Into the Light

Just a Boy, Richard McCann’s account of his childhood became a massive UK bestseller. In it, he told the harrowing story of how he and his sisters were left motherless when the Yorkshire Ripper killed his first victim, Richard’s mother Wilma McCann. The only constants in his and his sister’s lives were grief for their mother, and newspaper coverage of her killer and the gruesome nature of his crimes. “Into the Light” is an account of how Richard used the success of “Just A Boy” to try and save his sister, to recover from the past, and to learn more about the effects of traumatic childhood’s and loss – in order to help others who are suffering. With his book in the bestseller charts, Richard sets out to make sense of his past, attempting to meet the other children of Sutcliffe’s victims and discovering the secrets of the mother that was taken away from him. He is invited to help set up a support group for grieving families, and through this is privy to their stories of heartbreaking pain and incredible strength. He decides to go to university, and study Social Policy, hoping to gain insights into the wider causes of much of the suffering he has encountered. In short, Richard McCann comes to terms with the loss of his own childhood by talking to others, hearing their stories, and learning about how to accept what has happened and move on.