Moate native’s childhood escape from serial killers

Tommy Rhattigan told the remarkable story of his November 1963 encounter with the infamous duo in a recently-published memoir of his childhood in Manchester.

Brady and Hindley murdered five children in and around Manchester between July 1963 and October 1965. Their crimes became known as the Moors murders after the remains of victims were found buried in Saddleworth Moor.

Myra Hindley died in prison in 2002, at the age of 60, while Ian Brady (79) died, also behind bars, on Monday, May 15.

Tommy Rhattigan was born in Athlone and lived on the Clara Road in Moate before his family moved to Manchester when he was five years old. He still has some relatives living in the Moate area.

One of a family of 13 children, Tommy said both his parents were alcoholics. “Our family was quite dysfunctional, because our parents spent more money on drink than they did on feeding the kids,” he told the Westmeath Independent.

Tommy went on to become a father of three and grandfather of nine. He worked in the building trade and later started writing songs and poetry. In recent years he decided to write the book about his childhood in poverty-stricken Hulme, Manchester.

The book looks back on one year in his young life, when he was aged seven. It’s entitled ‘1963: A Slice of Bread and Jam’ and the title is a reference to his encounter with Brady and Hindley.

As he recalled, he was sitting on a swing in a park that November day. He had gotten separated from his brothers, Martin and Frank, and was waiting for them when a couple, which turned out to be Brady and Hindley, walked by.

“At first I ignored them and they ignored me. But then they stopped further along. The woman turned back, gave me a coy smile and said ‘Hi!’ And we got into a conversation.

“She asked me if I was waiting for somebody, and I said no. She actually reminded me a bit of my eldest sister. Then she asked me where I was from, and I replied ’24 Stamford Street, Hulme, Manchester 15,’ because we had been taught to learn our address off by heart.

“She turned towards the man who was with her and shouted out, ‘the lad lives in Hulme,’ but he just told her to hurry up. He was looking around, he wasn’t looking at me.

“She then enticed me to come back home with her for a jam butty, and I was well up for that.”

Tommy said this was not particularly unusual as there had been other times when people took him into their homes for a short period and gave him something to eat. However, in those other cases, he had been the one who made the first approach to the stranger.

“I never would have gone off with a man on his own, but because there was a woman there I felt safe,” he said.

Tommy was taken to a house in Bannock Street, which he later learned had been Brady’s grandmother’s house. When he got to the door, Brady put his hand on his shoulder and guided him into the house.

“He closed the door, I looked up at him and he looked down at me, just for a split second.”

Tommy said he was surprised by how old-fashioned the interior of the house had been, given that Brady and Hindley were young, well-dressed people. He was brought into a back room, near a window that faced the back yard, while Brady went off into the kitchen. Hindley quickly prepared a slice of bread and jam and put it on a table in front of the boy.

“She said ‘get that down you and then we’ll get you home’. I could sense her demeanour had changed, she had this nervousness, this childish excitement about her. She got a glass of sherry, took a sip, and put it down. Then she went upstairs.”

Tommy said the atmosphere in the house began to make him feel uneasy and he started to question why he had agreed to go there.

“When she came back down she told me to hurry up and eat. I asked her for a glass of water and she went into the kitchen to get it.

“I heard their voices in the kitchen, and then he snapped at her and said, “f***ing wait!’”

The boy's instinctive urge to get out of the house took over and he managed to force the nearby window open before climbing out of it.

“I heard her voice saying I was ‘getting away’, and I felt a hand on my foot as I was climbing out the window, but my momentum kept me going and I was gone.”

Tommy was later put into a children’s home and it was there, around two years after the incident, that he saw the faces of Brady and Hindley on television and recognised them.

“When I saw them I told a man that I had been in their home, but he just said, ‘yeah, and I bet you left with a lucky bag as well!’”

Brady and Hindley were arrested in 1965 and subsequently convicted of five murders. Tommy's encounter with them came around four months after the first murder, and approximately a week before the death of their second victim, John Kilbride.

The body of one of the victims, Keith Bennett, has never been found and Tommy wrote to Brady in prison seventeen years ago to tell him about their 1963 meeting and to urge him to disclose where Bennett’s body was buried. To his surprise, he received a reply.

“The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I saw that letter. In it, he said ‘you’re mistaken in your belief that you encountered me in the past… we were ordinary people and not dripping in blood.’”

Tommy believes Brady was not mentally ill but was “completely evil”. He said he has no doubt he would have been another victim if he had not fled from the house.

“I think every day – and I have done for a long time – about how lucky I was,” he said.

He has been back to Ireland for visits on a number of occasions and has stood on the Clara Road in Moate, outside the house where he once lived.

Tommy's book was initially self-published but later got picked up by a publisher - Mirror Books - and has so far sold 41,000 copies.

* 'A Slice of Bread and Jam' by Tommy Rhattigan is out now and can be ordered from Amazon or from Eason: http://www.easons.com/p-4543756-1963-a-slice-of-bread-jam.aspx