hemingway said "When you have a child, the world takes a hostage." | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.11.219 |
Some ten year old girls appear in my fiction and yes I have a ten year old daughter. I'll never stop writing about loss - it will be a theme I'll be returning to again and again. Also if I go to sleep working out what is going to happen to a character I'm not going to sleep imagining what could happen to my daughter. Very true Proto.. Hemingway said "When you have a child, the world takes a hostage." | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Hemingway said "When you have a child, the world takes a hostage." Wow. That hits the mark. I'm having it tattooed... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
I dunno. I like seeing my kids going off and doing their own thing. I used to get scared, but now I've come to realise at least it won't be me kidnapping them! | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.225.194.173 |
Hemmingway also wrote the saddest short story of all time, six words long: For Sale: baby shoes. Never worn. There's a children's picture book callled THE SAD BOOK, written by a famous kids' writer whose name escapes me at the moment, about the death of his son. Martin Amis, in EXPERIENCE, wrties about a distant cousin who was one of Frederick and Rosemary's victims. But again, like THE SAD BOOK, that's fact, not fiction. | ||
| Coral (Coral) Username: Coral Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 91.111.30.53 |
Get this then, my father was on trial in the next court to Rosemary West, it was quite bizarre turning up with police and reporters outside. That's an odd claim to fame, hee. I think I must have had a different experience to the people you mention Tony, after being abused for 16 years I can look back now and say that I didn't enjoy it a bit, none of it was even remotely pleasurable to me. But then my abuser was adept at the mental torture too, a highly intelligent man, that's probabaly where the difference lies. Fred West, whilst cunning, was not very bright, just lucky not to have been discovered sooner.I read Happy Like Murderers, and although I can say, having first hand experience, some of the motives ascribed to Fred and Rose are not quite right, on the whole it's an accurate and well written book, quite enlightening. Fred is in very good company, I have read that Henry 8 saw similar apparitions entering his room, particularly monks he had judicially "murdered", and by all accounts he was as batty as a fruitcake towards the end of his life. Does anyone know why that happens? I have a theory that it happens to people who are not truly psychotic, so that they have to subdue their own conscience to a certain degree to make their actions acceptable to themselves; the apparitions are the result of years of surpressed knowledge of wrong doing. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.191.209 |
You may want to try David Morrell's collection Black Evening. Many of the stories deal directly or indirectly with the death of his son, as he points out in his notes. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Coral - yes, it must depend on the abuser, and the experiences. An abuser can kid their victim that things are 'like this', or the even can be brief and otherwise comparitively non-violent. Maybe. Yes, I think the ghosts are guilty conscience, peoples innate goodness betraying them, trying to direct them. Unless of course they are real ghosts, which would be totally ace. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Fuck me, Coral - that's some confessional... I don't even know what to say to that, but I completely admire your honesty and openness. I have a theory that it happens to people who are not truly psychotic, so that they have to subdue their own conscience to a certain degree to make their actions acceptable to themselves; the apparitions are the result of years of surpressed knowledge of wrong doing. That ties in with my own thoughts on such matters. West was a weird one: thick as two short planks but he managed to get away with it for years. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
>>thick as two short planks but he managed to get away with it for years. Commentators talking about the abusers of "Baby P" are suggesting something similar. Nothing in the way of intelligence that'd show on a chart, but possessed of a certain low-cunning and manipulative ability . . . | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
And yes, I'd also echo Zed's agapeness at what you wrote, Coral. I'm very sorry to read what you wrote, but glad you're here now having survived it. | ||
| Coral (Coral) Username: Coral Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 91.108.123.35 |
Bloody hell, I just spent twenty minutes creating the most marvellously relevant, astute and downright astounding post ever to appear on this board, and the flippin old computer crashed, arrrrgggghhh Anyhoo, I thought everyone knew already, but thanks for caring chaps, it's appreciated. Don't worry, I'm as tough as old boot leather;) I think I'll remake that post tomorrow cos my eyeballs are falling off... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
These people are like those cracks you see in computer games, when the surface of the world gives way to something cold and vast. They don't so much hurt us but rather take a crowbar to realitys seams and blow it apart. I remember meeting kids at school who had this power to make the world suddenly frightening; one day me and my mum took this lad out to the seaside; next day I walk up to him and he beats me up, miles away from our flats. I almost went insane with bemusement. I don't know how you got over this, Coral. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
These people are like those cracks you see in computer games, when the surface of the world gives way to something cold and vast. Tony, that's rather brilliant. And your anecdote is so true about human behaviour... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.236.222 |
"I remember meeting kids at school who had this power to make the world suddenly frightening . . . " I used to be a sweet kid, a bit of a mama's boy actually. I had a handful of friends, but mostly sought refuge in books - even then. When I was eight years old a group of 'classmates' decided to begin picking on me. I didn't know how to handle this and matters grew worse from day to day - until one fine morning I caught the main culprit alone. After a brief tussle I stuck my right thumb into his left eye and pushed his eyeball deep into its socket. There was quite a bit of blood, but that was nothing compared to the attitude of the schoolmaster and my old friends afterwards. In brief, they were so appalled by my hellish behaviour they started calling me 'Satan's brat' (this was a catholic school). I was treated with respect thereafter - some of the school population might even have been positively afraid. Incredibly, a week or so later my victim asked me to join his scouts troop. He became my best friend. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Um, ah, yes, Hubert - that's a lovely story...!  | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.236.222 |
I knew you would like it  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
For the record I used to go off it when bullied. I chased one kid out of school (well, he ran that way) for putting a pin cushion on my chair during, ahem, sewing. After that humiliation *I* got taken aside and told off. What a sense of betrayal, and so humiliating. I actually cried, and this teacher, who I had taken to be nice, toppled down in my estimation - as did school, of course. Oh, and another kid bullied me for a while, too - we became friends as well. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
And this other, insane kid, told me once killed a boy in Peterlee just before he moved away. He said he buried him in a ditch by the motorway. It sounded so real the way he put it. What's weird is I still hung around with him after he told me! Kids, eh? I met him years later and he told me a guy had once jumped out of a car and hit him, claiming he'd tried to rape his girlfriend. He was never clear about that one. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.236.222 |
sewing?!  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Yes, yes. We did that back then. It was COMPULSORY. At least for the first year. Like the way you pick up on sewing after the stuff about murder and rape! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.236.222 |
I'm sorry, Tony. How appalling, etc. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
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| Coral (Coral) Username: Coral Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 91.108.71.122 |
I did sewing too, you must be as ancient as I am ;) | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.3 |
I'm sorry to hear about your past, Coral. It's astonishing that things have turned out how they have. Jeez, talk about humbling. Let me say this: I frequent six or seven messageboards on the 'net, and this one is head and shoulders above any other, in terms of maturity, intelligent conversational opinion, and sharply-tuned criticism. Long may you rule. I feel honoured to talk to you people. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Steve - it was hard, of course, but really, sewing isn't so bad.  And those others are kind words, and ones I agree with. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Coral - it was the late seventies. Weird times. | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Coral- like everyone else, I'm humbled by your honesty. With regard to Henry 8, and the visions he witnessed towards the end of his life- if I recall rightly, he was believed to have suffering from tertiary syphilis by that point in his life. That could account for the hallucinations he witnessed. I like your theory though- I find the psychology of people like that fascinating. We'll have to wait and see if Tony Blair spends his last days screaming and gibbering as the ghosts of his victims come out of the walls? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.21.168 |
Once they get done with Saddam, they might! But really, Iraq here is like bringing up chavs again; Don't! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Don't you need to eat a chav before you can bring it up again? | ||
| Coral (Coral) Username: Coral Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 91.111.20.69 |
Ew, that's disgusting. I wouldn't eat a chav if you coated in in sauce and lay it on salad. I thought my childhood was already common knowledge, but thanks for caring folks, I appreciate it a lot. This is definitely my favourite board, I've learned a lot of interesting information here, and the the peeps here are definitely the best collection to be found. Stephen, have you seen Rog's new forum yet, it looks like it's going to be a nice place to visit. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.20.12 |
I heard my son has chav music on his phone now. He's ten, and wears quite chavvy clothes. I felt like one of those dads in the 50s who tried to stop their kids listening to rock and roll. For the record, my son has a very high reading and writing age and loves horror movies and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. | ||
| Coral (Coral) Username: Coral Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 91.108.94.227 |
I know, one of my daughters has turned out normal, it's awful, fashionable clothes, pop music, it's only one step further to knifing innocent folks!!!! She's a lovely person though,thank goodness. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.224.78 |
What's fashionable nowadays? I wouldn't know and I don't care anymore. Ah, the days of yore when I used to read THE FACE to give me subtle (and sometimes none too subtle) hints . . . As long as it's black, it's ok. I suppose I look a bit like David Gilmour now, without the pot belly and grey hair, that is. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
What's fashionable nowadays? If the kids round our way are anything to go by: Gang crime Disrespect Acne An unsufferable lack of education Malnutrition Being wary of me  |