Archive | Victorian London RSS feed for this section

Feminism and Jack the Ripper – a ramble through a disordered mind

31 Jan

I got yet another email last night accusing me of being ‘un-feminist’ because of my interest in Jack the Ripper and suggesting that I am contributing to the glamourising of what were clearly horrific crimes against women and subsequent fetishising of the victims. I say ‘yet another email’ as this isn’t actually the first time I have been accused of something along these lines and probably won’t be the last so I thought I’d publicly address it here or at least thrash it out in the open where you can all bear witness to my torturous thought processes and lack of any intellectual rigour.

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say ‘I’m a feminist’ because I don’t happen to think that’s how these things should work. I mean, I don’t have a very clear idea about what feminism is but I do have definite ideas about what it ISN’T. Or maybe I don’t. It’s all so NEBULOUS, you see. And also PERSONAL. All I know is that I am one. I suppose I’d feel the same sort of uncertain inarticulate mental stultification if someone asked me ‘Why are you a woman?’ I DON’T KNOW WHY. I JUST AM.

For the record, I also believe that not every woman is a feminist and that not all feminists are women. Make of that what you will.

However, unlike seemingly a lot of other people, feminism itself holds no fears for me. As I may have mentioned before, I was raised by my grandparents, both of whom grew up during the second world war and had, shall we say, rather NOVEL ideas about child rearing and, more crucially, femininity or rather the role of women. my grandmother was very fond of lecturing me about my ‘duty’ to any future husband (if I was lucky enough to ensnare one with my frankly limited charms because don’t forget I was ALSO getting regular bulletins about how unloveable I am too) and how I had to be at the beck and call of this draconian imaginary complacent entitled fuckwit and have his sodding dinner on the table when he got home from his bloody work and all sorts of nonsense like that.

However, luckily for me, my mother, whom I did see from time to time (although in a charmingly Catherine Cookson twist, I was raised to think that she was my sister – which gives me excellent fodder for my books as you can imagine) was what I consider to be Old School Feminist which served as an excellent antidote.

I love the way that whenever I feel stressed and unhappy, it is my grandmother’s voice I hear inside my head (not literally – I’m not certifiable), ordering me to clean and be obedient and subservient but when I’m feeling pretty good, it is my mother who inspires me. She’s pretty awesome and a great role model actually but I’ll talk about that some other time.

Now, before I go on, I did once upon a time announce that I wasn’t a feminist but in my defence it was said to someone who is not only as thick as mince but also well known for being a pompous buffoon fond of dreary, badly spelt self righteous pontificating and dismal condescending twaddle. They were spoiling for a fight and I was in a sufficiently bad mood to oblige. I felt bad though. I felt even worse when one of my very dearest friends jumped in to defend me against the inevitable attack. I am a bad person.

I’m not going to do that now though. Well, clearly I’m not.

The question about Ripperology and feminism does interest me though because it is something that makes me feel vaguely uneasy at times. I know that feminist groups have protested in the past about the Ripper exhibit at the London Dungeons and moved to have the name of the Ten Bells changed back again when it was briefly called the Jack the Ripper and that makes me wonder – am I the Enemy here? Am I the one using these horrible murders for entertainment and a bit of seedy gratuitous thrill seeking? Should someone be trying to stop ME?

I mean, I am not an academic and have no useful, official or sensible purpose to my interest in the Ripper case so does that mean I am being titillated by it in some way? Is this one of those situations where if you don’t have a good reason for being there, then you shouldn’t be there at all? I don’t think so – but then, for a start, I don’t see it as a game of whodunnit. As I have explained here before, I am not actually all that interested in unmasking the Ripper. Beyond a belief that he was a random nutcase and not the product of some macabre, internecine, Hollywood friendly conspiracy, I have very little interest in him at all. But even if I DID, would that mean that I am fundamentally some sort of raving misogynist? I don’t think so.

What I am actually interested in are his victims and their lives as they offer a snapshot into existences that ordinarily would be hidden from view in their own time and then lost to history. What happened to them was dreadful beyond all comprehension and I suppose I see it as my own personal mission not to forget them and to make sure other people don’t either. I also have a more underhand agenda of using their unhappy stories of relationship breakdown, dependancy, poverty and addiction to remind people of why we NEED welfare in this country. I’m always saying that I judge societies by the way they treat their weakest members and I’m afraid, based on the lives of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman et al, I’m judging YOU, Victorian England, VERY HARSHLY INDEED.

Do I fetishise them? Well, I’d like to think that I don’t. The definition of fetishising is to hold an intense, excessive and irrational devotion to something. I don’t think that’s the case here. However, yes, I do refer to myself as a Victorian Prostitute Re-enactor and, yes, I am writing a book about the Ripper murders. The re-enactment is a sort of in-joke based on my previous experiences of re-enactment in my less creaky youth and also because one of my friends and I thought it would be fun to dress up in Victorian rags and hang around Whitechapel at night. I suppose there’s an element of reclaiming the streets there and also a nod to the fact that most re-enactment appears to involve men with long hair recreating past wars, bloodshed and hideous conflict so why shouldn’t we, as women, dress up to recall to mind our own bloody history or to show a bit of across the centuries solidarity with our unfortunate nineteenth century sisters?

I also like to dress in Victorian clothes and as I’m a bit scruffy, that’s always going to veer towards the more bohemian and down at heel styling, I’m afraid.

As to the book, well, it seems that what I like to write about are women, their relationships with each other and how they are affected by traumatic events. I’ll own up now that if you are expecting a big fat whodunnit and a dramatic unmasking at the end of my Ripper book, you’ll be sadly disappointed as the book isn’t really about him – it’s about the effect his actions have on the lives of a trio of fairly different young women and, in essence, explores more fully the ideas that I don’t really have the space or energy to expound in full in this here blog post.

In a nutshell then, I don’t believe that, done properly, Ripperology is intrinsically ‘un-feminist’ or women hating or misogynistic or using murder victims as some sort of bizarre historical snuff porn. Not all Ripperologists are the same though – some enjoy the thrill of the chase and get really, really excited about each and every new theory about the Ripper’s identity; others are in it because they like the whole ambience of gaslit, foggy streets (I’m pretty appreciative of this sort of thing) and others, like me, are interested in the social history and can barely bring themselves to look at the mortuary photographs of the victims. I’m ALL OVER maps and contemporary photographs of the actual area though.

I’m not being all holier than thou, though. Although I will tend to avoid most documentaries on the Ripper case, the deeply flawed From Hell is one of my all time favourite films. I don’t feel obliged to wholeheartedly LOVE everything about it though – the prettying up of what, and I say this as someone who has absolute respect for them, was a group of rather unlovely women makes me wince rather a lot and makes me wonder if it is more disrespectful to make someone more attractive than they were in reality than it is to show them in all their toothless, grimy, warts n all glory?

I think I’ve said enough. What do you think? Have you been grinding your teeth for months wondering if I am the sort of misguided female who writes love letters to serial killers on death row (I’m really REALLY not but as to whether there should even BE a death row, ah well, that’s a whole new rant really, isn’t it?) or if I have ANY IDEA how rampagingly misogynistic I am being by flouncing about the place rambling on about GIN and alleyways?

Anyway, I have other thoughts but my RSI wrist is telling me stop plus this is getting a bit epic now and is rapidly spiralling out of control. As always, I am reminded of the scene in Father Ted, where he accepts an award and gives the longest speech ever, being interrupted at the point where he says: ‘And now, moving on to LIARS…’ What do you think, anyway? Let’s have a chat about it. Or not. We could talk about something else if you like? Like the snow or what happened at the end of the last episode of Sherlock or how much the Daily Mail pay journalists to watch award ceremonies and premieres and look out for tan lines/price stickers on the bottom of shoes/bags under the eyes/spinach between the teeth…

The Pleasures of Men – Kate Williams

22 Jan

‘Catherine Sorgeiul lives with her Uncle in a rambling house in London’s East End. She has few companions and little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination.

But then a murderer strikes, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, leading the press to christen him The Man of Crows. And as Catherine devours the news, she finds she can channel the voices of the dead, and comes to believe she will eventually channel The Man of Crows himself.

But the murders continue to panic the city and Catherine gradually realizes she is snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears.
And lurking behind the lies Catherine has been told are secrets more deadly and devastating than anything her imagination can conjure …‘

The Victorians were really keen on microcosm paintings, panoramic views of their society crammed full of faces, stories and activity like so many over dressed ants all busying themselves at the same time. William Powell Frith’s amazing sprawling The Derby Day and The Railway Station are perfect examples of this particularly Victorian genre, where the viewer is invited to greedily observe everything, their eyes scanning the myriad of different faces, pausing here and there to ponder what their story is.

In recent years, the ‘Victoriana’ novel has gained popularity and almost become a genre in its own right. Like the microcosm paintings of Frith, there are rules to this genre, certain period set pieces that must be included, descriptions and observations of a more contemporary nature that must be made and they are invariably populated by a vast cast of characters, mostly incidental but who must be described in great and lurid detail.

The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams is one such book. I was very much looking forward to reading it, anticipating something akin to Michel Faber’s brilliant The Crimson Petal and the White. Now, The Pleasures of Men is very similar to The Crimson Petal but only in so far as most other ‘Victoriana’ novels are – there’s the usual description of dirt, decay and damp. The wails of unfortunate babies follow the characters wherever they venture. People drink gin like it’s about to run out. There’s an awful lot of prostitutes.

There are other similarities – like Faber’s Sugar, Catherine, the heroine of The Pleasures of Men is damaged by her past and keen on feverishly writing down fantasies that involve violence, death, murder and destruction. Fascinated by a serial killer, known as The Man of Crows, she writes lurid accounts of his murders and eventually decides to venture out into the city at night to walk in his footsteps, believing herself ‘protected’ by the evil that she has always been told dwells inside her.

This was a complex and often deeply unpleasant book. I’ve seen complaints that it is over written and I’d be inclined to agree with that assessment but I believe that it is intentionally so. The writing is full blown, lavish, feverish and often over wrought, creating a really horrible, almost suffocatingly intense atmosphere of heat, dust and dirt as observed by a sexually obsessed, disturbed Victorian teenager who has spent time in a lunatic asylum.

The narrowness of a young Victorian girl’s life is well described here – not just that of Catherine with her peculiar circumstances but those of her over dressed acquaintances, who sexually torment their maids and fantasise about serial killers while slyly keeping watch for suitable young men.

At times though, the plot, which when you think about it isn’t really all that complicated (you’ll be disappointed when you discover the identity of the Man of Crows) veers not so much into confusion as into vague slapdashness, almost as if the writer herself lost interest about a hundred pages before the end (which was a bit of a damp squib all things considered) and decided that she didn’t care who the Man of Crows was or who he murdered any more. I can’t blame her for that – I didn’t really care either.

Would I recommend this book? Well, yes and no. If you are in the mood for a dip into the revolting iniquity of London’s east end in the 1840s and have a thing for Victorian asylums and the deranged meanderings of cooped up young girls as well as splendid Victorian set pieces like visits to pie shops, trips to gin dens and a splendidly disastrous visit to the vaudeville theatre then you’ll almost certainly love this. Otherwise you’ll probably start to feel a bit queasy and long for something a bit less histrionic.

Personally, although I did, I think, rather enjoy myself while reading it (and also feel slightly alarmed as I have written about similar themes in my own Victorian effort), I went off and had a long bath when I’d finished reading and splashed the water about a bit while muttering ‘A MILLION POUND ADVANCE? A. MILLION. POUNDS?’ over and over again until I felt like booking myself in for a nice restorative stay at Catherine’s lunatic asylum, the lovely sounding Lavenderfields.

Having said that, I fully expect this to be made into a film at some point in the near future…

Ps. Where is the woman’s right hand in the cover photograph? Haha, now that I have made you look, you will never be able to UNSEE.

A quick visit to the Ten Bells, Spitalfields

12 Jan

The Ten Bells is right next to Christ Church in Spitalfields and directly opposite the entrance to the now trendy and bustling Spitalfields Market. There has been a pub on the corner of Fornier Street and Commercial Street since 1752, but the Ten Bells as we know it now has only been in existence since Victorian times, when it served the locals of Spitalfields and the porters and clientele of the market over the road.

The pub has an unsavoury reputation thanks to its connections to the Jack the Ripper case as two of the victims, Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly are known to have drunk there, although obviously it is not known if Jack the Ripper himself was a customer.

The Ten Bells was briefly known as The Jack the Ripper between 1976 and 1988, but the brewery eventually forced into changing the name back to the original again after women’s groups, quite rightly, argued that a notorious murderer of women should not be commemorated by having pubs named after him.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the Ten Bells over the years. I still remember the very first time I went there: it was 2002 and I was going out with someone who lived in Wapping. It didn’t take me long to persuade him to walk with me up to Whitechapel at night so that I could poke around the murder sites and see Spitalfields for myself. He spent the entire evening worrying about being mugged or worse, but I was in love with the area from the first moment that I set foot in it. I knew that I would feel at home anyway, of course as my family came from there and I had always felt a deep link to the East End of London but I wasn’t prepared for quite how much I would love it.

I like to imagine my ancestors drinking there and the Truman’s sign never fails to make me smile as my great grandfather was a manager at their Brick Lane brewery in the last century. While HIS grandfather was a H Division police sergeant living in the Whitechapel police station during the Ripper investigation in 1888.

The first time we went to the Ten Bells, by now a thriving, dimly lit and hipster cool bar filled with a curious mix of cool young things and awkward looking tourists in anoraks, I found it unbearable though – the music, chatter and laughter were all too loud and I found myself needing to leave almost immediately, disappointed that it wasn’t at all how I expected it to be. To make matters worse, while we were standing by the door, I became convinced that I could feel someone put their hands on my waist, only to look around and realise that there was no one standing anywhere near me. Spooky!

And then to make matters even worse, my boyfriend then went a bit mad when we got back to his flat and claimed that voices in his head were telling him to hurt me. We didn’t last very long, as you can imagine. Actually, that’s not true as actually I almost ended up married to him, until merciful, blessed fate intervened.

After this, I made occasional forays into the Ten Bells but was always quickly forced out by the noise and hubbub and, I don’t know, a feeling of pervasive, intense gloom. I persevere though and on the last visit miraculously got a table at which to drink our gin. Even more miraculously, it was beside the window so we had an amazing view up and out at Christ Church looming over us. My companion told me that I looked somewhat wonderful with the flickering candlelight and gloomy looks up at the ominous white church, but I expect I just looked slightly crazed. It has that effect, you see. Or maybe it’s just the GIN.

I’ve noticed that the new owner has given it a face lift, which is probably much needed but I do miss the essential seediness. There’s a cool pop up restaurant in the top floor function room at the moment, the outside is freshly painted and, crikey, is that an awning as well? I have my own plans involving the Ten Bells, but I don’t want to jinx them by talking about them here…

The Ten Bells, 84 Commercial Street, Whitechapel, E1 6LY. One of the finest and most iconic pubs in London.

Dickens’ London

29 Nov

Longterm readers of this blog will know that I am passionately interested in Victorian London, particularly its grimy, seedy underbelly so I was thrilled when Haus Publishing sent me a copy of Dickens’s London by Peter Clark to review.

‘Few novelists have written so intimately about a city in the way that Charles Dickens wrote about London. A near-photographic memory made his contact with the city indelible from a very young age and it remained his constant focus. Virginia Woolf maintained that, ‘we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens,’ as he produces ‘characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks.’

But the ‘character’ he was drawn back to throughout his novels was London itself, all aspects of the capital from the coaching inns of his early years to the taverns and watermen of the Thames; these were the constant cityscapes of his life and work.

Based on five walks in central London, Peter Clark illuminates the settings of Dickens’s London, his life, his journalism and his fiction. He also explores ‘The First Suburbs’ (Camden Town, Chelsea, Greenwich, Hampstead, Highgate and Limehouse) as they feature in Dickens’s writing.‘

There’s several books available about Victorian London but this is one is unique as it actually guides you through the streets on five fascinating and in-depth walking tours, which lead you past buildings and places that appear in Dickens’ work (with relevant quotes) or were important to his life. I haven’t attempted one of the tours yet (but will do next time I am in London) but found this a fascinating armchair read as it really leaves no stone uncovered and also highlights just how intertwined Dickens and the city were.

This book is ideal for anyone interested in Victorian London – especially those who are keen on really long walks! I can’t wait to give one of the walks a go.

This brilliant book is a bargain at £7.99 from Haus Publishing’s site and readers who use the Exclusive To This Blog discount code of MMG25 will get 25% off! (It says it is coming out in February but is actually available to buy right now.)

Thanks so much to Haus for my review copy!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,727 other followers