Jack the Ripper, Tours, Books, Inspiration

It’s not everyone’s favourite subject but let’s consider Jack the Ripper for a moment. I’m not going to go down the path of rhetoric so often written, i.e. ‘most famous unsolved murders’ and all that, I’m going to say this: Having had a longtime interest in the case like thousands of others, I used the tragedies as the basis for ‘Deviant Desire’, though I changed Whitechapel to Greychurch, and so on, and my ripper set about doing away with rent boys rather than women. That’s how the whole Clearwater Mysteries series started, and now, twenty-three books later, I am starting on the sixth book in the second follow-on series and the Clearwater world of Victorian London continues (though now, Whitechapel is Whitechapel).

The Victorian East End lives in fear of the Ripper and his mission to kill rent boys.

The Ripper casts a long shadow in the fearful streets of the Victorian East End as he preys on vulnerable rent boys. Among them is Silas Hawkins, a nineteen-year-old struggling to survive the harsh realities of life on the streets with his best friend, a Ukrainian refugee, Andrej.

Little does Silas know his fate is about to take a dramatic turn when he meets Archer, a captivating and affluent young viscount.

That’s still not the point of this Saturday morning ramble, the point is, to point you towards an experience. Should you be in, or find yourself in, London, with an interest in the Ripper history, you might like to take a guided walk through the streets that remain and learn all kinds of things about the past and the murders. I’m a follower of Russell Edwards, Ripperologist and author of the book Naming Jack the Ripper: New Crime Scene Evidence, A Stunning Forensic Breakthrough, The Killer Revealed. I have the book on my shelves and it’s a fascinating read.

After 125 years of theorizing and speculation regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper, Russell Edwards is in the unique position of owning the first physical evidence relating to the crimes to have emerged since 1888. This evidence is from one of the crime scenes and has now been rigorously examined by some of the most highly-qualified forensic scientists in the country who have ascertained its true provenance. With the help of modern forensic techniques, Russell’s ground-breaking discoveries provide conclusive answers to many of the most challenging mysteries surrounding the case.

Mr Edwards takes tours which you can read all about and book on his site, the Jack the Ripper Tour, and he also has a Facebook page.  

I reckon Mr Edward would be one of the few people to catch all the JtR references in ‘Deviant Desire’ because many of them are very subtle. So subtle that now, seven years after writing it, I’ve forgotten most of them. They are there, though, from an easy-to-spot double event to the changing of location names – Mitre Square becomes Bishop’s Square, for example. Mind you, an expert like Mr E will probably baulk at the way I threw the clues and story together and what I did with the sacred story. Ah well, I set out to write a work of fiction, and gay fiction at that – a gay love story actually, which turned into a mystery that led to the second book which tells us why my Ripper was never caught, and by book six of the series what finally happened to the evil man… But that’s another story.

Anyway, this was a post to point out this tour which, were I in England, I would take. I used to live two miles away at Dalston Junction and would often wander down that way on a Sunday for the markets. Maybe I will go if I ever find myself back in town. Meanwhile, a reminder that this is the last weekend when all these murder, mystery and thriller books will be on promo (until next month when Book Mojo are running another which I will join in with). So, for all you mystery and murder novel fans, give them a look and some love.

Banyak, Fecks and Some Other Notes

I was digging around my files this morning and came across my folder for ‘Banyak & Fecks.’ This is one of my favourite novels, and the one I am most proud of. This is partly because it’s not like the others in terms of plot. It’s about two people from vastly different backgrounds meeting, needing each other, surviving, and becoming platonically entwined forever. The fact they are both in their late teens/early twenties adds a level of emotional and sexual confusion. What I’m also pleased with is the research, and while writing it, I made some notes about various historical facts and figures that come into play in the story. Even if they are only background, they still have to be correct.

So, after today’s news, which follows in a moment, I’ll show you the notes I made. First though, a couple of other matters:

Helen P. Schrader is the author of 24 historical fiction books. She is currently running a series of short interviews with other historical fiction writers with the theme, ‘Why I write historical fiction.’

On 20th February (i.e. Tuesday) she will have a short piece about me on her blog, which you can find by clicking this link: Helen Schrader.

Mardi Gras Promotion. This promo is still running if you want to see what’s o offer. Head to the link and find a raft of new titles in various genres/niches, all LGBTQI+ and all there to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras and queer fiction. Click this link: Mardi Gras Promo.

And now, to my background notes for Banyak & Fecks. Bear in mind, these are only notes, and they might be a bit all over the place and/or incomplete. While posting, I’ll see if I have any images hanging around the folder that I can also put up.


Banyak & Fecks General Notes and Words

Some are taken directly from newspapers and documents of the time.

Cabs 1879

Altogether there are 4,142 Hansom cabs, and 4,120 Clarence, or four-wheel cabs, in London.

Light-carts

Dock work 1883

The pay is fivepence an hour, and the day’s work lasts for eight hours. It is miscellaneous, and a man is expected to put his hand to anything in the shape of loading or unloading that the occasion may require.

Destitution

Arranged for a plain burial which is to cost 6 guineas.

Let me describe this room. It was the first floor back; so small that the bed left little room to move. She took it unfurnished, for 2/9 a week; the furniture she brought was: the bed, one chair, a chest of drawers, and a broken deal table. On some shelves were a few plates, cups, etc. Over the mantelpiece hung several pictures, which she had preserved from old days. There were three engravings: a landscape, a piece by Landseer, and a Madonna of Raphael. There was a portrait of Byron, and one of Tennyson. There was a photograph of myself, taken 12 years ago, — to which, the landlady tells me, she attached special value, strangely enough. Then there were several cards with Biblical texts. and three cards such as are signed by those who “take the pledge,” — all bearing date during the last six months.

Andrej (Fecks) came from the northeast of Odesa in Ukraine. He walked from there to Genoa in Italy aged 14/15/16 before finding passage on a ship to London.

Clothing

An Ulster: a man’s long, loose overcoat of rough cloth, typically with a belt at the back. The Ulster is a Victorian working daytime overcoat, with a cape and sleeves. The Ulster is distinguished from the Inverness by the length of the cape; in the Ulster, this cape only reaches the elbows, allowing free movement of the forearms.

Pennylicks – ice cream bowls

Graphophone – the name and trademark of an improved version of the phonograph.

Slums (1880)

The yard pump takes two, one to pump while one washes.

Washtop (the copper) over the fire, with tin lid and ‘chumney’, hot and sweaty, used also for washing clothes.

A room: double bed, trunk, table, 2 chairs, fire, candles.

Cheap foreign labour after depression.

40k population expansion.

Jewish immigrants from pogroms in Russia and the east.

Largest immigrant population = Irish, 2nd largest  = Russians

Work

Unskilled = lucky to get two week’s work out of a month

Pillars at the docks either side of gates

Thousands at the gates every day

10k people in East End after 6k jobs

Police at gates

Wait hours to rush through, some got trampled

‘The cage’ where foremen stood to choose, safe, while thousands crushed to be chosen

Unloading barrels, bales and sacks that rubbed skin from back

5d an hour

Fecks, young, tall, strong, some English so can better fight for work

Banyak & Fecks leads into Deviant Desire which concerns the East End Ripper murders of 1888 – these, I based on the Jack the Ripper murders of that year. Here’s the front of the Illustrated Police News following the killing of Catherine Eddowes.

Sweatshops – Sweated Workshops (tailor factories)

Refugees met off the boat by ‘sweater sharks’

Wheelbarrows to cart supplies

No pay until an order is done

‘Greeners’ = lowliest tasks, new to the biz

18 hours a day, six days a week, 34p per hour in today’s money

One 22-year-old greener worked 22 hours per day until he hanged himself

Pawn brokers

Trade in clothes to pay for bed or rope house

No tick (credit) for transients

Buying bread and fat in slices from shop

Weekly rents in today’s money £30.00, £13.00, £8.00

Costermongers

12,000 in the 1880s

Eels, five per penny for sheep’s trotters (80k per week sold)

Silas

Telling jokes for pennies – Silas, the difference between a hollow tube and a daft Dutchman? One’s a hollow cylinder, the other’s a silly Hollander – etc.

Showing the rich around the slums, slumming it, slum tourism, won’t make him popular

Slum fiction

Human novelty exhibits

And that’s where my notes run out. If you haven’t read it, and want to know how all those various subjects add up and tie in, head to the Amazon page, add it to your TBR list, read it in Kindle Unlimited, or order yourself a paperback.

The Real History Behind The Clearwater Mysteries

Part 1 – Jack the Ripper

This is the first blog in a series over the next few months where I will look at the real historical events behind each of my books in the Clearwater Mysteries Series. Today we talk about that infamous murderer, Jack the Ripper and are joined by guest author Russell Edwards of “Naming Jack the Ripper” fame.

Where did my fascination with The Ripper come from?

I have had an interest in Jack the Ripper since I lived in the East End of London in the 80s/90s. I lived two miles away from Whitechapel and often walked down to Shoreditch and Spitalfields for the markets, treading some of the streets where Jack committed his murders. Like many, I love an unsolved mystery and have a theory that what draws people to this particular mystery is the possibility of being the one to solve it.

Books, documentaries, TV…

There are plenty of books on the subject, some by learned authors, some by amateur sleuths, and many purporting to have found ‘the final clue’, or to know the definitive answer. I have read, maybe not all of them but, enough to have a general understanding of the main details of the mystery. It was that background that led me to ‘Deviant Desire.’

In particular, I had read “The Diary of Jack the Ripper” by Shirley Harrison, ‘The Complete Jack the Ripper‘ by Donald Rumbelow, ‘Naming Jack the Ripper‘ by Russel Edwards, and had dipped in and out of ‘The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper‘ by Maxim Jakubowski, Kris Dyer, et al. Checking my Kindle content list, I remember I have also read ‘Jack the Ripper’s Streets of Terror‘ by John Stewart, ‘Chasing the Ripper‘ by Patricia Cornwell, and ‘Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth‘ by Bruce Paley, and some compilations that had articles about aspects of the case along with other famous crimes of the age.

Good Lord! On top of that little lot, I have seen various documentaries on the subject, and of course, some rather dubious film and TV accounts. Most, if not all of these books and programmes offer their version of what actually happened, who Jack definitely was beyond doubt, and each of them is in their own way, convincing. They can’t all be right, and the truth is, we will probably never know the answer, and it’s that that keeps the fascination alive.

I invited Russell Edwards over to the blog today to chat with me. He is the author of  ‘Naming Jack the Ripper‘ and runs The Jack the Ripper Tour Company in London.

 

Russell, where did your obsession with Jack the Ripper start?

Not so much an obsession, but more an interest in the real story and the challenge of discovering who the true murderer was. It started when I watched the film: ‘From Hell’.  I did a Ripper tour the next day and it wasn’t until I did it did I realise that the Ripper murders occurred in the area I’d been in all that time. That’s where my story started.

Your identification of the Ripper is based on the DNA collected from a shawl. Why was the shawl so important and how did you find it?

The Shawl

 

I was told that a shawl was for sale at a reputable auction house in Suffolk. I went to see it and it had blood on there. It was clearly very old. The auction brochure said: interested parties should make their own enquiries. It also stated that the shawl had been kept for a while at the crime museum at Scotland Yard. I called Scotland Yard and the investigation started there. I found a direct link to the dates of the last three murders to the pattern on the shawl. I told this to Scotland Yard who then told me the true story of the identity of Jack the Ripper.

If the Ripper had committed his crimes in the modern-day do you think the police would have been more successful in solving the crime?

Yes. He would have apprehended very quickly. There are CCTV cameras on every street in the area. With modern police procedures, he would have bee caught in my opinion. A copycat killer who murdered two prostitutes recently was apprehended very quickly.

Aaron Kosminski is the man that you believe to be Jack the Ripper – if you could meet him what would you say to him?

What was the trigger to murder the first one?

What do you think was going through his mind when he was killing those young girls, why was he so obsessed and brutal?

I’m a fully qualified Psychotherapist and have written a paper on this point. It is related to his mental health, his past, what happened to him as a child. I can’t really say what was going through his mind at the time other than he developed a bloodlust as serial killers do.

If you could choose one location that showcases Victorian London and everything linked to the Ripper, where would it be?

It would be the junction of Princelet Street and Wilkes Street. It really delivers the feeling of 1888 Whitechapel.

As you turn into Wilkes Street, Whitechapel you see the dark Georgian houses that existed at the time of the Ripper murders in 1888.

Moving to your walking tours, tell us a little bit about them.  

I incorporate the story of the murders with the discovery of the Ripper to educate the public who Jack the Ripper truly was. By coming on the tour I would hope that you learn the truth and the story of Jack the Ripper. Normally, the tours run every week from Aldgate East Tube Station at 7pm.

You can keep up to date with our tour news on Facebook and Instagram.

At the moment due to the current restrictions look out for online events and podcasts such as this discussion and chat with The Real Paranormal Magazine UK this week.

Thank you Russell for your time, a great guy to follow if you share our fascination.

 ———————————————————————————

So, back to my Clearwater world. Which came first? The idea for the series and then the setting in Victorian London OR thinking about the Ripper which led to the book?

Deviant Desire, The Clearwater Mysteries book one

I can’t remember exactly what I was doing when the idea for ‘Deviant Desire’ popped into my head. ‘Well,’ I thought one day out of the blue, ‘what if the Ripper had killed rent boys?’ (As we call them now.) Street rat renters in my imaginary, Clearwater world. That was how ‘Deviant Desire’ started. Take a Victorian renter, put him in Whitechapel in 1888 and see what happens. Oh, better add in a love story… What about the class divide too? He’ll need a sidekick, and I will need to do more research. I called Whitechapel’ Greychurch’ because I wanted to take other liberties than ‘Jack’ killing young men not women, but I did manage to get in some nods to the original story while inventing my fiction.

My imaginary world in Victorian London was created with facts twisted into my own plots

Readers might note that I have a ‘double event’, a murder takes place in Bishop’s Square (Elizabeth Stride was killed in Mitre Square). Annie Chapman died in Hanbury Street; my victim was found in Harrington Street. I invented Lucky Row, and Mary Ann Nichols was killed in Buck’s Row. Astute readers might also have noticed that Lord Clearwater lives in Buck’s Avenue which leads into a Buck’s Row, but that’s over in Knightsbridge. I changed the names (and dates) because I wanted them to fit my own trail of clues. My characters also work through a series of other possibilities, such as the murder sites forming a Star of David, or the letter A, but these, they quickly discount for logical reasons.

Jack the Ripper, and the knowledgeable books I have read on the subject, clearly inspired and, in part, informed the story of ‘Deviant Desire.’ In no way did I set out to solve the original murders. Nor did I base my story on facts – apart from the conditions and mores of the time, etiquette, grand houses, servants’ roles, transport and other historical background facts. Jack was the inspiration only, but what I did end up doing was unmasking my fictional Ripper. That, I thought, had to be done to complete the story, but the allure of Jack is that no-one knows who he was. The murders just stopped. Translate that to my fictional world, I thought, and I can explain why the ‘East End Ripper’ (as I called him) suddenly stopped his killing spree. In my world, it was because he’d done what he set out to do, but that still left me with my tongue in my cheek thinking, ‘But I can then tell the reader why and how his murders stopped.’ In other words, I thought, I could tell the reader what happened to ‘Jack’ and explain why my East End Ripper was never caught.

To learn that, you will have to read book two, ‘Twisted Tracks’, and possibly books three and four… Actually, up to book six, but, hopefully, after reading ‘Deviant Desire,’ you will want to carry on the series and find out how the characters develop, how storylines interweave and see what becomes of my street rat renter.

The Clearwater Mystery series has now reached eight published novels, number nine ‘Negative Exposure’ is about to come out, and number ten, ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’ has been plotted, and I am ready to start. And it’s all thanks to the unsolved case of Jack the Ripper.

As I final note, I want to say how thrilled I was that Russell took the time and trouble to answer questions for me. As an amateur, it’s an honour, like having a signed copy of his book. I have a hard copy, and maybe one day, when I can, I will return to the East End and take the tour, bringing the book with me for the ultimate signature.

I’ll be back next week. Meanwhile, if you want to see the cover of ‘Negative Exposure’ you can find it on my Facebook page.