As this case is back on police radar at present, I thought it would be useful to give some background to facilitate any future discussions here and to give a context to any future developments. Although I did not live in Norfolk at the time this body was found, I lived in Norwich (Norfolk's county town and administrative centre) from the mid 1980s for most of the following decade, and 1980s Norfolk was virtually unchanged from 1970s Norfolk.
A glance at Google maps reveals one very obvious fact: Norfolk sticks out of the eastern side of England and is bounded on two sides, the north and east, by the North Sea. In terms of UK geography, therefore, it is a region one deliberately goes
to, not
through on the way to somewhere else. Furthermore, it is bounded on the west by The Fens, a low lying area of meandering rivers and meres which was waterlogged until the late 17[SUP]th[/SUP] century when Dutch engineers were brought in to drain the marshes. (Today it is a major area for sugar beet, potato and vegetable growing.) So until 300 or 350 years ago Norfolk was virtually cut off on a third side as well. Historically, therefore, trade and transport were largely done by water (river or coastal). In short, it is geographically isolated and until recently its native population was insular and suspicious of “incomers”. We “incomers” had a joke amongst ourselves: “Happisburgh, Norfolk. Twinned with Innsmouth, Massachusetts.” It was that sort of place.
At the time of this murder there were three main groups of “incomers” in the county:
- Tourists Norfolk has had a tourist industry since the late 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century Originally this was focussed on traditional seaside resorts such as Sheringham and Great Yarmouth and later supplemented by holiday parks such as Butlins and Pontins and boating holidays on the Norfolk Broads (flooded mediaeval peat diggings).
- Students The University of East Anglia (UEA) was established in Norwich in the mid 1960s. It's a standard concrete-and-glass 1960s university and was the first in the UK to offer Bachelors degrees in Environmental Science. There is also a well-regarded art college in the city.
- Military personnel The RAF has had many bases in the area which were originally established during WWII. Today some of these are leased to the USAF, eg Lakenheath.
There were also two smaller groups of outsiders in the area:
These are my latest thoughts on Our Lady @ Cockley Cley:- The East of England has always been absolutely rife with trafficking - drugs, people, you name it. From light aircraft landing in Kent, to all the shipping container ports on the east coast, this was and is organised crime territory. The Tattingstone murder was rumoured to be linked to the Krays, the often overlooked murder @ the Sutton Bridge filling station 25 miles away was claimed (Though he was never charged) by hitman John Childs, now serving a whole-life tariff. Just because this poor lady was naked might not mean this was a direct sex crime. I'm thinking it might have been a "clean-up" job from the notorious "parties" at the mansions in this area owned by one of the crime bosses active in the 1960s & 1970s. If it was a sexual predator though, the perpetrator wasn't Sutcliffe [See post #14] , and IMO it wasn't Tobin either. He liked to keep his victims close i.e. in the back yard. Not the Wests [ditto, plus too unsophisticated] and not Nilsen, who favoured young men. Anyone else?
- Gypsies and travellers who provided seasonal and itinerant labour for farms across Norfolk and The Fens. These groups have traditionally been suspicious of, indeed hostile to, outsiders, especially the authorities. They therefore tend to sort out internal disputes or issues themselves, often violently.
- New Age and hippy types Because of its isolation, there were many large, country properties in Norfolk which could at that time be bought or leased very cheaply and a number large houses and small estates became communes, healing centres and similar. WWOOF had also been founded in the UK in 1971, giving volunteers a chance to live and work on small organic farms in return for board and lodging. Volunteers tended to move around, following agricultural need and chasing different experiences. By definition, these communities tended to be idealistic, perhaps naïve, drifters who usually hitchhiked and were therefore vulnerable.
I said earlier that one goes
to rather than
through Norfolk. Great Yarmouth has long been the county's main port but it has never had a ferry service to the continent. Freight came into the port and was unloaded there onto lorries to be hauled eastwards towards the Midlands, so there has never been a flow-through of road traffic to and from the continent. The nearest RORO and passenger ferry to the continent was and is at Felixstowe, near Ipswich.
There were three main roads in and out of the county.
- The A12 runs south from Great Yarmouth to Ipswich (Suffolk), Colchester and Chelmsford (Essex) before ending in London.
- The A11 runs south west to Cambridge, Newmarket (horse racing centre). Until the late 1980s this was single carriageway as far as the Newmarket Bypass. Dualling was completely by the early 1990s. It now joins the M11 and ends in London.
- The A47 runs west from Great Yarmouth, round Norwich, past Kings Lynn, across the Fens to Peterborough and Leicester before joining the M1 with access to all regions of the UK. The Norfolk section of this road was mostly single carriageway in the 1970s and 1980s but has been completely dualled since then. The A47 runs north of Swaffham, about 5 miles from where the body was found.
I'm going to try to pull together my thoughts about the body and how what has been made public about it might or might not link to the information above, and will post them separately
