Research into risk taking

[Paul Sutton]

As a newcomer, I'm mustard keen to learn from the most prolix and senior Ripperologists. My aim is to become a hybrid of Professor David Wilson, Fred Dinenage and Emilia Fox.

To that end, I've undertaken my first piece of research. It concerns the trump-card 'risk taker' character of suspects, so useful for swatting aside objections and making the 'serial killers are like that' dismissal. Not to mention statements of the obvious - 'there's excitement in risk' - offered as if profundities from Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

If have used the most debated of recent suspects, for my pioneering study. Through archival work on Letchmere's school reports, Herefordshire Assize records, local/national newspapers and Pickfords' annual appraisals, I provide hitherto undiscussed details of his recklessness.

I trust my work will be of assistance to others. Feel free to use any of it, acknowledging me under my nom-de-plume of Dr Grimesby Roylott, Stoke Moran:

1. As a schoolboy in Herefordshire, Lechmere stole 3d's worth of pease-pudding from Ma Megwipe's pie shop.

2. As a young apprentice, Lechmere stole a penny-farthing bicycle and cycled into Ross-on-Wye, without wearing a hat.

3. On completing his apprenticeship, the young ruffian consumed six pints of local ale and was involved in fisticuffs/steam-hammerings when things kicked off outside The Royal Oak, Much Marcle (later haunt of Fred West). His resulting conviction for 'hi jinks and public affray' led to a term in chokey, picking oakum and running the tread-mill.

4. Lechmere was charged - but acquitted - with 'fornicating with a fireplace,' in Nuneaton, 1872. This was a capital offence until 1998 and still remains one in Scotland.

5. Lechmere received the cat-o'-nine tails in 1879, for 'disastrous indulgence in solitary vices'. I've yet to confirm the disaster. Nevertheless, he was transported to Australia and then - in a legal first - reverse-transported back to England, for 'gross intimacy with a dingo'.

I suspect - but cannot yet prove - this was why he abandoned the much-debated surname of Cross, following a cruel newspaper headline: 'Barking Cross-breed of cat and dog.'

6. Photographs from the 1880s show Lechmere in a black cape and silken top-hat, brandishing a scalpel. His wife Edwina is dressed as Fairy Fay.

7. At Pickfords' annual dinners, 'Lech' attended dressed as Spring-Heeled Jack. He was frequently disciplined for goosing serving girls, hence the abbreviation.

8. Lechmere butchered five unfortunates in 1888's Autumn of Terror, before triumphing with his cucumbers in 1889's Bethnal Green Allotment Keeper of the Year Award.

9. After a successful career in mass murder, Lechmere retired - exhausted - and opened a feather shop ('Tickle Your Fancies, Ladies?') in Stevenage - with occasional headless torsos the only nod to his East End days.

10. In 2017, he was revealed as the killer of Jill Dando.

[Enigma]

5. Lechmere received the cat-o'-nine tails in 1879, for 'disastrous indulgence in solitary vices'. I've yet to confirm the disaster. Nevertheless, he was transported to Australia and then - in a legal first - reverse-transported back to England, for 'gross intimacy with a dingo'.

Hi Paul,
You've uncovered many interesting facts. Your research shows he obviously he had a long history as a very naughty boy but an excellent gardener.

Perhaps you should double check your source about item number 5 because transportation to Australia ended in 1868.

Gross intimacy with a dingo seems a very hazardous activity. Well in keeping with JtR's risk taking. I'm glad we were able to transport him back to the U.K. We don't take kindly to people molesting our native fauna.

Cheers, Gazza

[Paul Sutton]

Hi Paul,
You've uncovered many interesting facts. Your research shows he obviously he had a long history as a very naughty boy but an excellent gardener.

Perhaps you should double check your source about item number 5 because transportation to Australia ended in 1868.

Gross intimacy with a dingo seems a very hazardous activity. Well in keeping with JtR's risk taking. I'm glad we were able to transport him back to the U.K. We don't take kindly to people molesting our native fauna.

Cheers, Gazza

The case thickens! Maybe he wasn't transported but 'worked his passage before the mast'? I think his riskiest behaviour was 2. I'm sure you know, but it was (according to Orwell) quite usual for Victorian men to be jeered at for not wearing a hat, in some polite place. I thought this must be exaggeration, but I read The Mystery of Edwin Drood recently, and Dickens has a character chastised for walking 'un-hatted' near the cathedral!

Actually, maybe John Jasper in said novel was the Ripper? He's an opium-fiend, who frequents drug dens, and is highly dodgy.

[Enigma]

At least he didn't attempt unnatural relations with the dreaded Drop Bear (Thylarctos Plummetus). That would have ended badly for him.

[Abby Normal]

amusing PS
but wrong section...this sort of stuff belongs in Pub Talk or creative writing IMHO.

[Ozzy]

Dr Grimesby Roylott

Do you go about killing your Indian butler and your step daughters... well, one of your step daughters, and enjoy bending fire pokers?

[Paul Sutton]

Do you go about killing your Indian butler and your step daughters... well, one of your step daughters, and enjoy bending fire pokers?

I love this story! I'm a retired English teacher (secondary) - it's a long story how I ended up as one. But I used to adore doing this with Year 9s, and it became my school nickname. I once got a complaint (which I cherish) that I'd made a Year 9 boy terrified, when the thing slithers down the bell-rope.

Are you a fellow Holmes fan - I take it so. My favourite short story is Black Peter and longer one, of course, The Hound.

[caz]

Hi Paul,

I think your number 5 needs work and should have read:

5. Lechmere received the cat-o'-nine tails in 1879, for 'disastrous indulgence in solitary vices'. I've yet to confirm the disaster. Nevertheless, he was transported to Australia and then - in a legal first - reverse-transported back to England, for refusing 'gross intimacy with a dingo'.

Described as "Dingo Bingo" or, somewhat inaccurately, as "Dogging Down Under", I gather it was considered impolite for transportees not to participate in this national sport immediately upon arrival.

The rejected dingo promptly went off its food and wasted away, which is clear evidence of Lechmere's sadistic tendencies. On top of that, he thought 'gross intimacy' meant having to satisfy the creature 144 times, which would have left him all of two hours on that first day for any genuinely criminal acts or truly unmentionable vices.

We can safely say that Lechmere would have indulged in a large number of unmentionable vices, both before and after his brief encounter with Aussie etiquette, because the simple fact is that not a single mention has come down to us, proving his vices must have been literally unmentionable back in the good old days. Sir Cular Argument knows his onions. It takes one to know one.

By the way, did you forget Lechmere's piano lessons as a spotty youth? He quickly gave up when he failed to make enough of a discordant racket to deafen his mother and piss off the neighbours, but he derived some comfort from the memory when he wrote in one of his scores of ripper letters that he had come to Glasgow to buy a 'Scotch dirk' that would 'tickle up their ovaries.' If he'd bought bagpipes instead, he could have killed two birds with one stone.

Do I win £5?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I love this story! I'm a retired English teacher (secondary) - it's a long story how I ended up as one. But I used to adore doing this with Year 9s, and it became my school nickname. I once got a complaint (which I cherish) that I'd made a Year 9 boy terrified, when the thing slithers down the bell-rope.

Are you a fellow Holmes fan - I take it so. My favourite short story is Black Peter and longer one, of course, The Hound.

My late mother was a maths teacher back in the 60s and 70s (boys' prep) and I dread to think what nicknames they gave her in private. She was infamous for whacking the poor devils, but I hope it was more for misbehaviour than a lack of dexterity with a slide rule or a morbid fear of calculus.

Love,

Caz
X

[Paul Sutton]

Hi Paul,

I think your number 5 needs work and should have read:

5. Lechmere received the cat-o'-nine tails in 1879, for 'disastrous indulgence in solitary vices'. I've yet to confirm the disaster. Nevertheless, he was transported to Australia and then - in a legal first - reverse-transported back to England, for refusing 'gross intimacy with a dingo'.

Described as "Dingo Bingo" or, somewhat inaccurately, as "Dogging Down Under", I gather it was considered impolite for transportees not to participate in this national sport immediately upon arrival.

The rejected dingo promptly went off its food and wasted away, which is clear evidence of Lechmere's sadistic tendencies. On top of that, he thought 'gross intimacy' meant having to satisfy the creature 144 times, which would have left him all of two hours on that first day for any genuinely criminal acts or truly unmentionable vices.

We can safely say that Lechmere would have indulged in a large number of unmentionable vices, both before and after his brief encounter with Aussie etiquette, because the simple fact is that not a single mention has come down to us, proving his vices must have been literally unmentionable back in the good old days. Sir Cular Argument knows his onions. It takes one to know one.

By the way, did you forget Lechmere's piano lessons as a spotty youth? He quickly gave up when he failed to make enough of a discordant racket to deafen his mother and piss off the neighbours, but he derived some comfort from the memory when he wrote in one of his scores of ripper letters that he had come to Glasgow to buy a 'Scotch dirk' that would 'tickle up their ovaries.' If he'd bought bagpipes instead, he could have killed two birds with one stone.

Do I win £5?

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks - the project is ongoing, so I'll look into all these!

He's got hidden depths, for sure.

[Paul Sutton]

My late mother was a maths teacher back in the 60s and 70s (boys' prep) and I dread to think what nicknames they gave her in private. She was infamous for whacking the poor devils, but I hope it was more for misbehaviour than a lack of dexterity with a slide rule or a morbid fear of calculus.

Love,

Caz
X

I can assure you I had far worse nicknames - I was the sort of marmite teacher. I once read up on myself, on some now defunct site. I was delighted to see most said I got them results, but 'hated Chavs and was a psychopath'. Half true...

I just hope they weren't as brutal as the one Dr Geoff Goodwin had - my physics teacher at school. (Why is the name Geoff so funny?)

He was known as 'Bucket':

Q: What's the difference between Dr Goodwin and a bucket of ****?
A: The bucket.

An old one!

[Ozzy]

I love this story! I'm a retired English teacher (secondary) - it's a long story how I ended up as one. But I used to adore doing this with Year 9s, and it became my school nickname. I once got a complaint (which I cherish) that I'd made a Year 9 boy terrified, when the thing slithers down the bell-rope.

Are you a fellow Holmes fan - I take it so. My favourite short story is Black Peter and longer one, of course, The Hound.

I grew up in the 1970s. Between the age of 10-12 I got through all the Holmes cannon. 4 novels and 56 short stories I think.

I liked The Speckled Band the first time I read it and it grew on me more over the years. My fave Holmes story. It's also Conan Doyle's favourite.

[Paul Sutton]

I grew up in the 1970s. Between the age of 10-12 I got through all the Holmes cannon. 4 novels and 56 short stories I think.

I liked The Speckled Band the first time I read it and it grew on me more over the years. My fave Holmes story. It's also Conan Doyle's favourite.

Me too! Great to hear. I have a much-battered collected that I take everywhere - and I've read most of the pastiches. The ones by something or other Smith are the best, but none have Doyle's magic.

The Sign of Four is a set text for GCSE, and I taught it for years. The snottiness of other English teachers about it, and their droning on about its 'racism' and 'sexism', were a pain. I made this very apparent to them!

[caz]

I can assure you I had far worse nicknames - I was the sort of marmite teacher. I once read up on myself, on some now defunct site. I was delighted to see most said I got them results, but 'hated Chavs and was a psychopath'. Half true...

I just hope they weren't as brutal as the one Dr Geoff Goodwin had - my physics teacher at school. (Why is the name Geoff so funny?)

He was known as 'Bucket':

Q: What's the difference between Dr Goodwin and a bucket of ****?
A: The bucket.

An old one!

Funny you should say that about being a marmite teacher. Despite the damage my mother evidently caused with her trusty ruler, I still have a large collection of her retirement cards, all from grateful boys whose excellent exam results had earned them places in good schools when they left, clutching their bruised backsides, at the tender age of thirteen. I learned about mum's penchant for not sparing the rod on the now defunct Friends Reunited and wasn't a bit surprised. I got off lightly as a child, probably because she was whacked out when she got home.

There was an English teacher at my school called Miss Titmus. We called her "Bosom Rat" - in an affectionate way, you understand. Years later I heard that dear old Bosom Rat had been in 'a relationship' with the Headmistress.

That was in the days when it was a free grammar school - long before the likes of Carrie Johnson and Annunziata Rees-Mogg had to have rich parents to get in.

Love,

Caz
X

[Paul Sutton]

Funny you should say that about being a marmite teacher. Despite the damage my mother evidently caused with her trusty ruler, I still have a large collection of her retirement cards, all from grateful boys whose excellent exam results had earned them places in good schools when they left, clutching their bruised backsides, at the tender age of thirteen. I learned about mum's penchant for not sparing the rod on the now defunct Friends Reunited and wasn't a bit surprised. I got off lightly as a child, probably because she was whacked out when she got home.

There was an English teacher at my school called Miss Titmus. We called her "Bosom Rat" - in an affectionate way, you understand. Years later I heard that dear old Bosom Rat had been in 'a relationship' with the Headmistress.

That was in the days when it was a free grammar school - long before the likes of Carrie Johnson and Annunziata Rees-Mogg had to have rich parents to get in.

Love,

Caz
X

It's incredible how many teachers have odd names!

My daughter recently had a - very good - teacher called Mr Titman.

She previously had an RP teacher called Bodrick Priest.

I had an English teacher, of German extraction, called Mrs Hensbaum! No prizes for guessing if the 'a' got dropped.

But best of all was my American RE teacher - Mrs Cuntliffe (yes, that's the spelling). Oddly, she would insist that no-one dropped the 't', when writing her name on our books.

Best