Ripper victims were caught sleeping?

[Sam Flynn]

When I was at school I remember rosehips being used as "itching powder".

Where I grew up in South Wales, we used to call rosehips "itchycoombs". Any relationship to "Itchycoo", I wonder?

[Ozzy]

When I was at school I remember rosehips being used as "itching powder".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_hip

[DJA]

A man told me that the song was conceived in Valentines Park, Ilford. The itchykoo bit was something to do with things growing on trees that had the property of making you itch, IIRC.

Possibly stinging nettles.

[MrBarnett]

A man told me that the song was conceived in Valentines Park, Ilford. The itchykoo bit was something to do with things growing on trees that had the property of making you itch, IIRC.

Robert!

What have I told you about talking to strange men in parks?

[Robert]

A man told me that the song was conceived in Valentines Park, Ilford. The itchykoo bit was something to do with things growing on trees that had the property of making you itch, IIRC.

[Wickerman]

"The church yard, known locally as 'Itchy Park' was made a public garden in 1891" (spitalfieldsforum.org.uk), although I was wrong about the monuments, which weren't all cleared away until 1950. According to londonremembers.com, "by 1903 the gardens were widely known as Itchy Park; a notorious rendezvous for homeless men seeking casual work in the fruit market".

It was a popular theory that the record of the mid 60's (1967) by the Small Faces - Itchycoo Park, was inspired by a piece of church waste ground in the East End - Spitalfields Church. Though there are several contesting theories on that topic, and any mention of ducks must be creative writing if it was Spitalfields Church, unless it be a metaphor?

I was there in the early 70's and distinctly remember a number of tramps/homeless sleeping on the stone slabs that were tombstones. You could tell by the drooping eyelids that some were meths drinkers.

[jerryd]

Ah, I'm with ya. Thanks.

[jmenges]

Sorry I wasn’t clear...I don’t believe she was sleeping, either. I think her position next to the carts may have prompted Andrews to investigate, though. And if she was sleeping, he was prepared to move her along.

JM

[jerryd]

PC Andrews may have approached Alice McKenzie with the intention of turning her out of Castle Alley for sleeping too close to the carts. He states that they often had to rouse rough sleepers in that location and move them along, not arrest them.

JM

Hi JM,

For several reasons I don't think Alice was sleeping in the alley.

1) Andrews' own testimony.

Do people come there? - People often come to sleep in the vans, but when we find them we turn them out. I have not seen the alley used for immoral purposes, and have not seen any women there at all.

2) She didn't have time. PC Allen didn't see anyone in the alley either. DI Reid stated someone was patrolling the alley practically every 5 minutes.

3) Found underneath her dress was a pipe with unburnt tobacco in it and a box of matches. That, to me, leads to the fact she was getting ready to light up. Or light up for somebody.

[DJA]

Makes sense. Thanks.

Curious that it is the street before Goulston.

[jerryd]

Confident it was Brick Lane.

Hi Dave,

From John Kelly's words at the inquest, I would guess the Lane was more likely Petticoat Lane or somewhere in the Aldgate neighborhood.

"I heard she had been locked up at Bishopsgate-street on Saturday afternoon. An old woman who works in the lane told me she saw her in the hands of the police."

[DJA]

Confident it was Brick Lane.

[Sam Flynn]

Daily News 4th Oct, of Eddowes;

"Kelly, Wilkinson, and Mrs. Gold all declare that she worked hard as a charwoman, labouring principally among the Jews in "the Lane" during four or five months in the winter"

Anyone know if "the lane" was Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, or another?

Petticoat Lane, I'd guess, owing to its fame as "the" lane with a market, its dense Jewish population and large number of Jewish tradesmen. Not that there weren't Jews in Brick Lane, mind you.

[jmenges]

Thanks Gareth.
To further divert the thread here are my notes/thoughts on the topic that we never got around to discussing on the podcast. Note that in one version he equates “walking the streets” with having an “immoral purpose”.

***
This question is, as I see it, very much open to interpretation. John Kelly at the inquest first denies that she’s at times forced to go out onto the streets but then later in his testimony he contradicts himself:
"When asked whether deceased had been in the habit of frequenting the streets, he answered sturdily, "No, sir, I never suffered her to do so."
[...]on Saturday he had parted with her on the understanding that she was going over to Bermondsey to try and find her sister to see if she could get a trifle "to prevent her going out on the street"
And later...
"I never knew her to go out for any immoral purpose - I never suffered her to do so. She was only slightly in the habit of drinking to excess. When I left her she had no money about her. She went over to see her daughter to get a trifle from her, in order that I might not see her walking the streets at night."- Daily News 5 October 1888

To me this can be read several ways.
One- that CE did have the habit of resorting to prostitution when she was very desperate for money, Kelly knew this but minimized it at the inquest, and so going to Bermondsey was a last ditch attempt to prevent her from having to solicit.
Two- Both CE and Kelly knew that they were living so close to the edge that she might have to resort to prostitution as the only way to survive, and they knew this from seeing other women in the same circumstances having to do it. But CE had never reached that point yet.
Three- Kelly knew that in her past CE had to sell sex to survive but as long as she was with him she hadn't done so, as far as he was aware, and Bermondsey was again, a last gasp plan to obtain some money so that walking the streets was avoided for one more night.

We know that its likely CE didn't go to Bermondsey to see her daughter at all. If she did, she wouldn't have located her and received any money since Annie had moved several times in the two years since she had last seen CE and purposefully didn't let CE know where she was living. We know that by 8:30 PM she was back in the East End and hopelessly drunk.

So, if their only option to keep CE from walking the streets that night was getting money in Bermondsey, and she either didn't go or in any event failed at this quest, where did that leave her option?
***

JM

[Joshua Rogan]

... both Stride and Eddowes lived on Flower and Dean St and said they worked "for the jews" likely at the Rothchild's buildings which had a large jewish community with women charring for them)

Daily News 4th Oct, of Eddowes;

"Kelly, Wilkinson, and Mrs. Gold all declare that she worked hard as a charwoman, labouring principally among the Jews in "the Lane" during four or five months in the winter, and throughout the greater part of the summer tramping the country-always with Kelly-hopping, fruit picking, or hay making"

Anyone know if "the lane" was Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, or another?