Exploring the Ripper's London

One of the best ways to really see and get the feel of London is to
join the "London Walks". It is also the cheapest way to see London and
many other places of historical importance around the city besides all
the walking will keep you fit. If you plan to join several of the
walking tours you can always get a discount card and save yet more. You
can join any of the walks -the half-day ones or the full day ones that
could take you from London to places as far away as Stonehenge. One of
the walks we, Eliza and I, took was a rather creepy one. It was an
evening walk in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper. The 'city' of London
can be really creepy in the evening when all the offices are closed.
After office hours the whole city wears a rather deserted look. Even
the pubs close down early. The walk begins near the Tower of London
simply bursting with the many headless ghosts. Royal ghosts too! Our
guide was a tall handsome actress who seemed to enjoy reliving the
gruesome murders that took place in the city and the East end. From
Tower hill we walked along the Roman wall into the courtyards of old
office buildings past more somber looking high rises until we reached a
part of London close to Whitechapel. Where the First of the murders
took place now stands the offices of 'Swissre', a leading ReInsurance
company. The old buildings have been replaced by very expensive office
buildings and flats but as the streetlights are lit a feeling of gloom
does begin to creep in. The old squalor may have gone but as the blue
badge guide waxed eloquent the feeling of squalor and the misery of the
poor, old and hungry seem to return helped on by the emptiness of human
presence in the area. It was as if we were transported in time. We were
in time about a 100 years ago in the last part of the Victorian era. We
slowly crept up the gloomy and narrow back alleys past Spitfield market
and finally came to Whitechapel. The white church looked eerie in the
dark. The spire looked elongated disappearing upwards into darkness,
like a finger pointing into the unknown. "The Ten Bells" a pub that
stood there in the frightful days of the Ripper is still there and
worth the visit. It chilly and crammed just as it must have been then.
To think it was there in the grubby pub most probably where the
murdered women had had their last drink before meeting their
executioner. The ripper may have had sat there too and watched his
intended victims and deciding on the victim of the night. The walls of
the rather small pub are pasted with pictures and laminated cuttings of
the newspapers of the time. Some of the pictures of the women are
rather gruesome. A closer look and they could become your night mare.
Today the square in front of the church is silent and empty in the
evening hours but then during the later part of the 19th century it was
a rather sordid area where the starving and poverty stricken Londoners
from the Eastside congregated, criminals planned their next move and
prostitutes beckoned to their customers of the night. Spitfield market
was a bustling market a century ago not just an area to buy second hand
stuff in good condition during the weekends. The pubs must have been
overflowing with the market rabble, pickpockets and criminals of every
kind and the Ripper must have mingled with the crowd identifying and
assessing his victims until one fine day after having spread fear among
the women of easy virtue and baffled the crime solvers he simply
vanished never to appear again. He was a mystery then and still is to
this day. After several more dark alleys and creepy streets the cloying
smell of decaying curry mixed with that of freshly cooked curry filled
the air as we walked our way to the Bricklane Underground station. A
quick goodbye and thanks to the guide who simply vanished into the
thick night air her dark cloak spreading into the night. The atmosphere
was gloomy, quiet, and ideal for the Ripper to lurk behind us. We could
be witness to a murder! Footsteps echoed and then --- an eerie silence!
The train came in. The air was chilly. Without a back glance we jumped
into the first carriage. We got off at the next station glad to be out
of the empty carriage. The platform was crowded with people going home.
We changed trains. It was rather full despite the late hour with people
anxious to get home. Home was warm and far removed from the gloomy dark
alleys.