Keith Bennett Walk 1

One Saturday in February 2016 the weather forecast said it would be dry but windy. Being an ex-SAS soldier I decided to take Alfie the dog on a hearty walk at a high level and suffer a bit. I packed sandwiches and coffee and set off. I drove on high roads across to semi-rural Marsden. I park near Marsden golf club. A road cuts through the fields and you have to dodge flying balls. I ate a cheese sandwich and had a coffee and it would be three hours before we returned for another, hands and paws lashed by winds.

We set off, me listening to an audio book set in Oxford University - a man’s life from university to old age. I was wrapped up well in clothes but my mind would be wrapped up in this story for three hours. I needed to burn out my lungs with some exertion so I would walk about two hours from Marsden reservoir up and up and up to Saddleworth Moor, reward myself with a chocolate caramel then jog about an hour back down to the car.

I’d done this walk before and in my head it’s the “Keith Bennett” Walk - he was one of the Moors Murders victims and his bones are still buried out there on Saddleworth Moor. This 12-year-old lad was taken off a street in Manchester by Brady and Hindley, abused, strangled on the moors and hastily buried where he died. So...Saddleworth Moor, that’s where the walk would end specifically at a photograph of Keith which has tied to a fence high up near a lay-by. The weather-lashed photo has been there all the years I’ve been passing by it.

I had a quick look at Marsden from the dam that feeds it then headed up and up. There was hardly anyone out walking; they must have looked at the unforgiving forecast as the higher the path meandered the stronger the wind speed. I continued up away from Marsden dam. The howling winds invited hail stones into their ferocity, so hard I had to put my gloved fingers across my face to stop the pain. They came as thought fired from thousands of pea-shooters. Felt a sorry for the dog but he seemed to enjoy it.

In the middle of nowhere I got chatting to a young Chinese couple, one of each gender and dressed to climb Mount Everest. Good looks suggested their age to be combined age to be 28 but they were each that age, both at Salford University and walkers in all weathers. I could hardly hear them as the winds blew harsher and sleet succumbed to hard hail stone.

All afternoon I passed only about twenty people, all who said hello. I passed a man wearing half-moon spectacles and ears so large they looked like they’d been bought from the joke shop and clipped on. His lips were blue and I hoped he didn’t collapse and I’d have to kiss them doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I don’t know how he had lit the cigarette clasped in a slightly burnt gloved fingers. I once passed a man walking up a hill carrying one of those huge foam fingers sometimes seen at football matches. Lying in bed I often wonder what he did with that finger.

The path went up and up and curling around hills. I passed streams and deer and sheep. I came round one corner and a young couple were stood on a rock kissing passionately. The woman looked a little embarrassed when they were running out of oxygen and eventually parted and stepped off the rock. The man had flecks of snow in his ginger beard and looked like he had found a £50 note. The sky alternated between white, blue and grey and delivered hail stones that pinged hard on my face. I had to press my gloved hands round my face to stop the pain. My face was going post-box red with pain and cold. When I said a few words to a fellow walker my cheeks didn’t work properly and I sounded slightly drunk.

On a bridge I passed two couples in their fifties. I always observe the length of women’s hair and few over fifty seem to have long hair. It seems most eventually opt for TDC - The Drastic Cut and hair will not surpass its longest length again. I read in an article the average age a person considers their looks to start fading is 37. I felt old when I bought my first ladder from B&Q at 27 (which was £27) and I thought perhaps boyhood was coming to an end.

Up and up we went and I was submerged so much in the audio book that I felt I was in the hallowed quadrangles and squares at Oxfordshire University where it was set. It was an “I” book (written in the first person) which are always the best ones. I have read many Lee Child’s novels and the mere four written in the first person are easily the better ones. We passed the last reservoir and finally reached the lay-by on Saddleworth Moor where the photos of Keith Bennet were tied on a fence (two there now.) Not many cars parked here today; the wind was so strong they would have struggled to push open their cars doors.

I looked at the photo of Keith Bennett - was this the lay-by where he was brought and murdered? Keith was 12 years old when vanished on his way to his grandmother's house in Longsight on 16th June 1964. That evening Myra Hindley asked him to help her put some boxes in her Mini pick-up. It was a trap as her boyfriend Ian Brady was on the back seat. She drove them up to a lay-by on Saddleworth Moor and pulled up in a lay-by. She remained in the car as Brady took Keith out on the moor to help him look for a lost glove. It was just a ruse to get the boy on his own. Brady led the lad to a place where a spade was hidden in the grass. Over the next half an hour Brady sexually assaulted the lad then strangled him with a piece of string. A shallow grave was hastily dug.

Brady and Hindley were arrested and imprisoned for murdering other children but for two decades the police didn’t know for sure if they had killed Keith Bennet. They suspected it and many searches have been carried out on the moors. The investigation was reopened in 1985 when Brady confessed to the murder. Later Brady and Hindley were taken separately to Saddleworth moor to assist the police in their search for the shallow grave but nothing was found.

Keith’s brother still holds onto hope of finding his dead brother and here is his website...

http://www.searchingforkeith.com/

I didn’t stay long at the lay-by as the wind was whipping passed so fast I could hardly hear the audio book in my ears. My face hurt. Also I was worried about the dog getting cold (he won’t wear a coat under any circumstances.) As we started jogging down the long winding path back to Marsden village the tops of the distant hills were fuzzy. Snow was being blown in.

Galloping back down that path against side-ways travelling snow was the best part of the day. Alfie loved it, too. I was aware of an exhilarating glee as the dog ran ahead, snowflakes were bashing against my face and the wind buffeted against my body. I knew we’d make it - it was all downhill, coffee and sandwiches were waiting, few people were in our way and the terrain was flecked with more white. I hadn’t eaten much that day but I was running on the energy that comes from a juncture of circumstance, being out in nature and the thrill of feeling alive. There’re some narrow springy bridges that cross streams and I felt so invincible I didn’t even care if I slipped off and thudded into the earth.

As the valley turned direction the snow petered out and dry weather returned. Moreover when we eventually got back down to Marsden Reservoir there were touches of blue in the sky. Back in the car I had a frothy coffee and caramel cream and my brain actually throbbed with pleasure. Though we had been out for a few hours I didn’t want the afternoon to end. I put the heater on at full blast and, under a pinking sky drove up country lanes to the lay-by where Keith photo is. I had another coffee and watched the sun go down behind tops of hills.

Looking down on Marsden where many scenes from Where The Heart Is were filmed.