Shropshire Hills

Shropshire has many hills. Hard to identify which one this is.

It was in the Ludlow area, a couple of miles NE of the town, possibly. I don't know if that particular hill has a name.

That might have been the Clee Hills: Titterstone Clee Hill being the most memorable.
Have you no pictures of Stokesay Castle?

Yes:

On my way home on Saturday I drove through Titterstone Clee Hill (village), but didn't make a detour to the viewpoint. Ditto the viewpoint West of Ludlow from where there's a view over the town and castle. I did a strenuous, 4-mile circular walk that morning from Cleobury Mortimer and there was only so much else that I could fit in.

I never went up it, but recall seeing it from below. I then made an unplanned diversion to the Wye valley, where I had a close encounter with a young Rose West. I politely declined her offer of a lift, as it was a pleasant afternoon and I was enjoying my walk. "Wouldn't you like to go for a walk in a car?" she cackled. That's the only reason I recall the incident, as it seemed such an odd thing to say.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How long afterwards did you realise who it was?

Going on fifty years. I don't normally remember faces, still less the faces of people who stop their cars to offer me a lift, but I remembered this face, because I thought of it as a "schoolteacher" type of face (or my image of how teachers looked then) and was struck by her bizarre insistence that I should accept a ride when I'd clearly stated that I didn't need one.

Of course, I only saw the top part of her, as she spoke to me through the wound-down passenger window, and she seemed like a woman of about thirty. I was aware of a man in the driver's seat, but didn't notice what he looked like, as he was in the shade of the interior and didn't enter into the conversation.

I didn't recognise her when she appeared in the news some twenty years later, as her appearance had changed by then. More recently, I started watching YouTube documentaries and came across the story of Caroline Owens, who had worked as the West's nanny after they'd picked her up near Cinderford. The name 'Cinderford' rang a bell with me, as I'd taken a photo of an old signpost pointing to Cinderford, and it occurred to me that I must have been walking in their hunting grounds a year or two earlier (1970). But I quickly dismissed the idea that the woman in the car could have been Rose, as she would have been still in her teens, and not the thirtyish "schoolteacher" I remembered.

It was only when I searched for images of Rose from that time that I realised she did indeed look thirtyish whilst still in her teens and was just as I remembered. See link below.

www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=VHoTQPqD&id=AF7B0A366BE02C97510DEB972EB057A6E7B159A2&thid=OIP.VHoTQPqDZx7iYroKzDWwKAHaEx&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fi2-prod.mirror.co.uk%2fincoming%2farticle1580218.ece%2fALTERNATES%2fs615b%2fwest-image-3-518461097.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.547a1340fa83671ee262ba0acc35b028%3frik%3dolmx56ZXsC6X6w%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=397&expw=615&q=%22rose+west%22+marriage+photo&simid=608048879997640890&FORM=IRPRST&ck=C19343F70159576C51A028CE9FD9784D&selectedIndex=0&idpp=overlayview&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0

Note too, that she would have been pregnant with Heather, which would have added to my impression of a more mature woman, rather than a slip of a girl.

It was fortunate for me that it wasn't raining, or I might indeed have been tempted to accept a lift. I was just the type they would have gone for, with my long hair and rucksack giving the impression of a footloose hippy, even though I was actually on holiday from a steady job. They weren't living at Cromwell Street then, but were still at Midland Road, where Charmaine was killed a few months later.

And this monster, this mass-murderer, is still living, I gather, albeit in prison. If ever there was a case for restoring the death penalty, this is it.