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This Life: Richard McCann
Richard McCann was five when his mother Wilma became the first victim of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe in October 1975.
He went to live with his father who beat him regularly and after a failed stint in the Army he ended up on drugs, leading to a 12-month prison sentence for possession with intent to supply.
Richard and his older sister Sonia formed a suicide pact, which jolted him out of his depression and enabled him to save his sister.
He has written two autobiographies, Just A Boy and The Boy Grows Up, and now works as a successful motivational speaker.
The 40-year-old lives in Oakwood, Leeds, with wife Helen, son Ellis, two, and daughters Skye, four, and four-month-old Isla.
Interview by Grant Woodward.
The thing I'm most proud of is my children. Wherever they go they light up the room. I'm sure most parents say that, but it's true. I have to put a lot of that down to my wife. She's from a more stable background than me and has been able to give our kids the values and childhood I never had. I guess I'm also proud of the way I've turned out, given the background that I came from.
My childhood was pretty chaotic but there were still some moments of happiness. The biggest life-changing event was obviously losing my mum, and my dad was a big drinker so at times it was a pretty violent upbringing. I was also very insecure and I remember before Peter Sutcliffe was caught being terrified that he was going to kill me. I used to pick out the people at school who seemed to come from stable backgrounds and make friends with them so I could go to their homes and experience it. They were warm and loving places, and they had all these clothes and toys. By staying friends with these people it meant I got to share in some of that. It's quite sweet, or sad, when you think about it.
I got married on the Isle of Skye where my mum lived as a teenager. The date was July 1, 2006, which was her birthday. The local church on Skye said we needed to make a number of visits beforehand if we were to get married there but Helen was pregnant so that just wasn't possible. The person who lived in the house where my mum grew up said we could get married there instead so that's what we did. It was a day I'll always remember.
My philosophy on life is that there is always something we can do to improve our situation. I always knew I could better myself and yes, it hasn't always worked out but if it doesn't you just dust yourself down and try something else. My approach to life is to have an 'I can' attitude.
Part of me would like to meet Peter Sutcliffe and hear from him that he's sorry for what he did. I probably wouldn't be able to have a coherent conversation with him though, because he's just not wired that way. But there's something about wanting to meet the person who killed my mum, to have some sort of discussion. That still lingers in the background. It doesn't surprise me that he's appealing against his sentence. If I thought he was going to get out I would be horrified, but my heart tells me he’s not going to so it’s more of an annoyance.
The best thing about Leeds and Yorkshire is the people, they’re such a friendly bunch. When I was in the Army I brought one of my fellow gunners back to Leeds and we took a bus journey from Armley to the city centre. Everyone was chatting to us and he couldn’t believe it. He was from somewhere down south and said you just wouldn’t get that down there. When I’m walking down the Headrow it’s like walking down the main street of a village because I always see someone I know.
My first proper job was as a seam presser in a factory, but I worked for the milkman and the local newsagent before that, delivering milk and newspapers in Bramley. For the factory job I was on a youth training scheme and got paid 27.50 a week. The place is still there but I think it’s occupied by website designers now.
My first kiss was after my mum died and I went to the children’s home, I was only six but I remember kissing one of the girls there. My first love was a girl from school called Michelle who was my first girlfriend when I was 15.
When I want to relax I put my feet up, switch on the TV and try to get away from work. I’d love to get into meditation though, it was a goal I set myself at the start of the year but I just haven’t managed to get round to it.
People tend to be pretty surprised when they know me as Richard and then find out about my background, my mum and the fact I’ve been to prison. It’s a bit of a conversation stopper, so I’ve stopped telling people about mum’s death or who killed her. If someone asks me what I talk about in my motivational speaking I just say I lost my mum in tragic circumstances and then went through a series of other things. I don’t tell them the jaw-dropping version because people don’t know what to say, and that can be uncomfortable.
The reason I wrote Just A Boy was because my sister Sonia was accused of stabbing her boyfriend and there was a chance she was going to go to prison. I just thought, ‘I have to tell this story’.
Once the charges were dropped the need to write it didn’t seem to be there.
I took up salsa dancing a few years ago and was on a salsa holiday where I met a woman who had written a book about her life and her son who was dying from cancer.
When I told her my life story she said, ‘You’ve got to write that book’.
I came away thinking it was fate, I was meant to get that push to carry on writing the book.
It’s the best advice I’ve ever been given because it’s changed my life completely.
The book has sold 400,000 copies around the world and it was from my book that I first started working as a motivational speaker.
grant woodward@ypn.co.uk
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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