HEARING ‘Britain’s most evil woman’ cheerfully singing along to the radio, convicted killer Linda Calvey felt something snap inside.
Seconds later Linda – – slapped child killer so hard she left a handprint mark on her face, leaving the child killer recoiling in horror and pain.
“It all happened in a split-second,”; tells us. “I yelled, ‘How dare you sing when you murdered all of those children!’ I slapped her without thinking.”;
This was her first of many encounters with the , who aged 10 to 17 alongside partner in the Sixties, in three different prisons.
Linda, , would, reluctantly, get to know Myra better than anyone behind bars and now reveals all for The Sun’s series.
She tells us how Hindley duped prison staff to feed her and hid her secret fling with another notorious inmate.
Recalling her , Linda tells us: “I walked into the washing room and couldn’t believe she was singing along to the radio.
“The next second I snapped, before I knew it, without even thinking, I slapped her. I thought, ‘Oh God, what have I done?’ but I’m still glad to this day that I did it.
“I remember she looked at me, rubbed her face and there was a handprint. She yelled, ‘I could get you shipped off to [HMP] Holloway’.
“I said ‘Holloway holds no fears for me’ and walked out. The mad thing is she never reported me but I think part of it was that she had been attacked so many times before.
“Prior to that an inmate had broken her nose and there were various other issues, I think she feared officers would force her to give up her job washing inmates’ clothes.
“That wouldn’t have benefitted her, she would have been locked in her cell all day with nothing to do.”;
It would take four more encounters before Myra spoke again to Linda – who next week releases gangland fiction Hope, loosely influenced by her experiences in and London’s East End underworld.
By this time, Hindley no longer sported her trademark blonde hair, instead dying it red. But she had the same “harsh features and look about her”; that made many lags feel uncomfortable.
“You wouldn’t look at her twice on the street. She looked more like an everyday housewife than a monster but there was this evil, horrible feeling around her,”; Linda recalls.
“There was no warmth or niceness. She had this unpleasant aura and was very aloof but highly, highly intelligent.”;
Evil obsession
Linda worked in the prison library and Myra would often come in to order books – permitted for inmates – but the monster had a dark motive behind it.
While she requested romantic books under her own name, she secretly used the identity of other inmates to pursue her real passion.
“She would say, ‘Can you order a book under this name?’ and choose totally different books. They were about Adolf Hitler, black magic and obscure things,”; Linda says.
“I told one of the staff, ‘This is ridiculous. Is she allowed to do this?’
“They told me to just order the books. Myra bucked the system and it proved her true feelings and desires. This was long into her sentence too.”;
The serial killer considered herself “far superior”; to her fellow inmates who she considered “stupid and thick”; according to Linda.
It was right for her to suffer so intensely at the end of her life after all the harm she caused. I remember I used to look at her and think, ‘You deserve this’
Linda on Myra Hindley
Myra mainly kept to herself and few prisoners wanted to talk to her. One who did was fellow monster , who tortured and killed 10 young women with her husband Fred.
Linda noted that they “became thick as thieves”;, spending every meal time and any spare moments together, as well as often disappearing into each other’s cells, in HMP Durham.
“Everybody knew they were having a fling, it was like they were stuck together. It’s just beyond belief to think about,”; Linda says.
“These were the two worst women in Britain, two mass murderers, and they were getting involved with each other, having an affair.
“They used to go to each other’s cells all of the time and while you couldn’t lock the door you could close it. Everybody knew what was going on.
“I remember one prison officer, who came over from the men’s wing, being horrified when he saw them together and said, ‘If I had a camera I could retire tomorrow.’”;
Their fling lasted seven weeks before it “suddenly stopped”; according to Linda, which she found “very bizarre”; due to how cosy they had been.
She suspects the lawyer representing Rose, who was then awaiting trial, may have advised her against spending time with Myra because it was “not a good idea and didn’t look good”;.
‘Poetic justice’
The final time Linda met Myra was in HMP Highpoint, where the villain was kept isolated living in two cells between the hospital wing and cell block.
Linda says: “It was called ‘no man’s land’ and they decided she had to live there. Her life was totally solitary. She lived in one cell and she had a job repairing books in the other.
“She was a really ill woman then. She did suffer a lot. She had such brittle bones that they were always snapping and chronic COPD but remained a chain smoker.
“Normally you’d feel sympathy for someone like that – ‘that poor person’ – but for her it felt like poetic justice.
“It was right for her to suffer so intensely at the end of her life after all the harm she caused. I remember I used to look at her and think, ‘You deserve this.’”;
Knowing she trained as a hairdresser and that they had met before, Linda was the unfortunate soul picked to style Myra hair – a task she couldn’t refuse, fearing it would impact her chance of parole.
She would dye it red once a month and wash it twice a week and noted that the murderer was “very particular”; as her hair was the “only thing left she could control”;.
During their time together, Myra asked about life on the prison wing and spoke about her longing to go to the gym – which she was unable to do.
In a bizarre moment, after several weeks styling her hair, Linda was forced to speak to Myra’s mum on the phone and was told she was the beast’s ‘only pal’.
“With a really elderly voice, her mum said ‘Hello’ and ‘I’m so pleased my Myra’s finally got a friend’,”; Linda tells us.
She was hysterical, absolutely enraged and yelled, ‘He should be hanged! That poor cyclist’. While yes, it was terrible, that was coming from a mass murderer
Linda on Rose West
“I thought, ‘I am not her friend’, but didn’t say it. I thought about all her poor mum must have suffered having her for a daughter. She must have taken a lot of stick.”;
Myra was so desperate for attention that she gave Linda a bevvy of gifts including a cardigan “to keep me warm, which looked awful”; and an empty chocolate box, because it was velvet and she thought it “looked lovely”; .
The monster, who died from respiratory failure in 2002, had a miserable time rotting in prison before she passed.
Linda says: “Myra was really lonely and the longer into the sentence she got the worse it was for her. In HMP Highpoint she couldn’t mix with anyone and had a very lonely existence in the final two years before she died.”;
‘Foaming with rage’
Another famous lag Linda shared her stint with was Rose West – but unlike Myra, the former was a woman of “quite low intelligence”;.
One moment that highlighted it to her, was the night her husband Fred took his own life in 1995 while the House of Horrors killers were awaiting trial.
“We could hear the men from the male prison wing singing ‘Fred West, has gone and hung himself’ to the tune of The Village People song Go West,”; Linda says.
“We all heard it but Rose never associated what they were singing with Fred having killed himself and that it was about her husband. She wasn’t intelligent.
“When she found out about his suicide, she wasn’t happy at all. She wasn’t upset, she was angry and absolutely raving about what he had done.
“I think she felt that way because until that point she thought she was going to walk away and Fred would take the rap for their crimes.”;
Besides being “rather thick”;, Linda thought Rose was “very drab, dry and very old fashioned”; and the only positive thing about her was that she was a very talented seamstress.
And while she gave off a meek persona, claiming to have been bent to evil under duress from Fred, there were a few times where the monster’s mask slipped.
Once was during a prison session with a university lecturer, who encouraged inmates to debate stories in the newspaper.
The one they chose was about a drunk driver who ran over a cyclist, killing him, which Linda says left Rose so enraged she was “foaming at the mouth”;.
“She was hysterical, absolutely enraged and yelled, ‘He should be hanged! That poor cyclist’. While yes, it was terrible, that was coming from a mass murderer.
“She started foaming at the mouth, it looked like toothpaste and we were transfixed by this gross white gunk coming out of her mouth. That’s when the debate ended.”;
Another outburst followed an arsonist setting fire to her cell, which nearly killed her pet budgie, who was left covered in black soot.
He was always proposing. He didn’t write love letters, he would just say, ‘I was thinking, if you’d like to marry me the offer is still there’
Linda on notorious lag
Linda recalls: “Rose was hysterical, ‘How could anyone be so evil to set fire to a cell and leave a bird in there’ she yelled. She begged the guards to save it.
“It was given to another inmate to nurse back to health. After that, she went and lay on her bed for two days straight. She didn’t get off it until the budgie was better.”;
Serial proposers
In another surprising twist, Linda found herself on the receiving end of affection from two notorious prisoners – mobster Reggie and violent lag .
The former, she tells us, would call her every week from prison, lavished her with gifts and once proposed before telling her “forget I said anything”; after she turned him down.
Meanwhile Bronson popped the question “probably every three months and at least 14 times”; in letters as well as sending her photos.
The lag, who has nearly served 50 years behind bars, contacted her claiming he knew some of her friends and said “what a lovely person I was”;.
“Due to being in prison for so long, he didn’t have a lot to chat about so would ask me questions like, ‘How are you?’, ‘Any family visits?’ and that kind of thing.
“Then all of a sudden, ‘Would you like to marry me?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea’. He said ‘That’s ok’ and then three months later, was like, ‘Would you like to marry me?’ again.
“He was always proposing. He didn’t write love letters, he would just say, ‘I was thinking, if you’d like to marry me the offer is still there.’
Although Bronson was originally jailed for petty crime and robbery, his attacks on fellow inmates and prison officers have seen his sentences extended to total five decades.
“I feel sorry for him, that he’s still in prison. It’s a shame when you put it into context. Everyone assumes he murdered someone but he didn’t,”; says Linda.
“He just drove authorities mad for so many years with his antics. What he did wasn’t that big and he’s been in there forever.”;
Linda, who was released on parole in 2008, has put criminality firmly behind her and dedicated her life to her family and writing – she’s published two memoirs and is about to release her fourth novel.
Titled Hope, it’s about three generations of women caught in the grips of London’s murky underworld and many of the characters are loosely based on crooks she met.
“It’s a world I came from, which makes it more real, and some characters are based on women I knew and met in prison,”; she says.
“It was my late husband, George, who died from cancer nine years ago, that inspired me. He told me, ‘Linda, go for it. Do your writing’. I’ve found my niche and I know I’m making him proud.”;
Hope, the second in a crime gangster trilogy, is published by Mountain Leopard Press on July 17. To preorder, visit here
