Sunday 11th August 2004: The Peterborough Ramblers Walk and a dreadful crime.

Pictures from Janet and Dawn.  Total mess of a meandering commentary from Tony Attwood (so no change there).  Horror story from local newspapers.

Full of bravado and general chit chat about how I know all this technology stuff and can put up pictures hither and thither, I wrote to all and sundry saying “give me permission concerning the pictures of Sunday’s walk on 11th August 2024 and I shall put them up for posterity on the Peterborough Ramblers website for all to admire.”

And yes permission was immediately granted, very kindly by Janet and Dawn.

And then…. it all started to unfold.

I really did think I knew what I was doing, although as most people who know me will quickly say that this state of mind is me at my most dangerous, for taking pictures from another person’s collection on a mobile phone and transferring them onto the website is a little bit tougher than doing it from my own phone (which by and large I own) onto this website (which by and large recognises me as the editor).

However I am not one to be beaten and so with the help of the chief executive of Google and 143 members of his team, I think I have got the idea of how to take a collection of pictures from the Peterborough Ramblers group published on a fellow member’s phone and transfer them to the website.

At least I think these are the right pictures from Sunday’s walk.  If not, it’s someone else’s fault.

But now I have a problem because I have taken so long to transfer the pictures from those published in the Ramblers group I have lost all my notes on where the walk was.

However, I should imagine that by this time you are not the slightest be surprised about this.

What I can tell you is that the day was a Sunday in August 2024, and by my reckoning that is going to make it around 11th.

But where was the walk?  Well fortunately a map was provided which shows me it was Witham on the Hill and onwards via Manthorpe.

So what is this Witham on the Hill of which you speak, I hear you cry, or I would if I wasn’t now hiding under my desk after four hours of trying to work out how to get the pictures up.

Well let me tell you, Witham on the Hill is a village in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, with a population of no less than 260.  Maybe more by now because that was the number in 2011, which was a long long time ago.

The question has arisen as to whether these numbers have changed since the days of counting but I couldn’t possibly comment.

The village, as befits all such villages has a hall which is Grade II listed, but it can’t compete with the ancient buildings we have encouraged on earlier walks where the remains that we found were profoundly mediaeval. This one is from 1730.

Now what I found interesting (but no one else will, so you can skip this bit if you wish) is that the local hall was owned by the Archedcon Robert Johnson and his descendants.

So why is this important I hear you ask.  Well, the said Robert J. apart from being famous blues singer, was the founder of both Oakham and Uppinggham Schools.  Both being founded in 1584.

So we could say that 1584 was the ultimate high point in the annals of school founding in Rutland.

I might perhaps add that I went to an outrageous talk by Stephen Fry given at Uppingham School, which was not only hilarious in itself, but had the added bonus of allowing me to watch those who had invited him to do the talk, cringe and at one point crawl under their chairs, as Mr Fry spoke of his time at the school and what he got up to when he ran away from it,

But I digress, and not for the first time.  For the walk then took our doughty walkers on to Manthorpe  a village on the Grantham to Lincoln A607 road of which it has been said.

Now the point here is that the infamous unsolved murder of Julie Pacey occurred in the area in 1994. It is believed the unidentified killer may have also been local to the area, and thus it was incredibly important to proceed with absolute caution at this point in the proceedings.  After all, one never knows.

At the heart of the crime was the mysterious “Overalls Man” whom it was decided was the prime suspect and seen hither and yon in the district just before the awful murder took place.

My own view is that some of the goats that we can see in these pictures would have had a lot to say on the issue had they been alive at the time, but for reasons that have never been made clear, the police did not interview them giving the excuse that they had not been born by the time of the awful crime.

I won’t go on with the tale beyond this point as clearly it is now old and exceptionally chilling news, but if you want to read the whole story about the event and how the killer has never been found, you can catch up with all the horrible details here.

But I would add one thing that I didn’t know when first stumbling across this story – this murder was just one of a number where the DNA of the perpetrator of the crime has been found, but the criminal has still not been caught.

Now although it is not a particular thing that I have given myself over to, there are people who rather than go walking across the countryside travel the land looking at places where there have been unsolved murders.

And on that rather ghoulish thought I’m going to leave my commentary here, but am quite happy to replace it with one written by anyone who was on the walk.

But I would also add that I won’t be walking on 15 August as my daughter and family are visiting from Australia, but I hope to rejoin everyone next Thursday.

And of course if anyone discovered any vital clues during last weekend’s walk you might want to forward them to the police.

Just as long as you don’t pass them on to me.

What I would also add however is that if you are taking pictures on this week’s walks you might care to forward them to me – as you will see from this, I can pick them up from the group website, but it is a lot easier if I can be sent them by email as attachments.  It’s Tony@schools.co.uk

But if you are publishing your pictures on the group website and want them also to appear here, please do let me know by email and I’ll endeavour to make the process more efficient next time around.