i
The world is mostly safe and kind –
Clean your teeth, work hard, be good,
Polite, on time, and you will find
That life rewards you as it should.
Don’t fear the ones who break the law –
They’re far from here, locked up in jails.
Be good, be kind and we’ll make sure
That monsters stay in fairy tales.
Then
suddenly
everything changed.
Parents’ faces lined with doubt;
anxious warnings:
Come straight home.
Stay away from the woods.
Don’t talk to strangers.
Why?
What had stolen
the joy from simple life?
In time the panic faded.
Life returned
only a little less
carefree,
safe.
Years later we learned
of children taken,
horror upon horror.
Of Brady, full of lies,
of Hindley staring cold ahead,
and understood a little of
our parents’ fears.
ii
The Christian group was fun.
Prizes given for various games;
a leather-clad Bible my reward
for memorising 66 strange names.
The leader, with his sleek 2-seater car,
conkers in woods nearby,
girls in the group that caught
my adolescent eye.
The stories were great:
the broken roof,
the children blessed,
the punning fun
of publicans and paralytics.
For months we went,
my brother and I,
until the stories grew darker,
and I quaked and sobbed at night
afraid that I was bound for hell.
My mother wisely
banned us from the group.
