For the people of Northampton it seems that 2016 has had an
eerily familiar and tragic beginning. Still reeling from the brutal and
unsolved murder of pensioner David Brickwood in September of 2015 came the news
that a man’s body had been found at the end of January off Billing Brook Road.
Amazingly it appeared that the body may have lain undetected for up to two
years, hidden yards from the busy junction with the A43. Whilst that
information was still being processed it was revealed that missing 20 year old
India Chipchase had been found murdered in a house in St.James.
The outpouring of grief, anger and confusion over these
deaths is undeniably heartbreaking. Like most of you I have elderly relatives.
I have friends I have not seen nor heard of in a while and I have a young
daughter. Whether any of these crimes personally touched our lives we all feel
some sort of loss at the news. But how do we react to such horror? Is it a sign
of Northampton’s descent into lawlessness? Are we not safe to walk our own
streets? Who is to blame? Why did they happen, who is there to stop it or are
they just gruesome coincidences?
We are a very large and busy town and sometimes it seems
that we are all just charging in different directions trying to get to wherever
we need to be as fast as possible. Just drive into the St.Peter’s Way
roundabout at evening rush hour and you’ll see car brake lights rushing off
like Catherine Wheel sparks in every controlled direction. Brackmills chugs
along like a cheap Roman Candle and releases in short sharp bursts onto the
A45, which is to be avoided at all costs, though sadly cannot be avoided at any
cost. The Bedford Road roundabout into Cliftonville seems to be a Wacky
Races-style competition to ease into the correct lane before the car in front
or behind of you tries to steal a couple of yards. If an alien were to land
during Northampton’s rush hour they would be alarmed at the speed and pace of
Earth life before invariably being ran off the road by a carpet salesman in a
gold Mondeo indicating in the wrong direction.
Once we return from our rush-hour battles most of us will
jump onto social media. Facebook and Twitter can also seem a lawless and
dangerous place and its navigation equally perilous. What I have noticed since
the tragic death of India Chipchase is the overwhelming sense of community
displayed by Facebookers and the Twitterati. We are not the snarling,
space-grabbing, horn-tooting, fist-waving cussers that accompanied our journey
home. I don’t know if this is a temporary phenomenon but it does show that
Northampton is still a community. It laughs, loves and grieves together. It
sadly won’t bring these three people back but what a tribute to their memories
if we could carry forward just some of this sense into our real lives outside
of cyberspace.
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