28 Jun 2010
Murderous intent
Not many of you would know who James Hanratty was. I say was, because he was hanged in 1962, when I was 15 and he was our window cleaner. A nice enough chap, always with a fag on the go, a smile and an eye for the ladies. A bit too much of an eye it turned out, as he was accused of rape and murder by Valerie Storie, victim and only witness of the famous " A6 Murder ". His family and eminent writers maintained his innocence for years but he was a gonna. Not so innocent was Cumbria’s Derrick Bird," Birdie " whose well documented rampage of resentment filled last months papers and gave brief attention to a selective huddle of " TV Psychologists " who told us bugger all we didn’t suspect ourselves, which is that " the quiet ones are always the worst". James Hanratty was a Londoner and went to my school, I remember petitions and whispers beside trestle tables placed outside Kingsbury Gaumont Cinema. How could our nice window cleaner murder someone, he MUST be innocent?
We didn’t have TV Psychologists on the NEWS in those days, not many of us had a telly, and to be frank it was all quite exciting thinking one minute he was polishing our windows, then the bakerlite transistor in the kitchen was telling us there was no hope from the rope. This was not the case in Cumbria as cameras offered a blow by blow account almost as it happened, complete with neighbours offering home spun accounts of " the quiet man, looking after his mother ".
A phrase that I repeat & caught my ears as I trawled through my personal development was RESENTMENT KILLS THE CONTAINER IT’S KEPT IN. A telling story.
In my using days I came across as someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly, a humorous people pleaser. Yet one night I threw my lover James through a plate glass window and he ended up in intensive care for a week. The reason? Well two reasons actually, first jealousy and the other was he tried to strangle me with a telephone wire while drunk.
I only released myself from the grim reaper by crashing a rare Susie Cooper cup on his head. I never forgave him for breaking that cup, and the main artery in my right hand, the scar still bears witness to the power of fury and the excitement of blood to this day.
The power of destruction is in all of us, perhaps not all with murderous intent, but self harm and the desire to harm others for revengeful spite can linger like beer on a pub carpet. In recovery terms it’s best to constantly check out those harmful practices that reside inside, the perceived attacks, the victimhood and unfairness of it all that justify acting out with intent. Our innocence will save us from hidden death, should we seek it. But innocence, like the face of a sleeping baby, is buried deep amongst the grief and escapades of survival that got us to this point of awareness. Getting even never works. Acceptance does.
Even Scott Peck’s opening line to The Road Less Travelled admits that " Life is difficult ", so accepting that betrayal, injustice and personal attack is only a perception of a situation is useful in exploring innocence. Separating ourselves from the perceptive thoughts of others is the key to inner solace. The drug of choice for many is being " nice " while harbouring agendas of attack."Not my stuff" is affirming lack of attack. The quiet ones who look nice and harbour revenge are aplenty in the codependent society we have created, who people please with murderous intent, who remember every grudge like a learned cleric quoting chapter and verse. The long term solution is to daily practice clearing emotional house, and as THE SHAKERS philosophy practiced " creating a house and mind ready for God to visit ". Now THAT is quite a task, but not impossible.
Let emotional house cleaning be the new OCD.
