Jack the Ripper Tour

[John Bennett]

Yesterday I heard a tour guide saying this in Wilkes Street;

"the kidney was sent THAT WAY [points in the direction of Spitalfields Market] to the London Hospital for analysis - but they could not do it on health grounds!"

Interesting...

Also, the school group l had yesterday were fun. When I told them that the 'Ten Bells' was once renamed the 'Jack the Ripper', one of the girls said "gosh, man, those people had issues".

[Stewart P Evans]

Tour Guide - What Tour Guide?

I did the Jack the Ripper tour in August 1967, but I didn't see John Bennett - in fact I didn't see any tour guides at all.

[RJM]

I did the Jack the Ripper tour in August 1967, but I didn't see John Bennett - in fact I didn't see any tour guides at all.

Don's day off was it

[John Bennett]

I did the Jack the Ripper tour in August 1967, but I didn't see John Bennett - in fact I didn't see any tour guides at all.

Arrrr!! I hear the creaking of bones...!

Nope, JB appeared 8 months later. But tours are nothing new - before the Rumbelows, Joneses, Hutchinsons and all, there was Keith Baverstock. I believe this is an account of his first Ripper tour (from The Times) in August 1970.

[Radical Joe]

Arrrr!! I hear the creaking of bones...!

Nope, JB appeared 8 months later. But tours are nothing new - before the Rumbelows, Joneses, Hutchinsons and all, there was Keith Baverstock. I believe this is an account of his first Ripper tour (from The Times) in August 1970.

[ATTACH]6742[/ATTACH]

"One witness described the Ripper wearing a deerstalker - a piece of evidence that has produced some unkind speculation about what Sherlock Holmes was doing at the time of the murders." Was that ever cleared up?

An enjoyable read actually, thanks. I like the prose he uses: "Footballs echoed uneasily in the memory", "The pilgrims stared dutifully", "a sinister pool of oil on the cobbles" He could make a childrens picnic sound like the prelude to a massacre.

Actually, I walked past a tour a copule of weeks back. Two guides were talking to a group outside of ChristChurch, Spitalfields, and one of them (a reasonably young Scottish man) stated that all the victims knew each other well and used to enjoy a drink together in the Ten Bells. I almost choked on my cream cheese bagel. Now, I know it's not beyond the realms of possibility, but I thought it a bit cheeky to state this as fact.

Is it common for guides to 'hype up' their tours with a narrative?

[John Bennett]

Is it common for guides to 'hype up' their tours with a narrative?

Hopefully not, but some do.


I have had a lot of school groups recently, which is often where the most pertinent/funny questions come from. Yesterday, they started asking me about suspects. They named Tumblety, Ostrog, Druitt, Kosminski (including spelling variations), Joe Barnett, Chapman and then one lad shouted out "Thomas Hayne Cutbush!" Not bad for a 14 year old, I thought!

Today was different. Lovely group. However one girl asked "what did Jack the Ripper look like?" Me and the other kids said that we didn't know, because he was never caught.

Half an hour later, she said "was he married?" Same response.

At the end, she asked "did he have any children?" Same response with more ribbing from her mates.


She also asked me if I was alive when the murders happened! Bless. They have only just started the course, though.

[chrisjd]

"She also asked me if I was alive when the murders happened!"

Shave that beard off and it it won't happen again
;-)

C

[John Bennett]

"She also asked me if I was alive when the murders happened!"

Shave that beard off and it it won't happen again
;-)

C

Aw, come on, there's only a bit of grey in it!

[John Bennett]

Latest ++ Latest ++

How's this?

Last night, I passed a young lady (who I see around quite a bit) giving a tour to some students. They were by the entrance to White's Row Car Park:

"There are people who devote their whole life to this mystery, the identity of Jack the Ripper. They're called the Apologists and they meet up once a year in Texas..."

???

PS. I'm not making this up!

[Andrew Firth]

They're called the Apologists and they meet up once a year in Texas...

Well from one Apologist to another, can I just say that I'll see you soon, on the grassy knoll.....

Andrew

[Pippin Joan]

I know this thread is ancient, but I've been trying to track down the best Ripper Walk Tour. I plan to be in London in about 6 weeks and since it's only a stopover, top of the list is a Ripper Walk. The one discussed so far sounds perfect.

More inane tourist questions -- a friend used to be a guide at the Gettysburg Battlefield (US Civil War) in Pennsylvania. His favorite brainless question was "How did they manage to have a battle between all these statues of people and horses?" Another one was from a girl who didn't see the effectiveness of cannons because it took so much to shoot a cannonball and it would only hit a couple of people on the head.

[John Bennett]

After a quiet couple of weeks, last night was a real humdinger.

A party of people on the tour who were celebrating a birthday (!?) and obviously thought a Ripper tour was going to be a night of grisly comedy. You know the type - JTR is a bit of Victorian melodrama with fog and chorus girls and the man with the top hat. One of them was dressed like Tigger.

They started drinking immediately, cans of gin and tonic, beer, bottles of wine, so by the time they got to Dorset Street some of them were rather 'lubricated' and behaving like arses. They made out like they wanted a bit of blood 'n' guts which is inevitable on a JTR tour, I guess, but people like that are never prepared for the reality.

I usually do not describe the full injuries to MJK (for personal reasons which may not be shared by my colleagues). But this lot wanted some gore, so they got it - in spades. They didn't know what to say after that. Thankfully.

One of them was totally convinced by the 'royal conspiracy theory'. And still was after I demolished it. Two other members of the tour (not with the drunk ones) who believed it too said that it was like telling children that Father Christmas didn't exist.

Thank God all tours don't pan out like this! Sheesh.

[Nurse Sarah]

You should write a book, Confessions of a JTR tour guide!

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi John

Hang in there, mate. There does seem to be an edge of danger to Jack the Ripper tours, and a certain uncertainty each time in that you don't know what type of "customers" you are going to get, or else, as we reported in Ripperologist a while ago, how the various denizens of Whitechapel are going to react to the tour!

Chris

[tbrett2000]

ripper tour

it's been a while,...but in 1987 , I took a tour called 'THE TRAGICAL HISTORY TOUR'.
It covered the plauge, Sweeny todd's barber shop, and went to all of jack kill sights....

it was a great tour!

interestingly enough, the guide made us all whisper at the 13 Millers Crt. site of Mary Kelly's murder sighting that it was because there was a young colledge girl who lived there now and had tried to sue the various tours for loudly talking about what had happened in her apartment!

frankly, i don't blame her!
could you imagine the invoked nightmares when night after night someone is screaming about about the cut off boobies and other body parts that where in your bedroom!!

the tour also offered a very well done proffesional book for sale by the same title.
i still have it!

(call me crazy, but I still think Maybrick did it!)