"The Most Violent Man In Britain".
And yet according to one of his many "biographers", Michael Joseph
Farrelly:
Jimmy Boyles' story is as extraordinary as it is inspiring, from plumbing the depths of the notorious Barlinnie prison to a best selling author and world renowned sculptor he has turned his life around in most remarkable fashion imaginable. Through his art he has become the acceptable face of prison rehabilitation but the authorities were not as impressed and they closed down the 'Special Unit' at Barlinnie Prison that successfully rehabilitated him so he would no longer be a threat to the public.
Jimmy Boyle
It seemed the authorities were miffed at the way he turned his life around and as Jimmy himself put it:"they didn’t want another Jimmy Boyle". Althoughhe has been able to put his past behind him on a personal level, the press it seems are more interested in tarnishing any of his successes when they go to print by maintaining the decades old headline that branded him"The Most Violent Man In Britain". With the facts of his notorious case now being common knowledge it grates the authorities that he served a life sentence for a murder he did not commit while not 'grassing' on the real killer.
In 1978 he was considering Kilquhanity as a school for his two children, from his first marriage.
Kay Carmichael, a friend of John and Morag, wrote to John about Jimmy and his children.
Kay Carmichael
Note the change from "Dear Mr Aitkenhead" to "Dear John". It makes one wonder whether they ever actually met as well as corresponding during this period or even whether John more or less tried to persuade him that sending his kids to Kilquhanity might not be as good idea as it might seem to be.
Although I am not sure whether it makes the point of whether going to Kilquhanity might have had an effect, in 1994, James Boyle, one of the the two children who might have ended up there was murdered in the Oatlands neighbourhood
of Glasgow.
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