Edwards Richey - Withdrawn traces: searching for the truth about Richey Manic

LEON NOAKES and SARA HAWYS ROBERTS have been working closely with Richeys sister, Rachel Edwards, examining Richeys archive and investigating his disappearance. Their new discoveries and fresh perspective, together with a range of previously unseen sources, illuminates and brings a deeper understanding of the Richey Edwards story.

I was 24 years old when I last saw my brother. Twenty-four years have passed since the day that he went missing. I have been without him for half of my life. I am almost the same age that my mother was when her son disappeared.

There are a great many things I do not understand in life. I do not understand why my brother Richard went missing. I do not understand how, in an area with some of the highest levels of CCTV coverage, he could apparently just vanish from the face of the earth. I do not understand how after so much searching, so many appeals, that not one shred of information about him has ever come to light. Surely someone, somewhere, knows what happened to him. I do not understand how I can grieve for him when there is always hope just around the corner that we will find an answer.

But there are some things I do understand. I do understand the impact of having a loved one go missing. I do understand that every moment is affected by the absence of those you hold dear. How every phone call fills you with anxiety. How potentially every e-mail and letter could provide you with the answer. How every walk through the crowded streets leaves you searching. Having a missing loved one is like having a candle that is never lit. There is a diminishing of light and of joy. And although I live daily with this loss, I find through sharing memories and prayer, I can rekindle the light through uncertainty, and find hope.

I want my brother to be remembered as more than just a member of a band. I want him to be remembered as an artist and as a person and as a dearly loved and missed family member. Although there has not been a shortage of writers keen to work on Richards biography, it was not until my meeting with Sara, some ten years ago, that I felt able to entrust anyone with my brothers story and extensive archive. Sara got it from the outset, seeing Richard as an artist standing in, yet outside, his creation and not just a member of a four-piece band. That he should be remembered as someone who stands outside of this framework. This is the first attempt in any book to explore Richard in this way, in a sympathetic light. The authors reveal my brother as I knew him.

Sharing my recollections, many aspects of the private life of my family, and the contributions from people who both knew and cared for Richard has not been an easy undertaking for me. My parents, when alive, were quiet, dignified and the least likely couple to wish to have attention drawn to themselves. As the remaining living member of our small family, I feel that if I can reach out one more time to as wide an audience as possible, not only will Richard be remembered but the light from that candle may illuminate what became of him.

As for my thoughts about what became of Richard, I honestly dont know. People will ask me if I think hes alive or dead, and I have no answers. Without a body there is no certainty, and the only certainty I have is uncertainty. Richard was a highly intelligent, enigmatic and most of all complicated character. His very complexity sometimes makes it seem appropriate that his fate is shrouded in such mystery.

The book concludes with more questions than had previously been raised during the investigations into Richards disappearance. Part of its legacy is to discover the story behind all of those other stories not the soundbites, not the headlines but the actual reality. Everything has to now be re-explored. I have felt a sense of burning injustice in the way the case has been handled by the authorities and various agencies, therefore being involved with this book has proved to be a cathartic experience.

We now know that the timeline of events has been wrong from the moment Richard went missing. Even though the police are aware of this, it is enormously frustrating that they have closed the case and will not reopen it.

Only new information can now change the situation. There have been Missing Persons cases which the public have solved before. Perhaps someone knows something but had their reasons to conceal it at the time? Or maybe they have some evidence but do not believe that it is important? From my perspective, any new information is valuable.

If the mystery of Richards disappearance can be explained, then it is only you, the public that can help me. Please come forward with any information if you have it. Both my parents died without knowing what happened to their son; I dont want to die without knowing what happened to my brother.

Rachel Edwards, 2019.

Youve got to reach out on a massive level. Once weve done that well fade away. Youll never hear from us again.

Richey Edwards, 1991

Over two decades have passed since the disappearance of Manic Street Preachers lyricist and guitarist, Richey Edwards. A missing person since 1 February 1995, his car was found at the Aust service station overlooking the old Severn crossing. He has not been seen or heard from since.

This mysterious case is lodged in the popular consciousness. Even those unfamiliar with the Manic Street Preachers, or unable to match a face to Richeys name, have heard of the legendary missing rock star and his dramatic story.

As the years go by with no apparent progress, will we ever find out what happened to Richey Edwards? This book is an invitation to consider the issue anew, in the hope that something of the obscured truth of what happened to him may come to light.

In a 1992 interview, Richey stated, Whatever anyone thinks of me, whatever happens to me, at least I know that I tried to be a person. I set out to be something worthwhile that meant something real and valuable; to talk about ideas and attitudes that are important and real, and that no one is saying or is too scared to speak of; to be the influence to people I never had when growing up.

Since his adolescence, Richey dreamed feverishly of entering the pantheon of rocks greatest figureheads, aiming to contribute to that lineage. His devout mission was to become a pop-culture icon, and one that meant something.

Richard James Edwards grew up in the working-class town of Blackwood in the Welsh Valleys, a once thriving and close-knit community, now devastated by industrial decline. A teenager of the eighties, he spent much of his youth in his bedroom, listening to The Smiths and The Clash, reading the Beat poets and dreaming of escape.

With his fierce intellect, he initially believed academia would be his ticket away from a home town he later described as being a museum, full of rubble and shit. Born to a generation mired in defeatism and hopelessness, he saw this new barrenness as a great opportunity, a blank canvas upon which to daub. He would join forces with three local friends and become Richey Manic a spokesman for a generation revered for his highly charged, polemic and politicised lyrics.

When the Manic Street Preachers broke into the musical mainstream in the early 1990s, their name became synonymous with a certain literacy and barbed rhetoric. Richeys acute intelligence and desire to deliver complex and uncomfortable truths, lyrically and in interviews, hit home hard.

His attempts to tackle head-on the existential questions of a post-Cold War world, and his strong knowledge of political history, offered music fans a whole new perspective. His mission was to follow the goal of all great art to take us out of our commonplace reality and reveal alternative ways of seeing. Richey became the central focus for the bands core message that magic could be found even in a disenchanting world.