Sheena and I met up today, the first time this year. We went on David Charnick’s Jack the Ripper walk and then down to Brick Lane for a curry.
David’s walk was not a big- standard Ripper walk, I think it is reasonable to say it included, and perhaps, focussed on, a social commentary on life at the time. Particularly life for poorer women.
Life was hard for women of all classes back in the nineteenth century, I’ve written about this before:
http://wizzley.com/victorian-women/
Life was particularly hard for the poor and ill – educated. It was often a hand-to-mouth existence and prostitution was a common means of making enough money to survive. (I not sure that this doesn’t still happen but it was certainly prevalent back then.) Apparently, there were professional prostitutes and casual prostitutes. Again, I’m not sure much has changed. I’ve known a few working girls over the years, and, if I’m honest, can’t say I haven’t thought about it myself, when times have been hard. I didn’t do it, because I’ve been lucky enough to have other ways of earning money, but I can understand why women would do this. I need to remember that next time I’m having a bad day.
David didn’t try to take us to the same places that some Ripper tours do, although that is no criticism of other tours – as he rightly said, most of the actual murder sites are gone now, through redevelopment. I was pleased that we didn’t go to them all, because although you can get close to some of the murder sites, I think there is only one where you can really get a feel for what it was like to live in those days.
We started at Whitechapel station, where David made it clear to us that it would not be a gore-fest, nor one that suggested a number of possible suspects. David made it clear that he would not propose a theory as to who had committed the crimes, which is a really interesting take on these walks. I have done a couple before, where they do, and find it frustrating because none of us can prove or disprove the theories, and there are many of them. David was true to his word, this was no gore-fest, but a tour of historical interest.
So how many victims were there? It is generally accepted that there were five victims, although back in the day, the scandal rags newspapers tried to increase that number to eight. Personally, I’m not sold on the fifth, although I do understand how serial killers can escalate in their violence.
The generally accepted victims are:
Mary Ann Nichols, died 31 August 1888
Annie Chapman, died 8 September 1888
Elizabeth Stride (Long Liz), died 30 September 1888
Catherine Eddowes, died 30 September 1888
Mary Jane Kelly, died 9 November 1888
The reason I’m not sold on Mary Jane Kelly being a victim is because she was found in her home, not out on the streets like the others. As I’ve said, I know serial killers escalate, I’ve watched Criminal Minds, and I’ve also been to a couple of lectures by FBI analysts, so maybe I’m wrong, maybe she is a true victim. I think London back in those days was pretty violent, so I think it’s important not to get hooked into the general violence of the day.
The fact is that whoever tries to reconstruct the crime now, we will never know the exact number if his victims (four, five or eight or more) and we will never know for sure who committed the crimes.
When the walk finished, we went for an early dinner at “our” Aladin in Brick Lane. We had the regulatory papadoms to start, then Sheena had chicken naga with garlic rice and I have chicken balti vindaloo with peas rice. We had onion bhaji as a side. I’ve never had the balti vindaloo before and honestly, didn’t notice much of a difference between that and the usual, but it was still very good. I think I’ve said before that the Aladin is not licensed so we Prosecco in Tesco after the walk. As usual, if was a good meal, freshly cooked and very tasty.
I was pleased that Sheena enjoyed this walk as it was her first with David. I doubt it will be her last, and I’m glad that we had a good meal. They are so sweet in that restaurant. We were nursing our wine and they had to ask us to leave because they needed the table. If it was in a restaurant where I was paying for the wine, I would not have been crazy about leaving, but in the circumstances, we couldn’t really complain. We will be going back there again before too much longer, I have no doubt.
© Susan Shirley 2015
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