The Myra Hindley I knew

How Hindley's death was announced on Friday

Myra Hindley was one of the most reviled criminals of modern times. Few people had a good word to say about her. But what was she really like?

Jane Fisher (not her real name) got to know her through prison visits and a long correspondence. These are her recollections.

I first met Myra Hindley in prison in Kent in September 1989. It was a visit organised by a friend who thought that as a journalist I shouldn't judge her without meeting her.

I was very nervous. I had met many famous names throughout my 30-year career, but evil Myra?

It was still summer, but inside the prison it seemed dark and sad. I was taken to her cell and spent the afternoon sitting there with her, watched by a prison officer.

She was so ordinary, dare I say it, so normal looking. I wouldn't have known it was her.

She spoke slowly with a deep Manchester accent. She told me she was a normal human being for 18 years before she met Ian Brady.

She said she finally reverted to normality after 'shaking free' of what she had become with him. I believed her.

She said that if she could have changed history she would have done so

She wore ordinary clothes, leggings, a little make-up, a little jewellery, and the rope-soled espadrille shoes which friends sent to her.

She had many friends, most too nervous to mention it, but some were brave enough to go public about their connection with Britain's "most-hated woman" - that was how she described herself.

I visited her and wrote to her for about 10 years and continued to believe what she was telling me. She wanted to confess to her part in other missing children (Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett), and in fact she did.

She said she wanted to go back on the Moors and try to locate the graves, which she did. She said that if she could have changed history she would have done so.

She talked to me about what she would do when she was eventually released - she always clung on to that hope.

Her favourite image was a seagull flying over the sea, free and anonymous in a flock

She only wanted to care for her mother, who she said had suffered far more than her, because of what she (Myra) had done.

She dreamed of perhaps living in a closed convent, perhaps in Ireland, with her mother. Her hope was great and her guilt was terrible.

Her favourite image was a seagull flying over the sea, free and anonymous in a flock. I used to send her cards with seabirds on them.

Myra became very religious, and became a Roman Catholic. She once told me if she hadn't been Catholic she would have killed herself long ago.

She once said that there were occasions during all those years when she trod 'the fine line between despair and death' and feared for her sanity.

But she believed suicide was the only mortal sin that could not be forgiven because there was no form of confession.

She came to trust me, she telephoned me and spoke quietly so that she was not overheard, because she was supposed to be using her phonecard to call her mother.

She talked about going grey, about clothes, the horror of having her ears pierced, what she'd done, read, studied. The more I got to know her the more normal she seemed.

Destiny

She was interested in my family, and she wrote a long letter of condolence when my father died, the edges of the notepaper coloured in black.

Myra always counted her blessings and there were many things, such as having a bed to lie on, clean sheets once a week, radiators in the winter, three meals a day (although she ate little) and her many friends from diverse backgrounds who supplied her with everything she needed.

She once said that if she were given parole tomorrow, she would be able to pick up the phone tonight and she would be taken care of, which not many people in prison would be able to depend on.

Although she had great hope and beliefs, she felt life was pre-destined. She once told me that if it was in God's design of things that she stayed in prison, she totally accepted that because she had placed her life in his hands, knowing God knew what was best for her.

It didn't stop her dreaming of sitting on a bus, on a train, or by the sea, and wondering what it would be like to put a key in a lock and opening a door, or having a bed big enough to lie spread out on it without banging her arms and legs on a cell wall.

Her cell was sparse, no luxuries. Her greatest hate was the constant attention of the tabloid newspapers.

She wanted to be faceless, and leave behind the blond staring face with the evil eyes which is the person she was in the sixties.