JON KAY PODCAST v4.qxp_Layout 2 25/02/2022 16:43 Page 1
PODCASTS
Ripples in time In a chart-topping new podcast, BBC reporter Jon Kay tells the tragic story of a Bristol family who have endured a lifetime of heartbreak since their baby sister disappeared on a beach in Australia 52 years ago. In an eight-part series, Jon delves into the twists and turns of the investigation, telling the extraordinary story of three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer and her family’s fight for answers...
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ix years in the making, Fairy Meadow is one of the latest truecrime podcasts to top Apple charts around the world. Narrated by Bristol-based BBC journalist Jon Kay, listeners are taken back to the fateful day of 12 January 1970, when the lives of one Bristol family were changed forever. Three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer was playing on the soft sands of Fairy Meadow beach in Wollongong, an hour south of Sydney, with her mother, Carol, 26, and three brothers, Ricki, 7, Stephen, 5, and Paul, aged just 4. The young family, along with father Vince, 24, had recently emigrated to Australia under the ten pound assisted passage scheme funded by the British and Australian governments. Known widely as ‘Ten Pound Poms’, more than one million Britons headed Down Under between 1947 and 1981. As the name suggests, the scheme allowed for affordable travel to Australia, with the cost of an adult ticket a mere tenner, and all children travelling for free. The scheme was part of Australia’s ‘populate or perish’ nation-building initiative. Upon arrival, many migrants lived in camps while looking for permanent accommodation. The Grimmers lived in one just 300m from Fairy Meadow beach – a suburb named after its fairy-like beauty. To the family from Brislington, it was a utopia. On the afternoon of 12 January, when a wild wind suddenly swept the coastline, as it frequently did, the Grimmer family, along with many others, quickly packed up to head home. Cheryl and her three brothers were told to wait for their mother by the changing room block at the top of the beach. When Cheryl cheekily ran into the female toilets, rejecting her eldest brother’s pleas to come out, Ricki ran back to get his mother. When they both returned 90 seconds later, Cheryl had disappeared without a trace. The case sparked one of the country’s biggest ever manhunts but Cheryl was never found. Since that day, 52 years ago, the family –
BBC journalist Jon Kay standing on Fairy Meadow beach, an hour south of Sydney, Australia
26 THE BRISTOL MAGAZINE
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MARCH 2022
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No 208
The four Grimmer children on the beach – just arrived in Fairy Meadow from Bristol. Ricki is on the far right. Cheryl next to him.
especially Ricki, who has always felt immense guilt for leaving his sister alone – have endured a life sentence of heartbreak. Despite thousands of hours of searching, no one has ever been convicted. In 2011, Cheryl was declared dead in absentia. Although Ricki and his brothers have never given up hope, this Bristol story had lain dormant for decades. It wasn’t until a news notification pinged Jon’s phone in 2016 that he first learned of Cheryl’s disappearance. Most extraordinarily, though, as Jon started to explore the twists and turns of the case, reaching out to family in Bristol and New South Wales, connecting with Ricki and his brothers, the investigation suddenly started to regain momentum. At the beginning of the podcast, we find out that the local police have come across a confession made a year after Cheryl’s disappearance by a man they code-named Mercury – a court order prevents him from being named. As the eight-part series unfolds, we follow Jon on his trips to Australia to meet Ricki and his brothers, their children and grandchildren. He speaks to the former detectives who once stood at the helm of the investigation, he tracks down new witnesses who have never before spoken about their memories, talks to those who helped look for Cheryl and retraces the last steps that Ricki took with his baby sister; all in a bid to uncover the truth. It’s a heart-wrenching story from the outset; one full of possible sightings, bizarre claims, false leads and a mysterious ransom note, but mainly one of a local family stricken by grief, desperate for answers, but too often left hanging on the brink of a breakthrough. “This story has definitely gripped me and obsessed me over the last few years,” says Jon. “I first heard about the Cheryl Grimmer case when I was covering the disappearance of Madeleine McCann for BBC News. In some ways, the cases are hauntingly similar. I think anyone who's ever lost sight of a child will know that heart-stopping feeling when you suddenly can't see them – even if it's only for a few seconds. But what if that feeling goes on forever? “When I was a kid, my baby brother was taken by a stranger. Thankfully, he was found, safe and sound, a short time later, but I've always wondered, what happens to a family when there is no conclusion?”
