Genette Tate's bicycle lies abandoned in the spot from which she was snatched in 1978. When her friends discovered the bicycle, its back wheel was still spinning.
Back in the late Seventies, Genette Tate's name dominated the headlines in the same way that Madeleine McCann's did after she disappeared. Genette's face stared out from newsstands and 'missing' posters across Britain, and her parents made emotional appeals on TV. A reward of £23,000, raised by the local community, was put up for information leading to her safe return.
The 13-year-old's disappearance became synonymous with a single, haunting image which remains as chilling today as it was then: a picture of Genette's bike lying in the middle of a country lane near her home in Devon, from where she was snatched in broad daylight.
Genette lived in the hamlet of Aylesbeare, three miles south-east of Exeter and close to the M5 motorway. She was a Girl Guide and a popular member of the church choir. Like many children of her generation, she also had a paper round.
At around 3.45 pm on Saturday, August 19, 1978, she was delivering the evening paper, the Express & Echo, to houses in Withen Lane. She stopped briefly to speak to two of her friends, before whizzing off on her bike.
Moments later, her friends walked around the corner and found her bicycle — but there was no sign of Genette. The bike's back wheel was still spinning. 'The girl who vanished into thin air' was the headline in one national newspaper the following morning.The search for Genette — also known as 'Ginny' — turned into the biggest missing person hunt in Britain, with the village hall transformed into a major incident room. Scores of police officers were joined by Royal Marines based at the commando training centre at nearby Lympstone. While more than 7,000 volunteers combed the moors and woodland near Genette's home, divers scoured gravel pits, ponds, wells and silage pits. Helicopters and RAF reconnaissance aircraft were a constant presence above Aylesbeare.
Comment: So, are these protestors just being swept up by the new trend in political correctness sweeping academia these days - or do they have a legitimate purpose in pointing out that nearly everything Rhodes stood for was elitist and generally counterproductive to the world at large? The Koch brothers, to take another example, have spent millions on philanthropic causes, but in the balance of social equality and justice, does it make up for all the money and energy they spend in supporting their destructive causes? Should we celebrate these types of people just because they've thrown a bone our way?