Yesterday was our monthly writing group get together, and as it was approaching Halloween, we’d decided we should trying to write something to match the season. I’ve shared the story I wrote which was based on an actual incident which happened to me in the 1970’s when the awful crimes committed by the so-called Yorkshire Ripper were happening. It was the autumn of 1977, and I was living in Manchester at the time, and I’d been out one evening with friends, I was walking home along Beech Road in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. It was late on and I was alone, and as I trotted along thinking about nothing much, my mind wandered to the murders of those poor women, including poor Jean Jordan, whose body was left in Southern Cemetery – a twenty-five minute walk away. I glanced behind me but there was no sign of anyone, and so I hurried on. The streetlights were on, and everything was glittery as it had been raining, and my senses were heightened to every sound. Thankfully, I arrived home safely, nothing untoward happened, no Ripper, no body in the old cemetery I had to walk through, all was well.
My friends all wrote great stories, and I felt as if mine was rather plain and uninteresting, and not really very scary – a few shrieking owls, some screams which could have been foxes, a shady figure seeming to follow the main character through the dark streets of Manchester as the street lights went off, an abandoned cemetery which was only mentioned, not described… no a paltry tale of nothing much, not really spooky at all! We are beginning to prepare for our next anthology, and I think I will have to look at my story again and give it a bit more of a shiver factor. I’ll also have to have a look at my other writing group stories, because i think some of them are somewhat lacking!!
