Yorkshire in the late 1970s, and women have been told not to go anywhere alone. While the Yorkshire Ripper mostly kills “prostitutes”, he has been known to make mistakes and murder “innocent” women too – those reckless enough to walk through the streets of Leeds or Halifax or Sheffield without a male escort. What were they thinking?
This is the terrifying context in which Catherine Taylor grew up, hitting puberty just as Peter Sutcliffe and the South Yorkshire Police combined to send a monstrous message about what it means to be female – utterly vulnerable but also entirely to blame. “Things happen after a Badedas bath,” coos a ubiquitous advert for a pricey foaming oil, managing to sound more like a threat than a promise. Taylor and her school friends dare each other to run through the local cemetery after dark to prove that they are not “frit” of the man stalking their nightmares and shaping their days. This is a rare moment of unsupervision – mostly they are ferried door to door by panicked parents.
