They were grim news stories more than 20 years apart.

But the stories covered by Mike Shaw and Neil Atkinson had the same theme: the Moors Murders.

Fifty years to the day that Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were convicted by a jury, both recalled their times on bleak Saddleworth Moor.

Shaw, a retired Examiner journalist, spent many days on the moors back in 1965 as police hunted for the bodies of the killers’ young victims.

Ian Brady, child killer on Saddleworth Moor, where he attempted to pinpointed the peat bog graves of newly confessed victims Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade, 4th July 1987. Also pictured, Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping of Greater Manchester Police GMP, who was in charge of reopened investigation.

He said: “There were three police forces involved, from the West Riding, from Lancashire and from Cheshire, and a huge number of people in the search.

“There were many journalists up there and we watched as the search teams combed the moors.

READ MORE: 50 years since child killers were convicted

“It was obviously the days before mobile phones and the journalists would hurry down the hill along the A635 towards Greenfield towards the only public phone box to ring through their copy”.

More than 20 years later, as Examiner crime reporter, Atkinson was back on the A635 as killer Brady returned to the moors to try and help police pinpoint the remains of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett.

Ian Brady, child killer on Saddleworth Moor, where he attempted to pinpointed the peat bog graves of newly confessed victims Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade, 4th July 1987. Also pictured, Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping of Greater Manchester Police GMP, who was in charge of reopened investigation.

“It was a dreadful December day in 1987 and the snow was blowing horizontally across the moros.

“We had been told there was to be a police operation and it was conducted in huge secrecy, totally unlike what had happened back in 1965.

“The police put up roadblocks near The Ford Inn but journalists were allowed a little further up to The Huntsman Inn. We spent the day there, checking every so often what was happening and watching the police operation from afar.”