Running with the ripper
My book club chose The Five by Hallie Rubenhold this month. It is the story of the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the ripper. It certainly isn't a book I would have chosen and that is why I like being in a book club; it helps me be a genre spanner (copyright The Mighty Boosh).
The insights into the lives of these five women really brought to life the complexity of the journey we are all on. Often simply referred to as prostitutes only one of the women actually engaged in prostitution. Their lives were marked by incidents that resulted in poverty, injustice, violence and alcoholism. None of that meant that they deserved their fates.
The murders of the women all occurred within a small area of East London called Whitechapel. In 1888 when the events took place this was a place of severe poverty with many families crammed together into dirty rooms, with open sewers, disease and all sorts of physical and sexual abuse commonplace. Unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction and prostitution were rife.
As I finished the book and emerged from this seedy Victorian version of London, I wondered what it looked like today and decided to run there for my long weekend run. I set out from Lewisham, headed north-west through Southwark and crossed over London Bridge. After a short detour to see St Paul's Cathedral I turned east and arrived in Whitechapel in the pouring rain. It was a wet, grey, misty and murky day in East London and the streets had a sinister air about them in the semi darkness.
Once I had arrived at Brick Lane I turned off into Thrawl Street. This is where Polly Nichols last lived before she had her throat cut and was eviscerated. There was little evidence of any of the Victorian slums. In their place were rows of small, red brick flats with metal bars over the doors. It seems that the area remains one of low income housing. The streets however were clean. As I ran over the cobble stones I imagined the feet of Polly Nichols had also passed this way 140 years ago.
I turned right into Flower and Dean Walk (previously Flower and Dean Street). Here Elizabeth Stride and Catherine 'Kate' Eddowes lived and then died just a few streets away. The other two unfortunates; Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly lived around the corner on Dorset Street and Miller's Court.
There were no plaques or memorials to the women killed so senselessly. Maybe that is a good thing. There has been too much glorification of these brutal events and the mysterious hand that wielded the knives. Yet, it seems sad that their lives is no acknowledgment of their losses.
Feeling maudlin I set off north towards Regent's Canal via Haggerston Park. Following the waterway east I passed dozens of other runners and the sun came out. My mood lifted. Soon I was at Victoria Park. I turned off the towpath and ran a circuit under the tall trees with their yellow, orange and red leaves many of which had fallen to create a soft carpet and covered the puddles I splashed through.
On the other side of the park was a branch of the Hertford Union Canal. I turned left and was soon in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. I ran a loop around the stadium, now the home ground of West Ham United, passed the ArcelorMittal Orbit slide that is visible for miles around and exited alongside the City Mill river.
This becomes Pudding Mill river before entering the River Lea which links the Thames with its source north of Luton.
After a couple of miles I turned off on the Limehouse Cut towards the Thames and then followed the grand River through Millwall to Island Gardens and the mouth of the Greenwich foot tunnel. It had rained off and on all morning and I was soaked through. My left knee had begun to hurt so I took some Ibuprofen which helped dull the pain.
Once through the tunnel I climbed to the top of Greenwich park before heading home. 30 miles.
