The Dark Heart of Suburbia

There are places we are supposed to find menacing: neglected churchyards down a lonely country lane in a cold night with the wind howling round a ruined church tower; or derelict urban streets covered in gang slogans inhabited by diverse menacing locals. But these are all clichés. My view is that true horror is found in the mundane, particularly in the English suburban streets of detached, semi-detached and terraced houses. Horror in Fred West’s terrace house, with bodies stuffed in the cellar, the garden and in the wall cavities. Or horror in Dennis Nilson’s house in London, where the dismembered remains of his many victims were found by DynoRod, called in to unblock the drains.

I confess that I was born and raised in a standard English suburban location (‘community’ seems an inappropriate word). When I was a child, Shirley was a string of shops along the main road from Birmingham to Stratford, plus several streets of semi-detached and detached houses. It had once been an attractive village, and there was still an old blacksmith’s forge and some timber-framed buildings. I was able to walk to the countryside from my home, and the streets were full of children playing. But the old buildings were demolished, and Shirley stretched ever further over what had been the beautiful green fields, woods and hedgerows of Warwickshire. The stream where I used fish for sticklebacks became a ditch in the middle of a housing estate. I used to walk through a wood and come out the other side in a cornfield. Now the wood remains, but is surrounded by houses. Shirley stretches for miles along the main road, lined with the dreary shed cities of supermarkets, DIY stories, household furnishers, and electrical goods stores. The roads are full of cars (parked or moving), and children sit indoors watching television and computer games.

Shirley has not had its mass murderer, but it did have the only political party in England to collapse because its leader set fire to his wife. The Shirley Ratepayers’ Association in July 1997 had three councillors on Solihull Borough Council: Trevor Eames, his wife Ursula, and Brenda Otton. Ursula had been having an affair with a council official, David Parfitt, and photographic evidence of this had been collected for Trevor by Brenda. According to the press, David and his wife met Trevor and Ursula to discuss things over dinner. This does not seem to have resulted in reconciliation, because Trevor subsequently attacked David with a hammer. Ursula eventually decided to leave Trevor, and he responded by throwing a glass of petrol over her and setting it alight. He was sentenced for seven years in prison afer causing what the papers uniformly describe as ‘horrific injuries’ to his wife. This seems to have been the end of the Shirley Ratepayers’ Association as a political force, but not of Trevor.

He emerged from prison after four and a half years, and resumed his interest in local politics. He soon after stood (unsuccessfully) for the council, and is now a very active secretary of the Solihull and Meriden Residents Association (SAMRA). In the picture below he is standing next to Nikki Sinclaire who at that time was a representative of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the European Parliament. Ms Sinclaire has now been expelled from UKIP, after refusing to join meetings of the group to which it is affiliated in the European Parliament. Apparently, she discovered that UKIP and its affiliates are ultra right-wing and intolerant of her lesbian sexuality. The latest development is that SAMRA candidates (including Trevor) are contesting every seat in the Solihull Borough elections, while Nikki is standing for the UK Parliament as a SAMRA candidate. The horror continues.