11th January 1978
Post date: 15-Nov-2017 19:31:54
Transcript
11/1/78
I’ve been put in charge of a Missing Person case. A mentally-handicapped man has gone missing from his home. It’s only just round the corner from us, but we don’t know the family. Dad wasn’t very sympathetic when I told him why I was late home. He can’t understand why “someone like that” wasn’t in an institution. In his young day the lad would have been shut away in an asylum, I suppose. He insisted on me double-checking all the doors and windows before we went to bed in case “that lunatic” might be roaming the streets and trying to get in and “murder us in our beds”. I tried to explain that he wasn’t psychotic, just a bit slow, but Dada wasn’t having any of it. In his book, either you’re in your right mind or you’re not, and then you’re a potential threat to society.
We’ve had dogs out searching the area, but no joy. They got excited when they got to the little RC church on Kiln Lane, but there was nothing there, apart from a sort of “den” in among the bushes – the sort of thing that boys sometimes make for themselves. It’s to be hoped the poor lad isn’t relying on something like that for shelter tonight – it’s bitterly cold out.