PERSPECTIVE

I’m clearly not alone in being horrified by the triple murder in Bushey this week, of mother Carol Hunt, and her daughters Hannah and Louise.

By all accounts, they were tied, gagged, and then shot with a crossbow by the ex-boyfriend of Louise.

It’s horrific, sickening, and almost impossible to conceive of how scared they must’ve been, and how this will impact the family members left behind.

The story particularly resonated with me because, firstly, it happened in Bushey, not far from where Sanja and I used to live. We loved living there; it was lovely and peaceful, village-y without being a village.

Secondly, it was a story about a family with three daughters – another Hunt daughter, Amy, lives in Birmingham – and I obviously have an absurd number of daughters.

I couldn’t fathom how anyone would be able to survive the horror of coming home to find your family murdered like that – as John Hunt did.

A lot of the coverage has, perhaps understandably, led with the fact that John is a popular BBC sports commentator. I don’t really watch sports, so this aspect hadn’t really jumped out at me.

I did see the clips of John’s colleagues choking up while paying tribute to the family; it was clear he’s very loved, but I was more feeling for him as a father than as someone in the public eye.

I was already grimly invested in the story, but somehow it took me until last night to connect the dots and realize that John and I used to work together. I’d even read the name and thought, “I used to work with a John Hunt,” but it just didn’t join up. Until it did.

I knew both him and Carol. John and I worked together for years. We were friends.

Yes, I’ve had a rough time of it, but man… if this was the Universe’s way of giving me a sign that things can always be worse… then job done, Universe.

Also: fuck you, Universe.

LADBROKES

I joined Ladbrokes in 1987 as a part-time graphic designer, working at their head office in Harrow.

My cousin Susan worked in the credit control department there. She knew I was looking for a part-time job in the summer after I’d left school, and that the Communications department was looking for a graphic designer. She put my name forward, mentioning that I was “good at drawing.”

I was asked to go in for an interview, and I went along with my portfolio of Star Wars paintings and stupid cartoons, and they offered me a job there and then.

I was 15 years old.

When I dropped out of college the following year, I asked if there was any possibility of going full time, and they graciously created a role for me where I could continue to do the graphics and animations half of the week and work as a computer inputter the rest of the time.

I ended up working there for about five years, eventually getting trained up to work on their Oracle (teletext) pages - how did that work out? = moving with the company when it opened new offices in Rayners Lane (I even got my own dedicated graphics studio).

It was the closest I ever got to going to university; there were often very long, antisocial hours, but we mostly all got along, we socialized together and hung out after work.

I was the office baby – if you can imagine me ever being such a thing. Years younger than anyone else. In a lot of ways, I didn’t really fit in. I was a geeky kid in a very bloke-y sort of sports-heavy environment. I mean, the majority of people working there were obsessed with sports.

Strangely, though, they all accepted me and valued me. After years at school where I was routinely picked last for any team in PE, to be valued by people who were into sports was somehow healing. Not only that, but they seemed to like me, and valued me because I was “good at drawing”…!

Pretty much the opposite of how sports boys treated me at school.

COMMUNICATIONS

If you’ve ever been in a betting shop and seen the screens, basically everything you see on those screens is (or was) created in the Communications department; screens of betting odds, information, as well as graphics and animation.

The betting odds would come down from ‘upstairs,’ the inputters would put those odds – as well as race cards etc. – into ready-made templates, a team would program the order by which the various screens would cycle through.

And there would also be little animations and graphics that would add a bit of extra interest. Those were done by me; a horse running from one side of the six-screen layout to the other; that sort of thing.

The office was laid out a bit like the bridge of the USS Enterprise; there was a raised section which was like the command deck, in front of that was a horseshoe-shaped assembly of computer terminals where the ‘inputters’ sat, and in front of them was a bank of screens, which showed us a representation of what people would be seeing in Ladbrokes’ branches.

Behind everything, at the back of the office, was a radio studio, where the in-house commentators and pundits would broadcast to those shops.

Most days, there were various big names that would come in; John Motson, Derek Thompson, Trevor Brooking… Some of them I got to know – particularly Derek. Others (Brooking) ignored me in a lift.

And there were several of the in-house team who would go on to become big names in the world of commentating, Angus “Statto” Loughran being perhaps the most notable example, and legitimately one of the strangest people I’ve ever known.

Another was John Hunt.

JOHN

John joined shortly after I’d been working there a while, as a trainee commentator, having previously spent a short time in the police. He left before I did too, going off to become part of the team for the satellite racing broadcaster SIS.

We lost contact at that point, this being the era before social media, and me not following sport in the slightest.

For a few years though… I was friends with John. Actually, I don’t know if that’s accurate, because it was more big brother/little brother energy, at least for me. He was a few years older, and he was kind, and funny, and fun. I thought he was cool.

When I learned I was going to be a dad – at the age of 18 – I was terrified to tell my colleagues. I eventually blurted it out to a group of them on a night back from the pub.

They all reacted with shock… except for John, who just gave me a hug and congratulated me. I think he might’ve been the first man to hug me since my grandad. I didn’t realize it, but that was exactly what I needed in that moment, and I’ve always remained grateful for it. I also remember pissing up the side of a bus station with him, but that’s another story.

He was just… nice, y’know. And he was besotted with Carol. He talked about her all the time – and by all accounts, he remained devoted to his family.

I just cannot fathom what he – and Amy – must be experiencing right now. Last night when the penny dropped I just kept remembering John and Carol on a night out from back then and had this urge to warn them what was waiting 30 years in their future.

John was just so full of life and kindness and warmth, it’s impossible to imagine someone like that experiencing such an impossible tragedy and having to deal with such a volume of grief. He had an air of just being untroubled by life, somehow.

That was what I really remember about him; he just sort of effortlessly glided through, with a smile and a joke. People like that don’t get sad, they don’t go through tough times, they don’t have the most awful, senseless, insane, cruel shit happen to them.

Except… they do.

There aren’t even the words to offer. How do you comfort somebody who has experienced a loss on that scale?

EFFS TO GIVE

I remained wide awake for ages and tweeted about knowing John. I deleted it about five minutes later. It was just knee-jerk. I was reeling and trying to process it.

But… I didn’t want it to look like I was trying to insert myself into the story, like all those people who said “OMG - I was in New York only six years before!” when 9/11 happened.

Also, when I did a search for John’s name, most of the tweets were from people angry that a majority of the coverage led with John’s name rather than his wife and daughters, Carol, Hannah, and Louise.

Actually, I don’t even know if you can say “his wife and daughters” anymore, because some people were also complaining that made it sound like they were his property.

I’m a tad out of fucks to give at the minute, and I thought if anybody tried to point any of this out to me directly, I might’ve not had the most tactful response. Didn’t really feel like the time to be scoring points, and I’d already told somebody to fuck off earlier in the evening, so I might stay off social media for a bit.

But anyway. Look. My family is going through a rough time, but it pales next to all of the above. I wouldn’t swap any of the shit we’re going through with what my old friend John must be experiencing right now.

Just beyond – beyond – awful.

POST-SCRIPT

Just quickly, I want to say thank you to everyone who commented or reached out about my post the other day. I appreciate you lot so much. I don't deserve you.

Some of you I still owe replies to, but I've read everything, and... yeah. Just thank you. I'm blessed to have such support. I even had lovely messages from friends (especially Anthony).

Gannon popped round in the afternoon (right in the middle of me on the phone with my mum trying to convince her to take her diazepam, after Sanja found her trying to escape the hospital because she thinks they're trying to kill her). He was very sweet too.

Managed to get paid for another job yesterday. Couple more jobs should pay next week. All that'll be fine.

But yeah. Perspective. I feel guilty it took something like this for me to get some.

So, onwards - in the spirit of appreciating and holding onto everything I do have.

Paul