22.06.26

A heatwave · the long search for old case files

Setting up this Substack over a couple of days has been restorative, and it’s had me looking back through the images again. I really looked forward to taking my photo this morning to be able to share it; feeling very positive about the week ahead. Although, we’ve got a heatwave here in the UK, which is really not favourite for post-production.

Back when I had big edit studios in London, on days like this, when everyone asphyxiated under the orange city dust and heat, we would abandon the whole enterprise and relocate to the pub - clients, editors, everyone. But not this week, I need to get my head down and make progress.

Over the weekend a difficult-to-find book that I’d been waiting for finally arrived. The book is an account of one of the stories that I’m covering in this film, a murder case from 40-odd years ago. I’m not making a crime film, to be clear, but crime is part of it, and getting hold of materials from a case this old has been tough. I was hopeful that the book would include a number of photographs which I could then trace to source, but alas, nothing. Text only.

Still, it’ll be an interesting read. But it’s not going to do what I wanted, which is annoying; it’s going to drag me back into research. I’ve been trying for weeks to go through the courts and get the evidentiary record, but it’s a challenge - they don’t have records stretching back that far, and the clerks that I have spoken to are finding it difficult, which is a bit strange - it was a high-profile case and I didn’t expect it would be this tricky to pin down the records. The county has a system in which you have to present in person in order to interrogate the police files. In other parts of the US, I’ve been able to surface materials by just putting in a request online, but here I have to either find someone local who can go to police precinct, or fly out from the UK myself, which I’m not going to do. Other options are getting in touch with the author of this book to see if he can help; or the lawyers. I have reached out to the lawyers, but nothing back from them so far. Sourcing the evidence remains a stubbornly live thread.

Yesterday was Father’s Day. My children are still small, they both asked if they could visit their grandparents for the afternoon so we dropped them off and my wife and I went to a lovely mediaeval pub, in an idyllic, sun-splashed valley, and had a lazy drink.

My wife reminded me that a couple of friends who lost their jobs in the last year both took several months off just to regroup before looking at what might come next. She said that I should try not to be too hard on myself about the time pressure - that leaping into a new project straight away is moving forward, and isn’t self-indulgent. I was grateful for the unqualified support, and took the permission to spend a bit of time getting the project right, and to not start panicking about money just yet.

Damn it’s hot.