I’ve always been morbidly fascinated by Jack the Ripper.
I realise that’s a weird thing to admit to.
But ever since I first read about it, I’ve been really reaaally curious about it. Most likely it has something to do with the fact that he was never being caught. I love me a good mystery!
I then got even more interested when Mum was doing our family tree and we had a few days of suspense when we thought one of the victims might be related to us. (Spoiler: they weren’t. One of my great-great-great-aunts-twice-removed-or-something just had the same name as one of them…)
Because of all this, going on a Jack the Ripper tour has been on my London bucket list for a while. So when I was invited to attend one with a whole bunch of other bloggers, I obviously said yes!
OK so first of all, this is not a tour for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached.
Our ace tour guide, Richard, led us through the back streets of East London, stopping at each of the murder scenes to explain the gory details, as well as the backgrounds and description of each of his victims.
I was really interested to learn all the tiny details of each case, and it was also spooky to learn that Jack could have actually been seen by a witness at one point, if only it hadn’t been so windy and the man’s match had been able to light!
The best part of this particular tour is that you get visual help in re-creating the scenarios.
Using a teeny little hand-held projector, Richard flashed images up on to the walls, giving us a proper insight into what London would have looked like in the 1800s and showing us the actual photos taken from the scenes of the crime.
Here’s a hint: it’s not pretty.
In fact, as the tour progressed and the murders got more violent, I actually had to stop looking at the images because it was just too stomach-churning for me… (I’m actually a massive wimp and really hate horror films so what I thought I was doing here I have no idea!)
Overall it was an excellent experience.
Richard is an ace guide, with tons of charisma and personality, and I feel like I came away knowing much more about the actual murders than I did before. His knowledge of all things Jack the Ripper was seriously impressive. He’s like a full on Jack the Ripper geek, and actually worked as a technical advisor on the TV series “Ripper Street”!
At £10, I think the tour was an absolute bargain, and I’d recommend it to anyone.
My one tip? Take an umbrella. Atmosphere is all well and good but walking in the rain for an hour and a half is no bueno!
PS. A mahoosive THANK YOU to the lovely Madeleine and Paris/Warren for letting me use their photos! I still haven’t got round to getting contact lenses/taking a photography class, so all my photos were blurry/dark as hell.
Really need to work on that…
*I invited to the tour as a guest for review purposes.
As always: if I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t blog it :)
