Tweet
A6 murder course.
Hello Viv,
You asked me about the time I attended night school classes on the A6 case; well it was a long time ago I can tell you that much.
If you have read some of my earlier posts you will know I have been most interested in this case since about 1971. Well one evening I was driving towards Glossop in Derbyshire and I had the radio on it was tuned in to Radio Manchester but in those days radios were not what they are today and reception was very poor. The year would be about 1981. It was a sort of talk radio show that was on and I wasn’t really taking a lot of notice but then I heard the presenter mention the A6 murder case. I had to stop the car to get better reception and the presenter said that Manchester College of Adult Education would be running a twelve or thirteen week course on the murder and it was starting in a couple of weeks and if you wanted to go on it you would need to enrol quickly as nearly all the places were already filled.
Next morning I rang the College and enrolled and went along to pay my fees.
Anyway a couple of weeks later I went to the first lesson. I was really looking forward to it but decided to go early so that I could sit at the back out of the way. I suppose there were about twenty of us and there was a tutor and he had an assistant. I expected to just sit there and listen to what he said.
After about five minutes I started to ask questions and it quickly became a discussion between me and the tutor. I don’t think any of the others had much idea about the case but they all seemed very interested.
During the third lesson some of the evidence was being discussed, and I can’t now remember just what, and I asked the tutor about something he had never heard about. He asked me where I had got the information from and I said Foot’s book and as I had it with me I showed him.
He had the original first edition hardback whereas I had the paperback with a July 1972 postscript. The tutor asked to see it and asked if he could borrow it until the next week which he did. He gave it back to me and said he had photocopied the postscript pages.
At the end of the lesson he asked me to call in at his office. He asked me why I was attending the course as he thought I had an equal knowledge of the case as he did. He said he had almost completed a book on the case but doubted whether it would be published due to the libel laws. He told me he was going to name the man behind the crime and the man who had committed the murder. It was definitely not James Hanratty he said. He was very passionate about the case and had run the course a couple of times in the past and he said it was always well attended. But he assured me that his book would be published one day and to look out for it.
He told me the course would be solely based on Paul foot’s book and so after our discussion I decided that I would gain nothing from the rest of the course and did not go back.
One thing though about five or six years later at Christmas I was in a pub in Manchester having a drink with a few mates and I spotted the tutor in the other room. He obviously recognised me and gave me a nod and a wave. Now this guy was not Bob Woffinden and I doubt very much if he was Leonard Miller but I have never seen the publication of any other book on the case and I never saw the teacher again. So what became of him and his book I do not know. Maybe he is on this thread.
Tony
Hello Viv,
You asked me about the time I attended night school classes on the A6 case; well it was a long time ago I can tell you that much.
If you have read some of my earlier posts you will know I have been most interested in this case since about 1971. Well one evening I was driving towards Glossop in Derbyshire and I had the radio on it was tuned in to Radio Manchester but in those days radios were not what they are today and reception was very poor. The year would be about 1981. It was a sort of talk radio show that was on and I wasn’t really taking a lot of notice but then I heard the presenter mention the A6 murder case. I had to stop the car to get better reception and the presenter said that Manchester College of Adult Education would be running a twelve or thirteen week course on the murder and it was starting in a couple of weeks and if you wanted to go on it you would need to enrol quickly as nearly all the places were already filled.
Next morning I rang the College and enrolled and went along to pay my fees.
Anyway a couple of weeks later I went to the first lesson. I was really looking forward to it but decided to go early so that I could sit at the back out of the way. I suppose there were about twenty of us and there was a tutor and he had an assistant. I expected to just sit there and listen to what he said.
After about five minutes I started to ask questions and it quickly became a discussion between me and the tutor. I don’t think any of the others had much idea about the case but they all seemed very interested.
During the third lesson some of the evidence was being discussed, and I can’t now remember just what, and I asked the tutor about something he had never heard about. He asked me where I had got the information from and I said Foot’s book and as I had it with me I showed him.
He had the original first edition hardback whereas I had the paperback with a July 1972 postscript. The tutor asked to see it and asked if he could borrow it until the next week which he did. He gave it back to me and said he had photocopied the postscript pages.
At the end of the lesson he asked me to call in at his office. He asked me why I was attending the course as he thought I had an equal knowledge of the case as he did. He said he had almost completed a book on the case but doubted whether it would be published due to the libel laws. He told me he was going to name the man behind the crime and the man who had committed the murder. It was definitely not James Hanratty he said. He was very passionate about the case and had run the course a couple of times in the past and he said it was always well attended. But he assured me that his book would be published one day and to look out for it.
He told me the course would be solely based on Paul foot’s book and so after our discussion I decided that I would gain nothing from the rest of the course and did not go back.
One thing though about five or six years later at Christmas I was in a pub in Manchester having a drink with a few mates and I spotted the tutor in the other room. He obviously recognised me and gave me a nod and a wave. Now this guy was not Bob Woffinden and I doubt very much if he was Leonard Miller but I have never seen the publication of any other book on the case and I never saw the teacher again. So what became of him and his book I do not know. Maybe he is on this thread.
Tony
Comment