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Hi all.
As some of you know, after watching that appallingly inaccurate Youtube video purporting to reveal the four buildings associated with Chapman in Hastings (three were wrong LOL), and subsequently becoming fascinated with everything about his life and crimes, I decided to produce a little local history booklet about him to be called "The Demon Barber of George Street."
However, it has grown out of all proportion and has taken over my life. I'm working on it from 5am till 10pm seven days a week for a month now, and have produced 60 pages of A4 text so far, and have twenty-one pages of illustrations! So I have now made the leap into deciding to make it not a local book but a national one. After all, he's never had a book devoted to him before, the poor old murdering bastard.
I shall call it something like "The Southwark Poisoner - The Life and Crimes of George Chapman", and if I can weave the words Jack the Ripper into the title without rendering it ridiculously long, I will.
So, I am inviting anyone who has anything that they wish to contribute to email me. Scans of documents, photos, press cuttings, snippets of information on him, relevant pages from books, anything that you have hanging around on your computer that you would like to share. So if anyone can help, and would like to help, I'd be most grateful and will of course gratefully acknowledge your help in the book.
I'm not particularly mobile, being semi-disabled and I don't drive, and so am looking particularly for photos of the London locations in which he worked or resided. If someone has high res photos of these I'd happily give an acknowledgement and a complementary copy of the book.
Thanks in advance!
Helena
hastings.press@gmail.com
PS Just want to add, reasons I am drawn to Chapman: well, my dad was born in Lublin, near where Klosowski grew up; my grandfather was a Polish conscript into the Russian army; my stepmother came from Kalisz, near where Lucy Baderska was born. I've travelled extensively within Poland and have stayed there with family and friends many times. My real mother was born in Lambeth and lived there or in Southwark much of her life; my best mate's dad was mayor of Southwark, in which borough I lived from age 7 to 21. I went to school in Harper Road, a stone's throw from Borough High St and where Southwark Police Court used to be, I used to go into the church next to the Crown with my stepmother, and I have used the library on the other side of the Crown; and I now live in Hastings, where I have written four and published eleven local history books. Because of the local history books I am well known to all the booksellers in town and lo and behold, Chapman's former shop is now a bookshop in which my books have been sold in the past. So I feel I have so many connections to this story.
As some of you know, after watching that appallingly inaccurate Youtube video purporting to reveal the four buildings associated with Chapman in Hastings (three were wrong LOL), and subsequently becoming fascinated with everything about his life and crimes, I decided to produce a little local history booklet about him to be called "The Demon Barber of George Street."
However, it has grown out of all proportion and has taken over my life. I'm working on it from 5am till 10pm seven days a week for a month now, and have produced 60 pages of A4 text so far, and have twenty-one pages of illustrations! So I have now made the leap into deciding to make it not a local book but a national one. After all, he's never had a book devoted to him before, the poor old murdering bastard.
I shall call it something like "The Southwark Poisoner - The Life and Crimes of George Chapman", and if I can weave the words Jack the Ripper into the title without rendering it ridiculously long, I will.
So, I am inviting anyone who has anything that they wish to contribute to email me. Scans of documents, photos, press cuttings, snippets of information on him, relevant pages from books, anything that you have hanging around on your computer that you would like to share. So if anyone can help, and would like to help, I'd be most grateful and will of course gratefully acknowledge your help in the book.
I'm not particularly mobile, being semi-disabled and I don't drive, and so am looking particularly for photos of the London locations in which he worked or resided. If someone has high res photos of these I'd happily give an acknowledgement and a complementary copy of the book.
Thanks in advance!
Helena
hastings.press@gmail.com
PS Just want to add, reasons I am drawn to Chapman: well, my dad was born in Lublin, near where Klosowski grew up; my grandfather was a Polish conscript into the Russian army; my stepmother came from Kalisz, near where Lucy Baderska was born. I've travelled extensively within Poland and have stayed there with family and friends many times. My real mother was born in Lambeth and lived there or in Southwark much of her life; my best mate's dad was mayor of Southwark, in which borough I lived from age 7 to 21. I went to school in Harper Road, a stone's throw from Borough High St and where Southwark Police Court used to be, I used to go into the church next to the Crown with my stepmother, and I have used the library on the other side of the Crown; and I now live in Hastings, where I have written four and published eleven local history books. Because of the local history books I am well known to all the booksellers in town and lo and behold, Chapman's former shop is now a bookshop in which my books have been sold in the past. So I feel I have so many connections to this story.
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