| In April 1999, Jill Dando was slaughtered. A mad man (/woman) shot her in the bonce on the doorstep of her home as she returned from shopping. There was never any news as to what happened to the shopping. Perhaps looters were involved. Perhaps she was just browsing and didn't buy anything in the end. All is a matter for conjecture. I can't remember if I cried when I learned about her widowed fiance Alan Farthing, but something touched me deep inside the day the News (and Crimewatch UK and Holiday) died. Therefore the Acacia House Mortuary Board was set up in the kitchen to pay hommage to her and to publicise other timely and indeed untimely deaths. What follows is a cyber version of Acacia House Flat Two's kitchen wall between March and June 1999 when flatmate Andrew Bryden and I really should have been concentrating on our Finals rather than paying hommage to the slain presenter and her fellow death victims. The first I knew of her passing to "the other side" was when fellow student Laura the Punk before a German writing lesson with Iris informed the nation in a way similar to Peter Sissons on the night Diana died, that "Jill Dando had been stabbed." A vital inacuracy as she had in fact been gunned with a bullet. Henceforth I rely only on Andy Bryden for my death news. "Have you heard who's died, sir?" he'll ask. And then he'll tell me in a frightningly joyful fashion... |
