Where Did The Shawl Come From?

[GUT]

G'day Hatchett

All I am saying that it is not beyond belief that somewhere other items valuable to the case could exist, and could one day be found.

No argument there.

[Hatchett]

Hi Gut,

At least I would like to believe so.

Best wishes.

[mickreed]

I've been reading about Jack The Ripper since the Autumn of 1988 and I never heard a single thing about a shawl until recently. Am I to assume that an actual piece of physical evidence survived being lost, destroyed, or pilfered?

G'day,

The shawl has been around a while. So far as I know, it was first mentioned by Paul Harrison in Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved (1991). He was put onto it by a police inspector and in 1989, he saw it at a video shop in Clacton, Essex owned by the Dowlers. He said, they were extremely cynical about the story attached to it. Harrison himself doesn't have much to say, apart from the story attached to it, and the fact the David Melville Hayes was hawking it around even then.

To my knowledge it next appears in a 1997 book by Kevin O'Donnell, The Ripper Murders, based on work done by Andy and Sue Parlour. In that, the mother of David Melville Hayes claimed, in an interview, that nobody knew where her grandfather got it. At some point it was in the Black Museum for while and then hawked around the country by the Parlours to Ripper expos etc.

Richard Whittington-Egan discussed it last year in a book, and of course, we all know about the current book.

So it's flitted in and out for 25 years. The family story, such as it is, seems to have been treated with varying degrees of scepticism until now.

[Richard E. Nixon]

Richard .... E Nixon?
What´s with the E?

the best,
Fisherman

Running gag on the American sitcom "All In The Family." Archie Bunker was known for his malapropisms and he always referred to the president at the time as Richard E. Nixon, completely ignorant that the president's middle name was actually Milhous.

[Henry Flower]

Like many people here, I know Archie Bunker only from Andy Kaufman/Foreign Man's gloriously inadequate impersonation.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Henry

You may recall our proposed JtR childrens pop-up book with detachable tools and removable organs...I've just thought up the ultimate marketing ploy to sell it...each page to contain guaranteed commonplace DNA, and the whole to be delivered to your door in a unique protective shawl...

All the best

Dave

[Henry Flower]

Hi Henry

You may recall our proposed JtR childrens pop-up book with detachable tools and removable organs...I've just thought up the ultimate marketing ploy to sell it...each page to contain guaranteed commonplace DNA, and the whole to be delivered to your door in a unique protective shawl...

All the best

Dave

Dave this idea is too elegant, too refined. You lack, thankfully, the crudity of mind needed to succeed in marketing. I suggest we abandon the whole outdated 'book' aspect and just concentrate on selling actual dead prostitutes door to door. Sure, we could include some JtR goggles or a cape or something, can of fog, slimy shawl, make it fun for the kids. I'm just blue-skying ideas here, but I think I'm on a roll. Have you still got the phone number for Dragon's Den?

[Steve S]

G'day,

The shawl has been around a while. So far as I know, it was first mentioned by Paul Harrison in Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved (1991). He was put onto it by a police inspector and in 1989, he saw it at a video shop in Clacton, Essex owned by the Dowlers. He said, they were extremely cynical about the story attached to it. Harrison himself doesn't have much to say, apart from the story attached to it, and the fact the David Melville Hayes was hawking it around even then.

To my knowledge it next appears in a 1997 book by Kevin O'Donnell, The Ripper Murders, based on work done by Andy and Sue Parlour. In that, the mother of David Melville Hayes claimed, in an interview, that nobody knew where her grandfather got it. At some point it was in the Black Museum for while and then hawked around the country by the Parlours to Ripper expos etc.

Richard Whittington-Egan discussed it last year in a book, and of course, we all know about the current book.

So it's flitted in and out for 25 years. The family story, such as it is, seems to have been treated with varying degrees of scepticism until now.

Yep.....I'd love to know just why Edwards thought it worthy of consideration...He says he's read the books/dissertations....Maybe if he hadn't decided to distance himself from "community" debate, he'd have thought twice?

[Richard Dewar]

Running gag on the American sitcom "All In The Family." Archie Bunker was known for his malapropisms and he always referred to the president at the time as Richard E. Nixon, completely ignorant that the president's middle name was actually Milhous.

Yes, Archie would always refer to him as "Richard E. Nixon." Incidentally, if you look at any film of Nelson Rockefeller introducing Nixon at the 1960 Republican convention, Rockefeller himself refers to him as "Richard E. Nixon." That may have been the genesis of the Archie comments.