Come and join me, Ulrike, on my tour through Whitechapel to discover the other side of the Jack the Ripper story. And no, this isn’t just another London Jack the Ripper Tour. Those Whitechapel murders – this Jack the Ripper crime scene, that Jack the Ripper chamber of horrors – that’s the background; this Jack the Ripper Walk shines a different light on what happened in the East End of London in the autumn of 1888.
There are no murders without victims, and before they were victims, “the Five” were women with lives more difficult than we can imagine.
I am going to introduce you to these five women. I’m not going to talk about their deaths. I’m going to talk about their lives. The tragic turns and decisions in their lives that led them to “the prototype of hell” – Whitechapel and Spitalfields in the 1880s.
Jack London called the Victorian East End of London the Abyss, the pit of hell, once you fell in, there was no way out. It was an area of squalor and destitution at an unimaginable level.
Come with me and meet Polly…
And Annie…
And Elizabeth…
And Kate…
And Mary Jane…
See where they existed. The streets and alleyways they knew.
Where things closed in on them. See and imagine what it felt like to be lost, forgotten, out at the edge – on the very margin of the richest society on eath. Where despair was writ in the very fabric of their surroundings. And imagine how brave they must have been trying to keep it at bay. Their lives mirrored those of millions of other Victorian women. Let’s give them a face, a voice and let us not define them only by their deaths.
Steven Butler –
An excellent and really fascinating tour, looking at the lives of Jack the Ripper’s victims instead of their untimely deaths. The two hours flew by. Well worth the ticket price.
Emily Hassan –
Having attended my first London walks tour this morning, I cannot recommend Ulrike enough. Not only was this a profoundly informative experience, but I was also deeply moved by the content, with a particular focus on the lives of the women involved, and the unique sets of circumstances that drove them onto the streets. Ulrike is a marvellous storyteller and she paints a fascinating picture, not only of the lives of the five women conventionally characterised as ‘Ripper victims’ but of the society in which they struggled to survive. It is all too easy to reduce Polly, Annie, Kate, Elizabeth and Mary-Jane to stock characters, prostitutes whose lives are to be read solely in the context of their violent demises. Ulrike’s tour is a true antidote to this mawkish, lazy and outdated reading, and is therefore an absolute must!!
Alison Pearson –
Incredibly moving & fascinating walk given by Ulrike. A completely different perspective on an emotive and infamous subject. Highly recommend.
Michael –
It was a privilege to be one of the first people to do this amazing walk with the fantastic Ulrike.
This tour is as far removed from other types of tours on the subject of Jack the Ripper as it’s possible to get. It’s informative, fascinating and heartbreaking. She skilfully weaves the tragic tales of The Five with the complicated and festering history of Victorian London.
But it’s all told with sensitivity and insight. A truly excellent addition to The London Walks canon.
Bev Steele –
I attended Ulrike’s “Women of the Abyss” tour on Saturday 31st August. It was so enlightening to be taken back to the East End in the bad old days to learn so much about these poor women and their unfortunate circumstances. It was both graphic and deeply intriguing put across so well by our knowledgeable guide. I thank Ulrike very much and greatly recommend this tour.
Mr Bev Steele.
Ken Worman –
Excellent walk Ulrike gave very interesting detailed info on all the Ripper victims and made the walk very enjoyable highly recommend
Eric –
This is a very welcome antidote to the gory tales of Jack the Ripper. Ulrike brings to life the sad tales of his five victims with a genuine compassion for their suffering and the unlucky tricks of fate that brought them to such a sudden bloody end. You will walk the seedier streets of the capital, safe in Ulrike’s capable hands, and find that the two hours pass in a flash. Thoroughly recommended.
Giorgia La Vecchia –
I had the pleasure of going on Ulrike’s inaugural ‘Women of the Abyss’ tour today and was deeply moved and impressed (as always) by the depth of Ulrike’s research and attention to detail.
The delicacy and respect shown to the lives of the women before they became victims immediately sets the experience apart from the many sensationalised and troublingly voyeuristic tours available. When coupled with Ulrike’s trademark vivid descriptions of the general atmosphere of Whitechapel and the East End by and large, it makes the lives of these women as well as the circumstances they found themselves in all the more real and worthy of attention.
As with Ulrike’s other tours this will most definitely stay with me for a long time. A truly unforgettable experience in unravelling what Ulrike will make you understand is a far more complex tale than the one we all think we know.