“Quiet, but sadistic”: The troubled early life of Britain’s most notorious child murderer
Ian Brady portrayed himself as an enigmatic criminal with a happy childhood. But according to those who knew the Scottish-born serial killer, his childhood was troubled and full of missed warning signs.
N.B. This article is specifically about Ian Brady’s childhood. To read about Myra Hindley’s childhood, read another one of my articles linked here.
The case of Ian Brady, one of the notorious Moors Murderers, continues to fascinate and horrify – even seven years after his death in a psychiatric ward.
Between 1963 and 1965, Brady and his then-girlfriend Myra Hindley abducted and murdered five children around Manchester, England. At least four of the children were sexually assaulted, and at least three had been buried in shallow graves on Saddleworth Moor—a vast stretch of moorland in the Peak District.
Brady and Hindley’s crimes have been the subject of numerous movies, books, songs, paintings, plays, and even two musicals. Millions of words have been printed in news and academic publications across the world, attempting to get to the bottom of how it was that the sadistic couple came to cause so much devastation to families across the Northwest.
Without downplaying Hindley’s involvement as an abductor and an equally complicit party in the sexual assaults and murders, it is widely understood that Brady was the instigator of the crimes. I explored the various accounts of his childhood in detail in another recent article, and this article will be a more simplified retelling of the early life of one half of the UK’s most notorious killer couple.
Childhood
Born in Glasgow on 2nd January 1938, Brady’s early life was marked by instability. He never knew his father, and his mother, Peggy, struggled to raise him alone. They lived in a cold and damp one-bedroom apartment, and Peggy would often leave her son with a babysitter whilst she worked to provide for them. When there were none available, she was forced to leave him alone in his cot, and it has since been theorised that this harmed his temporal lobe — which regulates bonding and emotional stability, sexual desire, the ability to identify the emotions of others, and the integration of emotion with perception. Brady’s overwhelmed mother eventually sent him to live with a foster family when he was around four months old.
It has been reported that, from a young age, Brady showed signs of disturbing behavior. He was reported to be prone to violent temper tantrums, as well as a loner who displayed cruelty to animals and other children. These are often red flags for future antisocial behavior. Brady’s early fascination with the Nazis and gangsters (like Al Capone and John Dillinger) further underscored his troubled psyche. These interests, coupled with his growing disdain for societal norms, were a dangerous cocktail.
When Brady was around thirteen years old, he found out that he was illegitimate, and he claimed that this left him feeling resentful.
Brady’s adolescent years were marked by brushes with the law. He engaged in petty crimes and was convicted by Glasgow’s juvenile three times in succession for housebreaking — the final conviction resulted in Brady being sent to live with his birth mother Peggy in Manchester, England, after his foster parents admitted defeat. He was caught a fourth time after helping somebody steal from a fruit market in Manchester when he was seventeen years old, for which he spent two years in “borstal” — a now-extinct form of juvenile detention.
During this time, another inmate described him as “a very quiet sort of fellow but sadistic. If we were wrestling it would start as a joke and end up with Brady putting his hands round his opponent’s throat and nearly choking them before he would let go.”
Ultimately, borstal only served to deepen Brady’s resentment towards authority and society at large.
Meeting Myra Hindley
By the time Brady met Hindley in January 1961, he had already embraced a nihilistic worldview. Hindley was a Catholic, and though she would later profess that she was deeply committed to her faith at this time, this extent has been disputed.
At this time, Brady had been working for nearly two years as a stock clerk at Millwards Merchandise, a small chemical distribution firm in Gorton, Manchester. Hindley — a Gorton native who was then 18 years old — had just started working at the firm as a shorthand typist. Though Hindley claimed that she instantly fixated on Brady upon meeting him, Brady did not show any interest whatsoever in Hindley for the first eleven months.
This all changed in December 1961, when Brady noticed her reading a book of poetry by William Wordsworth during their lunch break. Impressed by his interest, Hindley repeated this a few days later with a poetry anthology by William Blake, finding out that Brady was a keen admirer of his work. They danced together at the office Christmas party a few days later, and struck up a relationship soon after — although this was a more casual relationship for the first few months with Hindley explaining that she was Brady’s “Saturday-night stand.”
Brady and Hindley grew close over a love of literature and classical music and considered themselves far more cultured than everybody else around them. According to Hindley:
“One thing which we both shared was a dissatisfaction with belonging to the working class and being trapped in it. We could have risen above that; at Millwards he had the prospects of promotion. I could have studied and gained the qualifications necessary for a career climb. But it wasn’t to be.”
Brady had a special affection for the writings of the French libertine and pornographer, the Marquis de Sade (after whom the word “sadism” is named), and had studied widely on nihilistic philosophers. Brady had sexually deviant and paedophilic fantasies, as well as a longing to commit crimes, and he related to Sade’s core tenet — that regardless of the repercussions, people should be allowed to act on their most basic impulses. This eventually crossed over into his and Hindley’s sex life, and they felt compelled by the idea of committing crimes.
Brady and Hindley initially discussed the idea of robberies, and Hindley even acquired several guns for the pair to practise with (though she was a hopeless shot). She also learned to drive on his insistence. However, they were soon put off by the idea and it became confined to their fantasies. If they were going to commit crimes together, they would leave no loose ends and it would be something a lot more sacred in nature. They convinced themselves that their depravity knew no bounds, and they proved themselves correct.
Read about the murders committed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley here. You can also read my full account of Brady’s early life – including citations for both of my articles around the topic – here.
