"Dark Annie" Chapman and the Town Pants

On September 8, 1888, Annie Chapman, also known as "Dark Annie," was found at 29 Hanbury Street, murdered and mutilated, one of the victims of the infamous Jack the Ripper. In life she had worked as a prostitute to make ends meet after the death of her husband. She was given to spending much of what she made on drink and only the last few pence on a room for the night. On the night of her murder, in need of the money for a bed, she had attempted to solicit a client, possibly from the nearby Ten Bells Pub (which is still in existence today) and may well have chosen the wrong man. She was 47 years old and ailing. She might not have lived much longer anyway, due to the state of her health, but her life was cut brutally short by London's most notorious serial killer.

The Town Pants, a Canadian band with an Irish sound, chose Annie Chapman as the subject of one of their songs. I wrote to them to ask if I could use this song as the background for this photo story, and they very graciously granted me permission to do so. "Dark Annie" can be downloaded from iTunes, along with their other great songs. One of the things I like about this band, aside from the fact that their music is just fun to listen to, is that they choose such unusual subject matter. In addition to this song about Jack the Ripper, there are "Hell's Kitchen," about Typhoid Mary; "Mr. Valentine's Dead," about a man who loves to party so much he can't bring himself to leave his own wake; "Rum Runner," about a woman who is waiting for her captain to come back, but also making alternate plans just in case; and "Unidentified Friend," about a man whose life is changed dramatically -- or maybe not -- when his picture appears in the paper next to a beautiful celebrity, to name a few. And you have to love a band with this line in one of their songs: "I got plastered in Paris!"

This photo story is in wmv format, 8.88 MB, and runs for 5:01 minutes.

Exploring Underground and Pub Crawling

We began the morning with a bus tour of London. We saw many of the imposing buildings in the financial district, some of the expensive homes around Grosvenor Square, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and St. Paul's Cathedral, just to name a few. Our guide was able to answer every question posed to him without a second's hesitation. Since it was Sunday, we didn't even have to fight the traffic.
Since we had the afternoon free, I grabbed my Oyster card (which is used to get around on the Underground) and headed for Whitechapel. I wanted to visit Hanbury Street, where one of Jack the Ripper's victims, Annie Chapman, met her demise. Today it is a thriving commercial and market area. I found not one, but two, flea markets, the first in Petticoat Lane and the second at the Old Spitalfields Market. The latter is a sort of open air/covered market all at once. It has a roof, but the sides are open to the street. Inside this establishment were tables with every imaginable item, pastries, salads, books, jewelry, knickknacks, clothes, etc. While I hadn't intended to do any shopping, I couldn't help coming away with a bag of goodies. I did walk the length of Hanbury Street, but it was far from being the isolated, spooky area it must have been in 1888. There were cars and people everywhere. There were one or two dark alleys, but it took a little searching to find them. I stopped at the Ten Bells Pub, which several of Jacks victims frequented. It was renamed the Jack the Ripper Pub for a time, but when women's rights groups protested, it became the Ten Bells again. There are several posters on the wall in the stairwell dedicated to the Ripper's crimes.
After leaving Whitechapel, I took a tube ride back to Picadilly Circus and stopped at the John Snow Pub. This pub commemmorates Dr.Snow's discovery that the cholera epidemic of 1854 was being spread through contaminated water from the Broad Street Pump. A replica of the pump, minus the handle he had removed to halt the spread of the disease, is across the street from the pub. Once I entered the pub, the barmaid was kind enough to take me upstairs to show me a replica of the pump handle itself.
On my way back to the flat, I passed a perfume store with a large crowd around the front. Inside was a young man who was offering to give everyone in the crowd free perfume. He was even flinging samples among the bystanders and spritzing those closest to him with perfume.
London is certainly an amazing city. There are so many people from so many places. And the tube is a marvel. One can go just about anywhere in London in a few minutes just by hopping on the Underground. I can't wait to see what new discoveries tomorrow will bring.