Speaker 1: Pushkin Hi Bad Women Listeners is Alice again. The stories
Speaker 1: we cover in this season of Bad Women take place
Speaker 1: against the backdrop of World War Two, and lots of
Speaker 1: them come as news. Even two acknowledged experts in the field,
Speaker 1: Hallie and Professor Julia Late, who you'll have heard in
Speaker 1: lots of episodes of the series, sat down with historian
Speaker 1: James Holland to discuss them for his World War two podcast.
Speaker 1: We have ways of making you talk with thought. You
Speaker 1: might like to hear their conversation. So here it is
Speaker 1: Acting Act and welcome to we have ways to make
Speaker 1: you talk with me, James Holland. And today we've got
Speaker 1: two very special guests. We've got Hallie rubin Hold and
Speaker 1: Professor Julia Late. And Hallie the little introduction to He,
Speaker 1: of course, is the award winning best selling author of
Speaker 1: five about the Ripper Victims. And Julia you are professor
Speaker 1: at the History and Archaeology Department at Buback University and
Speaker 1: an expert in prostitution at that aspect of women's lives.
Speaker 1: And you've just started a new podcast series, Haven't You,
Speaker 1: which is The Blackout Ripper produced by Pushkin Productions, and
Speaker 1: you also called it so that the title is also subtitled, Well,
Speaker 1: the main title is bad Women, isn't it, and then
Speaker 1: colon the blackout Ripper? So why why bad women? Because
Speaker 1: I kind of thought women are supposed to be the
Speaker 1: good ones in this. I mean, it's kind of an
Speaker 1: ironic title. So the first season was off the back
Speaker 1: of my book The Five, which was the five victims
Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper, and looking at their lives and
Speaker 1: looking at how women historically have been demonized for crimes
Speaker 1: that were perpetrated against them, so they were victim blamed.
Speaker 1: And so if a woman strayed off the path of virtue,
Speaker 1: if she wasn't a perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect daughter,
Speaker 1: she didn't do what women was supposed to do during
Speaker 1: that time, she was called a bad woman. And that's
Speaker 1: often how we have remembered them historically, and especially in
Speaker 1: true crime, that's how women are often remembered. So we're
Speaker 1: kind of turning this idea of bad women on its
Speaker 1: head and in this sense, Well, and that you did
Speaker 1: that brilliantly be fived in you, I mean, And that
Speaker 1: was sort of the whole point, was to turn these
Speaker 1: people that would always just been the victims and turning
Speaker 1: them back into kind of flesh and blood and real people. Again, Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know, and I think history really deserves that
Speaker 1: sort of treatment. You know, the people who have been
Speaker 1: demonized the most deserve really the most examination, and we
Speaker 1: need to ask, well, why have these people have been
Speaker 1: demonized and what else can be said about them? And
Speaker 1: how can we help to understand their story in another context.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're doing with this second season of
Speaker 1: the podcast, which is set in London during the Blitz
Speaker 1: in February nineteen forty two, right and June, just before
Speaker 1: we get into the d you know, into the into
Speaker 1: kind of that's that sort dark story, both actual and metaphoric.
Speaker 1: I mean, how did you two get together and how
Speaker 1: do you know each other? Hally and I actually got
Speaker 1: to know each other being interviewed, I believe for a
Speaker 1: BBC radio show about sexual labor, and we both realized
Speaker 1: that we had very similar opinions about its place in history,
Speaker 1: about the importance of it as a social phenomenon, and
Speaker 1: about the women involved. And but tell me how many
Speaker 1: how did you get drawn into this subject in the
Speaker 1: first place. I got drawn in probably by thinking about
Speaker 1: all the different depictions of prostitution in Victorian Britain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where I got started thinking about the role of
Speaker 1: the quote unquote prostitute in Victorian popular culture and how
Speaker 1: that image got recycled in the histories that followed you.
Speaker 1: And so I started thinking about, you know, what was
Speaker 1: what was the real experience of women who sold sex
Speaker 1: in this period? And then I started working on it,
Speaker 1: and I realized that there was a story to be
Speaker 1: told going from the late Victorian period when they first
Speaker 1: started cracking down on prostitution, going right up to just
Speaker 1: pass the Second World War when the modern laws that
Speaker 1: we live with today were passed. Right. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously Second World War is very much my field, and
Speaker 1: this and the kind of the backdrop to this podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting because I'm doing I'm doing some
Speaker 1: work on the Italian campaign at the moment, and the
Speaker 1: levels of prostitution are are jaw dropping, lee awful. And
Speaker 1: I've come across this account by the medical the chief
Speaker 1: medical Officer of the US fifth Army, writing in the
Speaker 1: middle of nineteen forty four, and he says, says, our
Speaker 1: estimation is a fifty percent of all available women have
Speaker 1: VD fifty percent of all available women, but so what
Speaker 1: what's that that's sort of sixteen to sixteen let's say,
Speaker 1: there's so much to unpack there. I have absolutely promised
Speaker 1: you we're going to get onto the black out ripper.
Speaker 1: But but but you know what I've got you I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's I mean, that's some statistic, isn't it. And
Speaker 1: of course you know, a lot of the Italian blokes
Speaker 1: are away. They're either in prison of war, they've they've
Speaker 1: ended up in Germany as as effectory slave labor of
Speaker 1: the of of of the Germans, or they're dead or
Speaker 1: wounded or whatever. So there's not many men around. Um,
Speaker 1: there's rapid inflation, there's huge black markets going on, and
Speaker 1: you know, they've got no choice. They've got you know,
Speaker 1: what what do you do? I mean, you know, and
Speaker 1: they're doing it in returns for kind of tins of
Speaker 1: of of fruit and syrup, you know, I mean, because
Speaker 1: they've got to make ends meet. They've got to they've
Speaker 1: got to feed their children, they've got to they've got
Speaker 1: to survive. That's definitely part of the story. The amount
Speaker 1: of what you know, modern day commentators would call survival
Speaker 1: sex work during this World war. But and it's important
Speaker 1: I think to distinguish that from women who are selling
Speaker 1: sex more regularly, kind of as part of their their
Speaker 1: main job. But what the word that really struck me
Speaker 1: was available available women. I would really love to get
Speaker 1: inside the head of whoever wrote that and ask what
Speaker 1: do you mean by available? Yeah, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you mean our married women? Does he mean the
Speaker 1: women who are hanging around the military barracks? Is? Does
Speaker 1: he mean the women who he deems to be a
Speaker 1: quote unquote available? And what's also really interesting there is
Speaker 1: that the commentary is on how many women have venereal
Speaker 1: disease rather than on how many men, because of course
Speaker 1: it takes two to ten. Well, yes, and it's a
Speaker 1: massive problem. It is a massive problem. And how accurate
Speaker 1: that statistic actually is. I mean, I don't think anything.
Speaker 1: I don't think it is accurate. I think it's a
Speaker 1: it's a ballpark. But but even if he's remotely close.
Speaker 1: You see, when I read that, I just thought that
Speaker 1: is absolutely horrific. That's horrific. And you know, your first
Speaker 1: thought is those poor women who are in that situation
Speaker 1: where they're they're getting VD from I mean, my major actors,
Speaker 1: they're getting it all from from the American troops and
Speaker 1: British troops and Allied troops that are out there that
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I mean you talk about victims.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what I was thinking. That was my
Speaker 1: immediate reaction when I came across that was what what
Speaker 1: what an absolute horror story? And how in the narrative
Speaker 1: of the Second World War, it's it's it's civilians have
Speaker 1: always come out least well in terms of their story
Speaker 1: being told. And obviously that that's improved as as years
Speaker 1: have gone by, and we now think about the displaced
Speaker 1: people and all the bombings in Europe and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it, and obviously the Holocaust. But the point
Speaker 1: is is that Italian part of the Italian population, these
Speaker 1: are the bits behind the Allied dines, are not in
Speaker 1: the behind the access lines, are behind the Allied dines.
Speaker 1: You know, the Allies are supposed to be the good guys.
Speaker 1: You know, they're supposed to be the guys who are
Speaker 1: liberating Europe, and yet actually what they're bringing is this
Speaker 1: typhoon of steel in terms of kind of destruction and
Speaker 1: bombardments and all the rest of it. But they're also
Speaker 1: bringing another kind of misery, which is rife, black markets,
Speaker 1: rampant inflation, you know, bad exchange rates with the Italian lira,
Speaker 1: vast amounts of veneral disease and sexually transmaritent diseases, and
Speaker 1: and and so on, And it's a kind of an
Speaker 1: aspect that one doesn't think about too often, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, should be thought about more. James, are you
Speaker 1: familiar with Regulation thirty three B? I think Jewish should
Speaker 1: school you in this and give you some a little
Speaker 1: bit of perspective of what was going on here at
Speaker 1: that time. Okay, Well, I was going to start actually
Speaker 1: picking up on a few of the points you made
Speaker 1: about about Italy and about you know, the way we
Speaker 1: tell the story of the Second World War and who
Speaker 1: gets remembered as the victims, who gets remembered as the villains,
Speaker 1: To make the point of, you know, how little we
Speaker 1: write about the absolute integral kind of connections between commercial
Speaker 1: sex and militarism and warmaking, and how how completely entangled
Speaker 1: these things are, because when the military officers are writing,
Speaker 1: be they based in London or based in Italy or
Speaker 1: based in the United States, when they're writing about venereal disease,
Speaker 1: and how worried they are it's not with the well
Speaker 1: being of the women in mind. They implicitly understand, or
Speaker 1: they think they understand, that sex is part of war
Speaker 1: and that if they don't allow their soldiers to access
Speaker 1: quote unquote available women, then then you know, all hell's
Speaker 1: going to break loose. And so this is you know,
Speaker 1: the First World War, the Second World War, even later wars.
Speaker 1: It's just part of the sort of thought process of
Speaker 1: commanding officers. We have to let prostitution happen, and in
Speaker 1: order to let it happen, we have to pass regulations
Speaker 1: and rules that try at least to make it quote
Speaker 1: unquote safe for men. And that's where all of these
Speaker 1: regulations about passing you know, contact tracing, about criminalizing the
Speaker 1: spread of VD come in. Hm. Wow, okay, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm you know, it's it's a part of
Speaker 1: the the book I'm doing at the moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to unpick this and trying to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of where the arts and more
Speaker 1: reliable statistics and all the rest of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a it's a tricky one to unpick.
Speaker 1: There's absolutely no question about it. Um, But you know,
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate enough to interview people, and one of
Speaker 1: the people I interviewed was was an Italian lady whom
Speaker 1: her son was killed in the crossfire, four year old son,
Speaker 1: and she was so grief stricken that she couldn't face
Speaker 1: going to the the She lives on a farm in
Speaker 1: the mountain, couldn't face going to the funeral in the
Speaker 1: town below, so she stayed at home, kind of you know,
Speaker 1: in pieces. And while she was at home in the
Speaker 1: farm for m Moroccan soldiers came in and gang raped them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, sexual violence was an inherent part of war,
Speaker 1: and there was so little attention paid to it. It
Speaker 1: was so low down on the priority list of any
Speaker 1: of the sort of commanding officers of the War Office.
Speaker 1: If they were concerned about sex and sexual violence, it
Speaker 1: was through the prism of venereal disease. And if they
Speaker 1: were worried about vineerial disease, it wasn't the Italian women
Speaker 1: who were contracting it. It wasn't the englishwomen who contracting it.
Speaker 1: It was the soldiers. And it was seen as one
Speaker 1: of the biggest causes of troop loss. So at any
Speaker 1: given time, one in ten men would be on leave
Speaker 1: due to venereal disease. Wow, that's amazing. The rates that
Speaker 1: they're estimating are incredibly high. It's I'd be really careful
Speaker 1: with statistics. It's kind of impossible to know the exact
Speaker 1: statistics because not least because diagnostic procedures were still you know,
Speaker 1: fairly fairly new, unreliable, especially for goneria. They were getting
Speaker 1: a little bit better at syphilis. But opportunity, you can,
Speaker 1: you can quite the statistics as long as you have
Speaker 1: the caveat. Yeah, I think I think they give an
Speaker 1: indication a of just how worried everyone was, so even
Speaker 1: if they're not true, they certainly indicate the level of concern, right,
Speaker 1: And they also give I think a slight indication of
Speaker 1: the epidemic of gonorea and syphilis in particular during this period.
Speaker 1: Other statistics, you know, one in ten fighting men thirty
Speaker 1: percent suspected. But the other thing with the statistics is
Speaker 1: it's important to notice who they're talking about. So if
Speaker 1: the statistics come along with sort of demonizing a particular population,
Speaker 1: my alarm bells start ringing and I start thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: is this a really a reliable, you know, medically informed,
Speaker 1: epidemiologically informed statement. Or is somebody hauling a number out
Speaker 1: of their ass to make a point about available women.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot mixed up in there. Yeah, no, sure,
Speaker 1: but but it's it's but whether he's being alarmist, whether
Speaker 1: he's being concerned about his men, or whether he's being
Speaker 1: concerned about the women of Italy. It is indicative of
Speaker 1: a of a huge level of prostitution, which which the
Speaker 1: entire statement is totally shocking. I mean, whichever way you're
Speaker 1: looking at it, whether you're looking at the use of
Speaker 1: available a quote unquote, or whether you're looking at the
Speaker 1: number just you you know, through today's prison one can't
Speaker 1: possible or even the prism of nineteen forty four. You
Speaker 1: can't think of anything, I don't think other than what
Speaker 1: a truly horrific statistic, can you? I mean, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not. I'm not particularly surprised by it
Speaker 1: because of the research that I do and how inherently
Speaker 1: part of war prostitution is. Yeah, I think that people
Speaker 1: did become more aware of it in the Second World War.
Speaker 1: I also think the levels of civilian poverty we're probably
Speaker 1: extremely high, and extremely high south in Italy, exactly in
Speaker 1: southern Italy in particular, and so um, the rise in
Speaker 1: survival sex work would have been striking, especially because it's
Speaker 1: also a hub for so many different troops um kind
Speaker 1: of moving through that area. Um, so it's not surprising,
Speaker 1: but I think it says quite a lot about an
Speaker 1: immense hidden history of misery and work. Yes, during the
Speaker 1: Second World War, Yes, yes, yes, yes, well yeah, well
Speaker 1: we're we're absolutely on the same page on that, I'm
Speaker 1: going to assure you. But but let's get back to
Speaker 1: to to the blackout Ripper, because this is, this is
Speaker 1: this is an extraordinary crime, and it's a crime of opportunism,
Speaker 1: isn't it because of the peculiar circumstances of London during
Speaker 1: the during the war. I mean, obviously when there is
Speaker 1: no light makes it much easier to corner people. We're
Speaker 1: looking at Gordon Cummings and we're looking he's he's the
Speaker 1: we're looking at well, we're not looking at him particularly,
Speaker 1: but we are looking at the crimes that he committed
Speaker 1: in London under these circumstances, but also at other crimes
Speaker 1: that we're committed against women during the Blitz and how
Speaker 1: the Blitz was used as a sort of mask for
Speaker 1: crimes to occur, and how war also distracted people from
Speaker 1: crimes against women that were occurring. I mean even even
Speaker 1: within the ATS. So I mean, what kind of police
Speaker 1: force have you got at that stage? I mean the
Speaker 1: police lots of people are joining up. They might be
Speaker 1: in the police, but they're still joining up now. So
Speaker 1: that means that the older policeman is staying there. They're
Speaker 1: still recruiting, of course, but police got there. You know,
Speaker 1: they've got other matters to worry about as well, such
Speaker 1: as sort of bombs falling. And obviously the blitz only
Speaker 1: last from September nineteen forty to the middle of May
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, and then there's a long period where
Speaker 1: there aren't bombs falling every single night, and then there's
Speaker 1: other little kind of you know, you've got the v
Speaker 1: ones from from middle of June nineteen forty four and later.
Speaker 1: The V two is right pretty much right through at
Speaker 1: the end, but there's there's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of period where there aren't bombs ruling every night. So
Speaker 1: all the police still active? Is there still you know,
Speaker 1: the met is still there, and you know, and what
Speaker 1: are they doing and how much does is the war
Speaker 1: getting in the way of the kind of normal routine
Speaker 1: stuff that police do. So the police during the Second
Speaker 1: World War, we're definitely shorthanded, um, you know, they were.
Speaker 1: They were policing a city that had grown in size,
Speaker 1: especially grown in troops size, as well as a lot
Speaker 1: of women and other people coming coming into the city
Speaker 1: for work, for excitement. Right now, where there's young people,
Speaker 1: there's going to you know, and drink, there's going to
Speaker 1: be fights, and so you've got your handsful of that
Speaker 1: in a way that you wouldn't normally. So the police
Speaker 1: were definitely definitely shorthanded, and in general weren't huge fans
Speaker 1: of policing commercial sex or policing nightlife. Um. But in
Speaker 1: particular during the Second World War found it extremely difficult
Speaker 1: to police troops. So there was a real sort of
Speaker 1: reluctance on the part of the Metropolitan Police to intervene
Speaker 1: in any situation that involved troops unless it was egregious,
Speaker 1: because they knew that they'd be pushback and they just
Speaker 1: didn't They just didn't want to get involved. So they
Speaker 1: tended to turn blind eyes left, right and center to
Speaker 1: the misbehavior and mischief of troops in London, and that
Speaker 1: kind of peppers through all of the files, their extreme
Speaker 1: reluctance to get involved in adjudicating these cases. Often they'd
Speaker 1: say that's a job for the military police, it's not us.
Speaker 1: And so it kind of creates this atmosphere, especially in
Speaker 1: C and D Division, which is what I call Piccadilly
Speaker 1: and Soho. Those are the two police divisions that would
Speaker 1: have been in charge. It really doesn't have C and
Speaker 1: D Division. Yeah, so C Division is South is sort
Speaker 1: of what we would have today called Soho, and D
Speaker 1: Division is what we would today call Fitzerovia, but at
Speaker 1: the time was known as North Soho. And those are
Speaker 1: the areas where the nightlife is really rocking. It's where
Speaker 1: the Rainbow Club is, where the American troops are stationed
Speaker 1: after forty two, and it's where the bottle parties are,
Speaker 1: so the sort of underground bars. They don't have signs
Speaker 1: out front that just flick a light on when they're
Speaker 1: open to get around the defense of the Realm Act
Speaker 1: regulations against sales of liquor, etc. And so there's this
Speaker 1: real kind of hedonistic nightlife in the center of London
Speaker 1: at the precise time when the police are shorthanded and
Speaker 1: they're not particularly interested in policing it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a perfect storm, isn't it. And then you've got
Speaker 1: you know, you've got the blackout and presuming compounded by
Speaker 1: smokes as well. At a certain points, I haven't noticed
Speaker 1: any direct connection between the London fogs and sort of
Speaker 1: this kind of discussion about misbehavior, but I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was part of it. I'm sure it was lending to
Speaker 1: this atmosphere of alterity, of liminality, of this sort of
Speaker 1: sense that you know, all all bets are off, all
Speaker 1: rules are gone. Yeah, life is cheap, and so is
Speaker 1: the drink. I think the other thing is about, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, even if you want a round fitz rov
Speaker 1: or soho. Now it's still even today in a city
Speaker 1: of you know whatever it is, eleven million or whatever,
Speaker 1: and when it's absolutely polylating, literally all times, you can
Speaker 1: still find yourself down alleyways and little streets where there's
Speaker 1: hardly anyone, and particularly late at night. I mean I've
Speaker 1: done it. At night you're coming out of a bar
Speaker 1: or something, and you know it's it's getting on and
Speaker 1: suddenly you're taking a little shortcut and sudden you can
Speaker 1: hear the sort of echo of your steps down the
Speaker 1: street and you kind of feel, you feel a little
Speaker 1: bit vulnerable. You can imagine how people must have felt,
Speaker 1: you know, in the middle of the war years, when
Speaker 1: you've got the black out there as well, and the
Speaker 1: and the bomb shelters too. I mean, so one of
Speaker 1: the murders took place in a bomb shelter, in a bombshelter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. One of the things that we also look
Speaker 1: at is just like how safe were women actually going
Speaker 1: into bomb shelters. One former servicewoman talks about how she
Speaker 1: felt that she had probably saved her life by not
Speaker 1: going into a bomb shelter one night during the blitz,
Speaker 1: because as she went to go down into the shelter,
Speaker 1: this very very creepy, awful man kind of reached out
Speaker 1: at her, and she said she would rather stay on
Speaker 1: the surface than go down. And so there's lots of
Speaker 1: stories like this which I think we've we've missed, you know,
Speaker 1: because right we focus because we got swept up in
Speaker 1: the story of the blitz and blitz spirit and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly, kind of we've
Speaker 1: we we almost don't want to look at the darker side,
Speaker 1: do we, Because it's a story of defiance and the
Speaker 1: nation coming together and say, someone who's opportunistically performing, you know,
Speaker 1: despicable crime. So that doesn't fit with the narrative, does it? No, exactly?
Speaker 1: And you know, and again I think a lot of
Speaker 1: what we're doing with this series is mythbusting. I mean,
Speaker 1: historical mythbusting is so important. And you know, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of myths obviously around Jack the Ripper, and
Speaker 1: there a lot of myths around the blitz and how
Speaker 1: we as a nation responded and what it was like
Speaker 1: in the bomb shelter is you know, the old kind
Speaker 1: of go down to the bomb shelter and sing, roll
Speaker 1: out the barrel and you know, yes, exactly, you know,
Speaker 1: and everyone everyone coming together. So community is coming together
Speaker 1: and people being neighborly and helping one another and all
Speaker 1: the rest of it, and any kind of crime jars
Speaker 1: against that, doesn't it. Yeah, absolutely absolutely. So. One of
Speaker 1: the cases that we look at is a case where
Speaker 1: a woman, Rachel Dobkin, was murdered by her husband was
Speaker 1: a case of domestic violence, and this occurred in the
Speaker 1: East End and he buried her remains in the rubble
Speaker 1: of a church that had been bombed, hoping that the
Speaker 1: air raids would be a cover for his crimes. That's
Speaker 1: a very opportunity. Why did he do it? Why did
Speaker 1: he do it? He was a violent man and they
Speaker 1: had been estranged and she was left without any support
Speaker 1: for her son. The marriage was bad from the very outset.
Speaker 1: He abandoned her and she couldn't survive. She couldn't she
Speaker 1: couldn't make ends meet. He was legally obligated to pay
Speaker 1: her money and he wasn't doing that. And he was violent,
Speaker 1: and he threatened her and it was a case of
Speaker 1: course of control and eventually he murdered her. And of
Speaker 1: course today we know much more about these types of
Speaker 1: things and this type of violence, but in the past
Speaker 1: not so much. The police did ask questions like what
Speaker 1: does she what does she do to deserve it? You know,
Speaker 1: and and you know, kind of demonizing her for her
Speaker 1: own murder. Tell you what, We're going to take a
Speaker 1: short break and we'll talk some more when we come back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to We have ways of making you talk
Speaker 1: with me James Holland and with Hallie Rubenhall and Professor
Speaker 1: Julia lat And we're talking about crimes against women in London.
Speaker 1: In the Second World War and god, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's uncomfortable, isn't it thinking about all this, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here being a bloke and you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of you know, all those the opportunism of these
Speaker 1: despicable characters in the time of a blackout and a
Speaker 1: time where I don't know, you expect more, don't you,
Speaker 1: from your from your civilian population. It's it's it's it's really,
Speaker 1: it's really making me think. I have to say. I
Speaker 1: think the other thing as well that's important to point
Speaker 1: out is that a lot of the men who perpetrated
Speaker 1: this violence, Yeah, I guess they were despicable, but they
Speaker 1: weren't extraordinary, and that this violence was quotadian and unfortunately
Speaker 1: accelerated by the trauma of war. And you know, we
Speaker 1: talk a lot. We're much more aware now of the
Speaker 1: way that that war affects the mental health of soldiers.
Speaker 1: But even though they weren't as aware of it in
Speaker 1: the Second World War, it of course did. And you
Speaker 1: see so many cases of men who are fighting and
Speaker 1: then of course coming back to London on leave and
Speaker 1: they're messed up there are you know, they get drunk,
Speaker 1: they have underlying traumas they live in an environment where
Speaker 1: violence against women is quotidian, where they see lots of
Speaker 1: examples of their commanding officers and their superiors buying sex,
Speaker 1: encouraging others to buy sex. Right, and you know, all
Speaker 1: too often it's it's not the sort of despicable maniac
Speaker 1: who's perpetrating this violence, right, it's the average soldier. And
Speaker 1: I'm in no way suggesting that every soldier did this
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form, but it was absolutely
Speaker 1: part of the culture, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1: And quite a number of the crimes you've been investigating
Speaker 1: and looking into, they are just these ordinary soldiers that
Speaker 1: are coming back and losing the plot. So we look at,
Speaker 1: for example, a couple of ATS women, a woman called
Speaker 1: Lillian Welsh who was knocked off her bicycle and murdered
Speaker 1: deliberately by a man driving a truck back from a
Speaker 1: base one evening as she was riding home. And that
Speaker 1: was just his thing. He liked to knock women off
Speaker 1: their bikes. You know, you put a man in uniform
Speaker 1: and suddenly he's got an extra layer of defense around
Speaker 1: him during a period of war because he's unassailable, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's really important that we don't do down our boys.
Speaker 1: We're in a national crisis. We all have to pull together.
Speaker 1: You know, people become a little bit more incredulous about
Speaker 1: the crimes actually taking place, and they're more apt to
Speaker 1: not believe the victim and not to question the man
Speaker 1: in uniform. Also because it's bad, it's bad for the nation,
Speaker 1: it's bad for everybody. So a lot of people are
Speaker 1: just getting away of it. Yeah, we were able to
Speaker 1: find cases where they didn't get away with it, but
Speaker 1: you know, there were a lot of really terrible consequences.
Speaker 1: We also look at the children who were born to
Speaker 1: white British women who had relationships with African American gis
Speaker 1: who were here, and what happened to their children, the
Speaker 1: so called brown babies. I mean, racial aggression is another
Speaker 1: type of violence. And African America and gis who came
Speaker 1: to this country experienced a type of freedom, especially if
Speaker 1: they were from the Southern States and subject to Jim
Speaker 1: Crow laws. Here, it was quite liberating. But then also
Speaker 1: they were subject obviously on their basis, to their own
Speaker 1: racial segregation laws that in many cases we're quite uncomfortable
Speaker 1: reinforcing in this country. But then the children who were
Speaker 1: born to these relationships. We interviewed two of them, and
Speaker 1: they were caught between this terrible place where they didn't
Speaker 1: feel like they belonged anywhere. They didn't feel like they
Speaker 1: were accepted in this country, and they didn't feel that
Speaker 1: they were accepted by their father's families in the United
Speaker 1: States either. This is another legacy of a type of
Speaker 1: violence as well. It's fascinating to look at all of
Speaker 1: these things, all of these sub stories, all of these
Speaker 1: things that happened as a result of the war on
Speaker 1: the home front here and so many like these these
Speaker 1: injustice is tend to go under the radar, No absolutely,
Speaker 1: So the Ripper to talk about the blackout Ripper, who
Speaker 1: were the women who were murdered by him? Then, so
Speaker 1: he actually murdered for and attacked to others. He tried
Speaker 1: to murder them unsuccessfully, and they were Evelyn Hamilton, Evelyn Oatley,
Speaker 1: Margaret Lowe, and a woman called Door Chuane. And then
Speaker 1: he attacked to other women who survived, called Katherine mccauughey
Speaker 1: and Margaret Hayward. A number of them were sex workers,
Speaker 1: except for Evelyn Hamilton, who was She was a chemist
Speaker 1: and she was an independent woman, and she just happened
Speaker 1: to be out at a Maison Lions that evening, dining
Speaker 1: alone when he was out on the prowl looking for
Speaker 1: a woman who was by herself in the dark, in
Speaker 1: the middle of the blackout. So what do you did?
Speaker 1: She's in the in the Lions house, the Lions Corner
Speaker 1: shop or whatever, Maison Leon and then and then leaves.
Speaker 1: He follows her. What happens, Yeah, and he attacks her
Speaker 1: and murders her in a bomb shelter. So there's no
Speaker 1: sexual motive for this. There may be a sexual motive,
Speaker 1: you know. I like to say with Jack the Ripper,
Speaker 1: there was a crime that was motivated against women. It
Speaker 1: was a sex crime in that it was a gender crime.
Speaker 1: Without wanting to go into too many details, because one
Speaker 1: of the things that we were very careful to do
Speaker 1: in this particular podcast is not really to go into
Speaker 1: a lot of the details about the murders. One of
Speaker 1: the things that was apparent was overkill, which demonstrates a
Speaker 1: certain type of rage, a kind of sexually extreme violence,
Speaker 1: extreme violence, sexually motivated rage. Wow, and he's caught, is
Speaker 1: he eventually? Yes, he is caught. The rather annoying thing
Speaker 1: is that he's he's caught, but he is only tried
Speaker 1: for the murder of Evelyn Oatley and not the others.
Speaker 1: And he may have killed others as well. So he
Speaker 1: was an Air Force cadet. And again because he's wearing
Speaker 1: the uniform, you know, people tend to not that's not
Speaker 1: the first thing you're thinking about when you encounter a
Speaker 1: man in uniform. Yeah, because you think he must be upstanding,
Speaker 1: he's doing his bit, That's right. He was a very
Speaker 1: unpleasant character. And also he liked to pretend that he
Speaker 1: was of some sort of aristocratic or gentry background. And
Speaker 1: you know, he had this whole persona and he stole money,
Speaker 1: he embezzled money in order to support this this lifestyle
Speaker 1: that he had, and the RAF obviously really appealed to
Speaker 1: him because of its social status. I mean, you you
Speaker 1: mentioned Evelyn. He was in the in the in the
Speaker 1: Lions house, having a money or MPs and keys and
Speaker 1: being a chemist. But these other women, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: who are they? I mean you were saying the others
Speaker 1: of a sex workers. I mean, but but who are
Speaker 1: these people? What's their story? Well, that's that's a very
Speaker 1: good question. And in fact, that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: We follow the lives of all of these women as
Speaker 1: much as we possibly can, as much as the records allow.
Speaker 1: You know, we can use these women as a as
Speaker 1: a lens to really tell the story of women in
Speaker 1: the first half of the twenty dream what their experiences were.
Speaker 1: So Evelyn Oatley, whose life I find just so fascinating
Speaker 1: and so haunting, grew up in Yorkshire, in Keighley, and
Speaker 1: in fact she was the daughter of a German immigrant,
Speaker 1: so her mother was German, and who faced a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of germanophobia in the First World War and was
Speaker 1: right in the center of some local attacks on the
Speaker 1: German community in Keighley. She came from a broken home.
Speaker 1: People liked to try to find a way of escaping
Speaker 1: from their very unpleasant circumstances, and often I think cinema
Speaker 1: and theater was the way in which people did. And
Speaker 1: you know, she was obsessed with glamor and the West
Speaker 1: End performance and eventually ended up going to play. We
Speaker 1: can understand that anyone who's wanting to sort of better
Speaker 1: their lives a glamor of the silver screen and the
Speaker 1: rest of it, the dazzling lights and all the rest
Speaker 1: of it, of course, it's it's like a sort of
Speaker 1: a moftwa light bulb. Absolutely, and I think there's there's
Speaker 1: a certain amount of pathos in it. There's a certain
Speaker 1: amount of when you you know, you know that these
Speaker 1: people escaped into the cinemas to get away from their lives,
Speaker 1: and how grueling and difficult their lives were, and and
Speaker 1: and you know, Evelyn Oatley's life was that her background
Speaker 1: was from you know, she was from a broken home,
Speaker 1: she was from an area which was poor, and she
Speaker 1: worked in a mill for a time. And so she
Speaker 1: went to Blackpool and she met the man who would
Speaker 1: become her husband, Harold, and he was a poultry farmer.
Speaker 1: And it's such a weird pairing. So this Evelyn is
Speaker 1: not the chemist, it's the other evelence. She ends up
Speaker 1: We're marrying a poultry farmer, ends up in London. Well,
Speaker 1: she ends up marrying a poultry farmer. But like their
Speaker 1: marriage is so bizarre, So like he is just he says, look,
Speaker 1: you know you want to go and live a glamorous
Speaker 1: life in London, I'll stay here on a poultry farm.
Speaker 1: You go to Piccadilly, you go work in the Windmill Club,
Speaker 1: which is what she wanted to do, or at least
Speaker 1: that she said she did that. And and Julie, do
Speaker 1: you want to tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 1: Windmill Club during the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties. It
Speaker 1: is such a great story. Yeah. I mean, these these
Speaker 1: spaces like the Windmill Club become just the center of
Speaker 1: all kinds of imagination and they're you know, for racy
Speaker 1: performances and kind of cabaret style performances, So they're the
Speaker 1: they're the kind of far end of the music hall.
Speaker 1: Just as music halls are starting to kind of spruce
Speaker 1: themselves up and become family friendly, places like the Windmill
Speaker 1: Theater are becoming a kind of adult only entertainment venue, right.
Speaker 1: But but it's more nudity, is it. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of stockings and legs and stuff, isn't it. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: the most part, but it's it's very very racy for
Speaker 1: the time, and they they're they're constantly in danger of
Speaker 1: losing their license, of course, but they really become places
Speaker 1: where where people like Evelyn Oatly would would dream of
Speaker 1: working and performing because they're you know, they're the do
Speaker 1: you meet some rich bloke who's going to be your ticket.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely part of it, the idea that you might
Speaker 1: achieve some kind of social mobility through through meeting some Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's those dreams, but I also just think
Speaker 1: that they were a lot more fun to work in
Speaker 1: than poultry firms. Yeah. I guess it depends what your
Speaker 1: vibe is, but yeah, I guess probably. Um. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, because we talk a lot. I mean I
Speaker 1: work a lot about you know, and and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of evidence to suggest that Evel and Otely did
Speaker 1: eventually end up selling sex at least part time. And um,
Speaker 1: I work a lot on these topics. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of conversations about you know, women being you know,
Speaker 1: forced by poverty or lack of other choices into into
Speaker 1: selling sex, and that's absolutely valid, um, But I think
Speaker 1: we also need to make space for the fact that
Speaker 1: women had dreams and ambitions of their own and sometimes
Speaker 1: saw this kind of labor, like sexualized labor or sex work,
Speaker 1: as a way to achieve those dreams and enjoyed that
Speaker 1: kind of work, and they were drawn to the statement
Speaker 1: of the West End, especially during the war. You know,
Speaker 1: the Americans called them good time girls. Ye, the British
Speaker 1: police called them amateur prostitutes in a slightly less euphemistic
Speaker 1: but just the Windmill Club is it is? The Bag
Speaker 1: of Nails is another famous one is, Yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: a load of them, aren't there. And then there's the
Speaker 1: more kind of slightly upmarket marketplaces like you know, the
Speaker 1: Criterion and yeah, the Cafe Royale, Cafe Royale and the
Speaker 1: Cave to Parry and all that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: but was she murdered because she was working at the
Speaker 1: Windmill Club or was she murdered because she was walking
Speaker 1: back late at night and it was dark. My understanding
Speaker 1: is even an Oatly had picked up Cummings as a client.
Speaker 1: So she was murdered in her own room, Yes, in
Speaker 1: her own room. And so it's a really good question
Speaker 1: in terms of what made Evelyn and Doris and the others,
Speaker 1: with the exception of the very opportunistic murder of the
Speaker 1: other evil in in the bomb shelter, what made the
Speaker 1: other women so vulnerable to comings is that they're soliciting,
Speaker 1: and they're selling sex at a time when it's becoming
Speaker 1: more and more dangerous. And that's kind of for two
Speaker 1: main reasons. One is because it's being criminalized, it's being
Speaker 1: forced underground, and women are forced to solicit alone, they're
Speaker 1: forced to work alone. There's nobody looking out for them.
Speaker 1: There's no sort of form of public surveillance. Um, nobody
Speaker 1: knew that Evelyn had taken Comings back. There was nobody
Speaker 1: there but Jee if you if you'll, if you're you're
Speaker 1: evil in or some other guy at that time, I mean,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, Okay, this is this is the route
Speaker 1: I'm going to go down. Do you think you're aware
Speaker 1: that the danger levels have been heightened because of the
Speaker 1: circumstances of the war, because of the lack of interest
Speaker 1: in the police, because they've got that handsful, because of
Speaker 1: the number of servicemen, because it's dark, because because because
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that's part of the calculation? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do, And I think do you think that's part
Speaker 1: of the allure in a funny sort of way, No,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's part of the allure. I think
Speaker 1: they were doing it because they wanted to be part
Speaker 1: of that that sort of space potentially, but mostly they
Speaker 1: were doing it for money, and they were making really
Speaker 1: difficult decisions about how they were going to make money.
Speaker 1: At a time when they were often the only ones
Speaker 1: keeping themselves right, so they didn't have anybody giving them
Speaker 1: money they wanted they wanted to. So for most people,
Speaker 1: they're still doing it out of necessity rather than because
Speaker 1: they want to. I think we have to be careful
Speaker 1: with like the kind of binary there, because you can,
Speaker 1: you can choose to sell sex as a choice amongst
Speaker 1: other worst choices. Yeah, and so I think, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think it's important to I'm think about all those
Speaker 1: Italian women, you really have no other alternative ways of
Speaker 1: of of feeding themselves. Yeah, and that's the reasons in
Speaker 1: late nineteen forty three, for example, the only way they're
Speaker 1: going to get food is by by by prostituting themselves
Speaker 1: and return for food from from from Allied troops. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why it's really really important to
Speaker 1: draw a difference between sex work as a form of
Speaker 1: labor that women do in alternative to another form of
Speaker 1: labor which may not pay them anything or much, and
Speaker 1: survival sex work, which is really really different and and
Speaker 1: and so I think in the case of Evelyn Oatley,
Speaker 1: it she's she's doing sex work, she's she's selling sex
Speaker 1: because she wants money. But there's a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: in her case that she really also loved to the
Speaker 1: West End, that she loved the culture there, that she
Speaker 1: loves the atmosphere there, and a chicken farmer. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: She she goes back every now and then, but she'd
Speaker 1: never stay. But she also sometimes she brings she brings
Speaker 1: another man back. I mean, she has other relationships with
Speaker 1: other men and takes them back to the chicken farm
Speaker 1: with her husband, who doesn't seem to mind. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so the other thing is, you know, he asked about
Speaker 1: whether or not she would have been aware of the dangers,
Speaker 1: and there's fair amount of evidence that that she and
Speaker 1: others were part of a community of people, so there
Speaker 1: would have been people, you know, giving them tips, warning
Speaker 1: them about dangers. But there's only so much you can
Speaker 1: do in an an atmosphere that makes it illegal to
Speaker 1: work together. So the safest thing to do would have
Speaker 1: been for two women to solicit together, bring men home together,
Speaker 1: and watch out for each other. But from eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: five on, that's illegal. You can't you can't work together
Speaker 1: if you're selling sex, and that continues to be illegal
Speaker 1: into the present day. And that is like the simple
Speaker 1: fact that renders so many of these women vulnerable to
Speaker 1: violence because there's no no one in the wrong. That's extraordinary,
Speaker 1: what a what a terrible decision. And in terms of
Speaker 1: I mean, do we I mean, presumably we do have
Speaker 1: pretty detailed crime statistics for London in the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: doing I mean, you know, I mean how much how
Speaker 1: bad was it and how much did the crime rate,
Speaker 1: particularly of kinds of murders and rape of women in
Speaker 1: London in the nineteen early part of the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: How how much did that climb? We don't actually have
Speaker 1: super reliable statistics, do we? Not thought like that? I
Speaker 1: thought that they would be there. Yeah, I mean part
Speaker 1: of the problem is it's a mess, right, So states
Speaker 1: of total war aren't particularly great for civilian bookkeeping. And
Speaker 1: this is this is this is one of the ways
Speaker 1: in which you know, yes, they're obviously the police, right,
Speaker 1: there are dick indicative trends and I think overall it
Speaker 1: doesn't go up severely, but you have to remember the
Speaker 1: enormous amount of underreporting, not of murder, but of of
Speaker 1: violence against the person. Yeah, so I think so many
Speaker 1: of these are being perpetrated by men in uniform you know,
Speaker 1: women know all too well what's going to happen to
Speaker 1: them if they allege a crime against a man in uniform.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's hard enough. You know, the sort
Speaker 1: of conviction rates for sexual offenses are abysmally low in
Speaker 1: this period. And it's hard enough to get a conviction
Speaker 1: in peacetime against the civilian man, getting a conviction in
Speaker 1: wartime against a man in uniform. You know, women know
Speaker 1: the score. They're not going to put themselves through it.
Speaker 1: And I think there's actually one point, is it Evelyn
Speaker 1: who says, you know, she's getting she's getting assaulted left,
Speaker 1: right and center by angry, angry clients. And at one
Speaker 1: point somebody says, you know, well, why didn't you go
Speaker 1: and report him? And she's just why didn't she'd basically
Speaker 1: laughs it off. You know why I didn't go and
Speaker 1: report exactly well, both of you. That's that's absolutely fascinating
Speaker 1: and has given me lots to think about. I have
Speaker 1: to say, goodness, but Judia, there is one thing that
Speaker 1: you mentioned that we haven't actually talked about, and that's
Speaker 1: Regulation thirty three B. So what is regulation thirty three B? So?
Speaker 1: Regulation thirty three B is part of the Defense of
Speaker 1: the Realm Act, that kind of omnibus legislation that comes
Speaker 1: through during the war, and there was another version of it,
Speaker 1: Dora as it's often called, in the First World War
Speaker 1: as well. And thirty three B, I think is just
Speaker 1: a really meaningful indication of just how worried everyone was
Speaker 1: about venereal disease. And it came about largely because of Canadian, American,
Speaker 1: Australian and New Zealand troops, but most of all American
Speaker 1: troops who were coming to London and catching sexually transmitted infections,
Speaker 1: and the commanding officers of those troops insisted that it
Speaker 1: was the fault of English women, that they're good, innocent
Speaker 1: boys from Mahio, Yeah, Oklahoma, had never seen the like
Speaker 1: of the debauchery in London, and they just couldn't control themselves.
Speaker 1: They were being seduced and that they were they were
Speaker 1: catching diseases. And so there's a lot of pressure put
Speaker 1: on the military in London. There's a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: put on the mat to try to control these women,
Speaker 1: and of course there's very little that they can actually
Speaker 1: do other than criminalizing sex workers. And so thirty three
Speaker 1: B comes into forest. I believe in nineteen forty two,
Speaker 1: and it states that if a man or a soldier
Speaker 1: contracts sexually transmitted infection, he's then asked to report the
Speaker 1: names of who he thought he got it from to
Speaker 1: the doctor, and the doctor would then report those names
Speaker 1: to the medical officer of health, who would then engage
Speaker 1: in a kind of form of criminalized contact tracing, finding
Speaker 1: the suspected infectants and compelling them to undergo treatment for
Speaker 1: vineeral disease. And what's really striking about this is from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen on Britain had obstensibly operated a voluntary system
Speaker 1: of vineerial disease control, right, so they said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not right, we should never criminalize this, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: But they completely go back on that during the Second
Speaker 1: World War and they start criminalizing people who are quote
Speaker 1: unquote spreading venereal disease. But of course you can probably
Speaker 1: place your bets on who were the targets of this legislation.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the men giving vineal disease to women. It
Speaker 1: was the women who theoretically were giving vineal disease to men,
Speaker 1: and they had their medical histories revealed. If they refused
Speaker 1: to comply, they were dragged into court. It was a
Speaker 1: really quite shocking actually, and a lot of people at
Speaker 1: the time spoke out against it, lawyers, civil rights campaigners, feminists,
Speaker 1: but they, you know, kind of fell on deaf ears
Speaker 1: because the war effort was more important than anybody. But
Speaker 1: but who was instigating was this? Was this a British
Speaker 1: government or was this pressure from the US government? This
Speaker 1: is the War Office being pressured by the US military? Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Yeah, really, Jars, doesn't it? It It
Speaker 1: really sits uncomfortably goodness. Well, listen, both of you, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on. Really good luck with
Speaker 1: the podcast. Fascinating thought provoking stuff and obviously your series
Speaker 1: is out now, The Bad Women, The Blackout River and
Speaker 1: um and listen, thank you both. I mean really gosh,
Speaker 1: well that that's just been really really really interesting. As
Speaker 1: I say, loads to think about there and let's think
Speaker 1: about for me and as I try and sort of
Speaker 1: pick through some of this in the blighted war in Italy.
Speaker 1: But anyway, thank you both very much. Into Thank you,
Speaker 1: Bi Rubinhald and Julia Late, thank you, thank you, You're
Speaker 1: very welcome. It's from the Pleasure Fish