A while ago, uh, I had a strange dream hehe.
Uh, in which I dreamt that I was gonna solve some famous murder mystery, by looking at some photographs or some pictures.
And I t- t- took no notice of that.
But, very soon after that I was approached by someone, who asked me to publish a book about someone called Jack the Ripper.
And coincidentally, the, the clues to the, this murder mystery connected with Jack the Ripper was to be found in certain paintings.
So, uh, I eventually published this book.
Anyway for those of you who don’t know Jack_ Jack the Ripper is kind of like, in, in Britain where I come from, the most famous murderer of all time really.
Although it happened, quite a long time ago in a Victorian period.
I think it was eighteen eight-eight.
Uh, oh, just in the summer of that period.
That, that these horrendous murders took place in, what was then Victorian London, I suppose.
And, maybe I shouldn’t put it this way but, uh, uh, but say five_ there were five murders I believe.
Five women were killed in, in the east end of London.
Which is, then maybe not a very nice area of London, very deprived, very poor.
And these were quite poor women, uh, who were murdered in the most horrendous ways.
But, I suppose five murders in terms of all the other things.
But i- it f- five murders that have really gripped, the imagination of people all over the world it seems but certainly at the time it totally terrified London, you know.
People were really, really scared.
And, I suppose the, the strange thing about_ the, the murders were strange themselves.
The murders were very brutal.
And, in a fact they never actually ever found out who Jack the Ripper was.
I think, uh, the name Jack the Ripper comes from one of the, the notes that the, the guy sent to the police.
Cause he used to taunt the police as well, about the fact that they couldn’t find him, you know, and they didn’t know who he was.
So it was all very, strange and, and frightening.
Why people are still interested in it.
I suppose i- it’s what’s, one of the first, I suppose, crimes of the imagination in some ways.
Cause i- it wasn’t_ most murders, let’s be honest are about people who get angry with, uh, uh, the_ and in a moment of hatred or whatever, lash out and accidentally kill someone.
But this was sort of so deliberate and so, tied up with mur- uh, the imagination.
And it was the first time.
Or what people call a serial killer.
So we’ve had all these movies about serial killers and all the rest, and i guess Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer.
Maybe there were others.
But the first of that kind of strange, intense crazy killer, if you like.
That has become... more known now.
And people make films about them, and obviously these pe- people exist.
So there there’s continual interest from that.
With the_ because they never found out who, who the murderer was.
Uh, there have been lots of people that have come up with, theories about who he might be.
There have been loads and loads of books speculating about this.
Our particular book speculated that it was, um, actually was an artist, a very famous artist in this, country, or_ who was involved with it called Sickert, Walter Richard Sickert.
The_ who's, who was, um, one, one of the most famous of British artists of, of the time.
That obviously didn’t go down very well with the, the Sickert family.
But Sickert’s pictures are_ do depict all sorts of strange incidents and murders and cut up bodies and low_ what they call low life, I suppose.
Street life and stuff like that.
And there have been theories that it was, members of the royal family trying to sort of hush up, um, some sort of, maybe illegitimate children or marriages that they shouldn’t have had or, or whatever.
Uh, there have been, supposedly doctors have done it.
And say artists.
Perhaps Free Masons have been accused.
But i_ uh, there’s very few people who haven’t been accused of being Jack the Ripper.
It’s something that can_ grips the British imagination and, uh, um, perhaps people around the world.
And I guess it’s gonna grip our imagination for an awful lot longer to come.