Choch, I'm wondering if you'd ever consider putting up a timeline for JB?
Goodness, Shona, I haven't even corrected Sheila's yet! It takes time to produce even the clumsy timeline I've posted here. I did Sheila's because I felt there were big gaps in my knowledge and I wanted to try to understand her better. I don't feel I have that issue with Jeremy. Why don't you have a go?
Sadly, I'm far too partisan to attempt such a project. I thought that you knew what you were doing. Trying to tempt Sparks back into the discussion.
I initially drew up the timeline solely for myself. Then I removed the data, leaving only the dates, to ask Sparks to give us his take on the data. But he wasn't willing to do that.
I hate arguing with you, Choch, but "A Quiz for Sparks" sounds like a bit of a challenge, to me. You wanted to draw him out, and find him wanting. I could easily do "A quiz for Choch", and ask when JB lied, stole, insulted Sheila and the rest of the family, etc., etc.,.........
It did become a challenge to Sparks, Shona, you're right, but I didn't draw up the timeline with that purpose. When I reached the end of it, I read through what I'd written - and I was shocked. I hadn't realised that poor Sheila had such a truly traumatic life. I then wondered what conclusions Sparks might reach if he drew up a timeline of her life as I had done. That's when I thought it might be interesting to set him the dates as a challenge, allowing him to fill in the data himself.
Did Sheila have such a truly traumatic life, though? Traumatic enough to commit such incredible violence? It's not as though her life had ended. She still had Ralph's support, she still had a base, she might not have been mum of the year but she loved the boys. It was more likely that she would have asked Ralph to help her, like she'd done so many times before. And the bottom line is that she showed no signs of the huge struggle with Ralph. And if she'd shot herself in the kitchen, then run upstairs, she would have been drenched in blood. I'm sorry, it just doesn't work.
We have different views of that. I respect your views, Shon', as I know you respect mine. I believe the timeline illustrates that Sheila's life was positively haunted by trauma.
She had a dreadful childhood and this left her disturbed. She became a paranoid schizophrenic. She was not long out of hospital following a severe psychotic episode. 50% of her crucial antipsychotic medication was suddenly withdrawn. The love of her life totally rejected her, then dashed her hopes of reconciliation just days before the tragedy. She had lost her children to Colin, who said he had them for 95% of the time. Why were the twins removed from her? I think it was due to the accidents they had in her care, her psychotic attacks and her general inability to care for the boys.
Faced with the loss of the children, Sheila's parents made the quite logical demand that Sheila could regain contact with the boys by moving near her parents and having the boys fostered there, so that Sheila's family could help support her. But the prospect of living near June again would have been intolerable for Sheila because she knew that they would all be under June's control. That was precisely why Sheila had left home at 17 or 18, to get away from June's control and mania.
