A GRIM Retro this week as I look at a particularly depressing edition of News Shopper from 1992.

The September 2 Lewisham and Catford newspaper was full of death, rape, stabbing, robbery and Shane Richie.

The gloom started on the front page with an article about a 49-year-old man who bled to death in Lewisham Hospital after refusing a blood transfusion because his Jehovah’s Witness faith forbid it.

His sister condemned the religion, saying it was “sick and selfish to have made him die unnecessarily”.

The cheerless tone continued on page three with the headline Serial Rapist At Large.

This was a report on a police search for a man who had raped three women and tried to rape another two women in the Lewisham, Bromley and Eltham area.

Things were no more upbeat on page 9, with police looking for a man who claimed to have a concealed gun in order to force shopkeepers in two video stores to hand over the cash from the till.

There was more sorrow on page 11, with a report of a 61-year-old paranoid schizophrenic who was locked up after stabbing a bank manager in the neck while discussing his finances.

Apparently, he believed the bank manager was trying to swindle him, telling police “It’s a con, it’s a con” when they arrived to arrest him. Fortunately, the victim was not severely injured.

The tone of the newspaper was lightened (or not, depending on your intellectual level) by the news Shane Richie had agreed to appear in a pantomime at Lewisham Theatre over Christmas.

Mr Richie, who would go onto find popularity as Alfie Moon in EastEnders, filled the role of Peter Pan while Butterflies star Bruce Montague (no, me neither) played Captain Hook.

Apologies for such a sombre edition of Retro. Hopefully, there is cheer to be found in one teacher’s method of dealing with naughty schoolboys in September 1992: stick them to a velcro wall.