My East End by Gilda O'Neill

[aspallek]

Full Title: My East End: Memories of Life in Cockney London by Gilda O'Neill, published in year 2000. Is it a good read? I see that it was reviewed in Rip when it came out. I presume there nothing directly Ripper-related but is it worthwhile?

[Suzi]

Hi Andy
I've read this book loads of of times and have it here somewhere- A wonderful book and the 'Farthing bundles' are to die for in fact there's a pic of the girls with those on the East End pics thread ....Gimme a mo will get it

[Suzi]

BOTH are worth a serious read!!!!

[Stephen Thomas]

Full Title: My East End: Memories of Life in Cockney London by Gilda O'Neill, published in year 2000. Is it a good read? I see that it was reviewed in Rip when it came out. I presume there nothing directly Ripper-related but is it worthwhile?

Hi Andy

Well it's pretty OK as such books go. There's a vogue for nostalgia books like this in the UK at the moment and this would seem to be one of the better ones. I own it and have read it and would recommend it to anyone interested in East End history, especially non-Brits. Gilda O'Neill made her name as a romantic fiction writer with titles like The Cockney Girl, Whitechapel Girl, The Bells of Bow, Spitalfields Suzi etc (I made the last one up ho ho) but she knows her stuff about the history of the East End and has written 5 or 6 non-fiction books on this, my own favourite being The Good Old Days (subtitle Crime, Murder and Mayhem in Victorian London) from 2006. Her take on the Ripper case in My East End is that the murderer/murderers may have been henchmen of anti-vice campaigner Frederick Charrington as this is an East End legend. Not a bad theory, I'd say, as here was a chap with motive, means and opportunity but I do realise as indeed she does that 'ripperologists' find this theory a bit of a joke.

[aspallek]

Thanks Suzi and Stephen. In which book(s) does O'Neill present her Ripper theory?

[Mike Covell]

Gilda O'Neill presents a chapter to Jack the Ripper in "The Godd Old Days".
Entitled Chapter 6, 1888- Jack's Reign oif Terror.
She covers a fair bit of ground naming several suspects and theories and it is worth a look at.
She doesn't advance anyone in this book, just looks at the possibility of them being involved, but systematically removes them from the frame.

Mike

[Stephen Thomas]

Thanks Suzi and Stephen. In which book(s) does O'Neill present her Ripper theory?

'My East End' US 1999, UK 2000