Speaker 1: Pushkin. Evelyn Hamilton is dining at Maisonne Lines electric lights
Speaker 1: bathe the vast modern restaurant in a gentle glow. She
Speaker 1: is unaccompanied and it's late. Reserved and introverted, even spends
Speaker 1: most of her nights alone. She prefers it this way,
Speaker 1: for others can interpret her quiet nature as surly and rude.
Speaker 1: This has caused her no end of problems, particularly when
Speaker 1: her male employers have taken against her manner. After a
Speaker 1: busy evening which included a tetchy exchange with a hotel
Speaker 1: worker over a room, Evelyn is perhaps just now especially
Speaker 1: appreciate of this window of solitude. Her gold wristwatch shows
Speaker 1: that it's almost midnight, so she readies herself to leave.
Speaker 1: She has a train to catch first thing in the
Speaker 1: morning to start a new job in the distant city
Speaker 1: of Grimsby, but she will never make that train. For
Speaker 1: donning her coat and setting out into the black February night,
Speaker 1: Evelyn Hamilton will not even make it back safe to
Speaker 1: her night's lodgings. This is the seldom told story of
Speaker 1: women in World War Two who were killed not by
Speaker 1: the enemy, but by husbands, lovers, and strangers wearing the
Speaker 1: uniform of their own side. It's also the tale of
Speaker 1: a particular string of murder victims that history has swept
Speaker 1: from view. I'm Hallie Rubinhold, and I'm Alice Fines, and
Speaker 1: you're listening to bad women the black out Ripper. It's
Speaker 1: nineteen oh one and Britain is bearing its queen. Victoria
Speaker 1: has sat on the throne for sixty three years, reigning
Speaker 1: over four hundred million subjects and an empire that covered
Speaker 1: a quarter of the globe. As an empress at the
Speaker 1: head of a vast, conquering army, she is instructed that
Speaker 1: her funeral be a full military affair, and so her
Speaker 1: coffin is conveyed by gun carriage, accompanied by her admirals
Speaker 1: and generals in their great plumed hats. Thousands of ordinary
Speaker 1: people line the processional route, hoping to catch a final
Speaker 1: glimpse of the only sovereign most of them have ever known. Victoria,
Speaker 1: whose reign exalted the moral perfection of the traditional family,
Speaker 1: isn't heard next to her beloved and long dead husband,
Speaker 1: Prince Albert. She wore the austere black of widow's weeds
Speaker 1: for forty long years, but she is buried and a
Speaker 1: white gown and her wedding veil. The Victorian era is over,
Speaker 1: and an empire on which the sun never set is
Speaker 1: about to begin its slow decline. That spring against a
Speaker 1: backdrop of national mourning. Evelyn mark at Hamilton was born
Speaker 1: in England's northern coal mining country. A wave of social
Speaker 1: reform has been sweeping Britain. Recent improvements had been made
Speaker 1: in the areas of social housing, education provision, and welfare
Speaker 1: for workers, but there was still much to be done,
Speaker 1: particularly to help women. Not far from Evelyn's birthplace, a
Speaker 1: branch of the Women's Liberal Association invited their local political representative,
Speaker 1: their member of Parliament to speak. He first lamented the
Speaker 1: Queen's death, and then thanked the women in attendance for
Speaker 1: instilling liberal principles and to their families at home. He
Speaker 1: also commended the Association for its work inviting women to
Speaker 1: such meetings so that they might take an active part
Speaker 1: in what is going on in the politics of the country.
Speaker 1: Of course, that active part was somewhat limited. In nineteen
Speaker 1: oh one, none of the women in attendance could actually vote,
Speaker 1: let alone be elected themselves, but movements to gain suffrage
Speaker 1: were well underway. Selina Cooper, a textiles worker from the North,
Speaker 1: had just presented a petition to Parliament signed by thirty
Speaker 1: thousand women, demanding the vote. Evelyn Hamilton was born into
Speaker 1: a rapidly changing world, and her story epitomizes the struggle
Speaker 1: many women face to fight for reforms that would improve
Speaker 1: their lives and allow them to tread a path beyond
Speaker 1: the realm of placid domesticity. When Evelyn was born, her parents,
Speaker 1: Robert and Mary Hamilton, were renting a room at the
Speaker 1: house of a Mexican born tailor and his British wife
Speaker 1: in Newcastle, a city burgeoning with heavy industry. In the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies. The British government had imposed a legal duty
Speaker 1: on parents to ensure that their children were educated, so,
Speaker 1: unlike many of their forebears, working class Robert and Mary
Speaker 1: would have been able to read and write. Robert in particular,
Speaker 1: would have had some numerousy skills and drawn on these
Speaker 1: in his work as a collector for the Anglo American
Speaker 1: Zither Company. In the late nineteenth century, the zithera had
Speaker 1: become popular with the middle classes as a novelty parlor instrument.
Speaker 1: Vendors would even throw in lessons when they sold the
Speaker 1: harplike device learnt in few minutes. Promised the adverts, customers
Speaker 1: of the Anglo American Zither Company might buy their instruments
Speaker 1: on an installment plan, and collectors like Robert would have
Speaker 1: visited them to take their payments until the debt was cleared.
Speaker 1: And there was good money to be made in this
Speaker 1: zithi craze on the streets of one genteel town. Rival
Speaker 1: zither vendors even came to blows in a literal fist
Speaker 1: fight over this lucrative trade. The police had to intervene.
Speaker 1: They grappled together and both fell to the ground. They
Speaker 1: were both bleeding from the nose and mouth. But eventually
Speaker 1: public interest in the zither waned, perhaps prompting Robert to
Speaker 1: leave newcast By the time a second daughter, Edith, was born,
Speaker 1: they had moved to the nearby village of Wryton, where
Speaker 1: willow trees bend to brush the waters of the River Tyne.
Speaker 1: Wryton relied on agriculture and coal miner and here the
Speaker 1: seller of zithers became a more prosaic colliery laborer, doing
Speaker 1: unskilled work at one of the local mines. He eventually
Speaker 1: became a banks in charge of loading and unloading coal
Speaker 1: and workers from the mine shaft elevator. More Hamilton children arrived,
Speaker 1: and their mother, Mary, for whom no occupation is recorded
Speaker 1: on the census, likely stayed at home to raise them.
Speaker 1: Evelyn was the oldest of three brothers and four sisters,
Speaker 1: and the family lived in a small, two roomed cottage.
Speaker 1: One room would probably have been a kitchen and living space,
Speaker 1: and the other a shared bedroom. The Hamilton's were a
Speaker 1: typical working class family. They were far from a fluent
Speaker 1: and they lived in cramped quarters, but they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been pitied or considered to be extremely poor, and the
Speaker 1: tragedies that befell the family wouldn't have seemed unusual to
Speaker 1: their peers either. When Evelyn was seven, her little brother
Speaker 1: caught scarlet fever, a bacterial illness that produces a distinctive
Speaker 1: pink red rash. Although there was some understanding about how
Speaker 1: the disease spread and about just how susceptible infants and
Speaker 1: small children were to it in the days before antibiotics,
Speaker 1: it could still be a death sentence. The boy passed
Speaker 1: away with his father at his side. Scarlet fever outbreaks
Speaker 1: returned without respite and The illness then claimed the life
Speaker 1: of five year old Edith. In nineteen eleven, Robert Hamilton
Speaker 1: was asked to fill out the census form and name
Speaker 1: all his children. Heartbreakingly, he wrote first the name of
Speaker 1: his dead daughter Edith. Then he realized his mistake and
Speaker 1: crossed it out. The death of children, though tragic, was
Speaker 1: an ordinary part of working class life. Even so, sorrow
Speaker 1: must have pierced Robert's heart as his pen struck out
Speaker 1: young Edith's name. Another son would later die of diphtheria
Speaker 1: and heart failure in the same infectious diseases hospital where
Speaker 1: Edith had perished, And cruel fate had not yet finished
Speaker 1: with the Hamilton family. Playing with other children. On the
Speaker 1: banks of the River Tyne, Evelyn's four year old brother
Speaker 1: John slipped into the water. A passer by attempted to
Speaker 1: resuscitate the child, but to no avail, and so in
Speaker 1: just a few short years, Evelyn lost four younger siblings.
Speaker 1: The family home would surely have been an emptier, quieter,
Speaker 1: and sadder place, haunted by these deaths. Tiny writing cricket
Speaker 1: team as thrashing the county professionals against the odds in
Speaker 1: the high summer sun, the men of Evelyn Hamilton's village
Speaker 1: are humbling the visiting side. This sensational performance would have
Speaker 1: been a source of huge excitement, and thirteen year old
Speaker 1: Evelyn may well have been on hand to cheer the
Speaker 1: victors on. It is July nineteen fourteen, and this peaceful village,
Speaker 1: i'll is about to be shattered. Soon. These players may
Speaker 1: well be swapping their cricket writes for Army Khaki, some
Speaker 1: never to return to the pitch. In one short week,
Speaker 1: the threatening war clouds have settled down over Europe and
Speaker 1: the long ridicule German menace has become a reality. The
Speaker 1: Kaiser's troops are at war with England, Russia and France.
Speaker 1: At forty Robert Hamilton was at the upper age limit
Speaker 1: to fight, but he appears not to have volunteered for combat. Instead,
Speaker 1: he became a munitions worker, helping to produce the guns,
Speaker 1: bullets and bombs kneaded at the front. Still, teenage Evelyn
Speaker 1: would have watched as the young men of the village
Speaker 1: and those who had worked in the pits with her father,
Speaker 1: register their names and droves for the local battalions. They
Speaker 1: were dispatched to the trenches France and Flanders to the
Speaker 1: horrors of war and to death. The dangers and hardships
Speaker 1: of war were entirely absent from the home front. German airships,
Speaker 1: the dreaded Zeppelins were sent on bombing raids against civilian targets.
Speaker 1: One cruised over Evelyn's community in nineteen fifteen. Those on
Speaker 1: the ground switched off all the lights, halted all the
Speaker 1: trams and trains, and held their breath into the raider
Speaker 1: floated away again. The war altered the worlds of the
Speaker 1: women left behind in other profound ways too. Their working
Speaker 1: lives changed as they took on new roles on farms
Speaker 1: and in factories. At home, food shortages placed additional strain
Speaker 1: on families whose main earners had gone away to war.
Speaker 1: Survival became a struggle for many. State pensions for women
Speaker 1: widowed by the war were pitiful, at just five shillings
Speaker 1: per week in nineteen fourteen. This was far less than
Speaker 1: the amount needed to provide proper nutrition to families with children.
Speaker 1: Sylvia Pankhurst, a suffragette and socialist, observed scorchingly that in Newcastle,
Speaker 1: close to the Hamilton's home soldiers, wives were given food
Speaker 1: tickets instead of the money due to them, and were
Speaker 1: permitted to obtain household commodities only from a prescribed list
Speaker 1: which comprised the cheap inferior qualities of food. Evelyn would
Speaker 1: no doubt have witnessed such struggles in her community. She
Speaker 1: would also have followed the growing women's suffrage movement, itself
Speaker 1: fueled by aspirations to bring about the kind of social
Speaker 1: changes that a male dominated parliament was ignoring and alleviate
Speaker 1: women's hardship and suffering. As the guns fell silent, women
Speaker 1: were finally granted the vote, but seventeen year old Evelyn
Speaker 1: wouldn't yet benefit. The reform came with an age restriction,
Speaker 1: women had to be thirty or over and a property qualification.
Speaker 1: Women voters had to be registered to a home of
Speaker 1: certain value. Full suffrage was still some years away. Clever
Speaker 1: and hard working Evelyn was studying chemistry at Scarry's College
Speaker 1: in Newcastle, a technical training school. According to Pat Thane,
Speaker 1: visiting professor of History at Birkbeck University of London, Robert
Speaker 1: and Mary would likely have supported their daughters ucational aspirations
Speaker 1: for the tendency for young men to emigrate to places
Speaker 1: like Australia, Canada or New Zealand had skewed the marriage market.
Speaker 1: Families were quite often quite keen to encourage education for
Speaker 1: their daughters because it wasn't obvious they'd be able to
Speaker 1: get married. Because women were a majority of the population
Speaker 1: and quite often couldn't marry, and unless they came quite
Speaker 1: a well off family that could be sure it could
Speaker 1: support them, than they needed to be socially educated to
Speaker 1: get a job that would enable them to support themselves.
Speaker 1: Aside from voting reform, new legislation had just given women
Speaker 1: access to a greater number of professional jobs. They were
Speaker 1: still paid less than men, and they had fewer opportunities
Speaker 1: for promotion, but they could now become lawyers or go
Speaker 1: into architecture or accountancy. Evelyn was the child of a
Speaker 1: coal mine worker, but education and hard work appeared to
Speaker 1: have enabled her to leap frog into a higher social class,
Speaker 1: and she now embarked on her chosen career pharmacy. This
Speaker 1: was a respected and fulfilling profession, but it would also
Speaker 1: prove to be a tricky and sometimes solitary path for Evelyn.
Speaker 1: As a woman entering a man's profession, Evelyn would have
Speaker 1: been expected to prioritize the comfort of her male colleagues
Speaker 1: and managers to flatter their feelings and egos, to mold
Speaker 1: herself to their whims and ways. But Evelyn was cut
Speaker 1: from very different cloth, and instead she clashed with her employers.
Speaker 1: Their gripes and groans about the independent and implacable woman
Speaker 1: in their midst would dog her career, jeopardizing everything that
Speaker 1: she had worked for, and pushing her to the edge
Speaker 1: of breakdown. Bad women, the Blackoutripper will be back in
Speaker 1: just a moment. Pharmacy had come a long way since
Speaker 1: the heyday of quackery and snake oil remedies. In eighteen
Speaker 1: forty one, the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was established.
Speaker 1: Mission to this body was by examination. The exams were
Speaker 1: taken fairy seriously and the threshold for passing them was high.
Speaker 1: Pharmacists created medicines from scratch, and they had access to
Speaker 1: deadly poisons too, placing them in a position of privilege
Speaker 1: within many communities. Their work required highly specialized knowledge and
Speaker 1: it was not to be entered into lightly. In Evelyn's day,
Speaker 1: the landscape of pharmacy was full of possibilities. One could
Speaker 1: work in a hospital, while the more entrepreneurial could open
Speaker 1: a Druggers store. Crucially, it was also a respectable profession.
Speaker 1: It involved brainwork, but it was genteel enough to be
Speaker 1: suitable for a woman. In fact, as Evelyn was growing up,
Speaker 1: dispensing drugs was heavily marketed to parents and guardians. One
Speaker 1: newspaper advert called it the right career for women. Training,
Speaker 1: short cost, moderate work, pleasant future assured. Throughout the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: Evelyn worked part time as a chemist's assistant at a
Speaker 1: shop in Newcastle called Milburn's, presumably to help fund her
Speaker 1: studies at a nearby college. The teaching staff said Evelyn
Speaker 1: was older than many of the other students and described
Speaker 1: her manner as distinctive. While Evelyn's sister Kathleen had entered nursing,
Speaker 1: a traditionally feminine profession, pharmacy remained a male dominated world.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the challenge inherent in this exclusion was part of
Speaker 1: the appeal for someone as distinctive and single minded as Evelyn.
Speaker 1: There may have been another reason that Evelyn chose pharmacy
Speaker 1: over nursing, too, As caregivers, nurses would constantly interact with
Speaker 1: their patients, whereas pharmacists might spend all day in their laboratories,
Speaker 1: or safely behind a large wooden counter. If they had
Speaker 1: a shop assistant, they might speak with customers only rarely. Evelyn,
Speaker 1: said to be reserved and pensive, may well have found
Speaker 1: such distance appealing. After passing her Chemists and Druggists qualifying exam,
Speaker 1: Evelyn began practicing as a pharmacist in nineteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: the same year that equal voting rights were finally granted
Speaker 1: to all men and women in Britain. For the next
Speaker 1: twelve years, Evelyn managed a drugger's shop, Messrs. A. Wilson,
Speaker 1: in the village of Ryton, where she'd grown up. Wilson's
Speaker 1: promised the finest quality medicines at the lowest prices, and
Speaker 1: peppered local newspapers with adverts for herbal cough candy, vitamin
Speaker 1: cream and cod liver oil emulsion. Evelyn lived in a
Speaker 1: flat above the shop. She appears to have remained single,
Speaker 1: living a quiet, even reclusive existence. I do not know
Speaker 1: any of her friends, said her sister Kathleen. I've never
Speaker 1: known her to court anyone, and as far as I know,
Speaker 1: she's never had a man friend. Most other acquaintances painted
Speaker 1: a similar portrait of Evelyn. Local woman Florence Shiver's described
Speaker 1: her as a lonely girl of studious nature who was
Speaker 1: rather conversed in sex matters and did not associate with men.
Speaker 1: The landlady of one of Evelyn's lodgings did, however, remember
Speaker 1: having occasional male visitors, and Evelyn confided to one female
Speaker 1: acquaintance that she gone to dinner with a male colleague
Speaker 1: and even had an a there with a man in
Speaker 1: her youth. But to most observers, the pharmacists seemed contentedly
Speaker 1: free of romantic entanglements. According to historian Pat Thane, it
Speaker 1: wasn't uncommon for women at this time to embrace single life,
Speaker 1: and this wasn't just about the dearth of available men,
Speaker 1: but also quite a lot of women chose not to
Speaker 1: marry that they didn't happen to find a man they
Speaker 1: really wanted to marry, and they were an occupation that
Speaker 1: they liked. Women were generally forced to leave their professions
Speaker 1: when they wed, irrespective of how much time they'd invested
Speaker 1: in their training. Then as now, domesticity didn't appeal to everyone,
Speaker 1: so women who enjoyed their careers may simply have led
Speaker 1: more fulfilling lives by staying single. For her part, Evelyn
Speaker 1: appears to have been independent and conscientious. Her one hobby
Speaker 1: in life was to improve her knowledge and mind on
Speaker 1: all subjects. According to Kathleen, she was also a keen
Speaker 1: socialist and studied very deeply the problems connected to the subject.
Speaker 1: This is too broad a statement to shed real light
Speaker 1: on Evelyn's actual political views as a socialist. Evelyn may
Speaker 1: simply have been in favor of social reform in general.
Speaker 1: She might have actively supported her local left wing Labor Party,
Speaker 1: or she may have even drawn inspiration from the Russian
Speaker 1: Revolution of nineteen seventeen and held genuine communist sympathies. Evelyn appears,
Speaker 1: at the very least to have been committed to helping
Speaker 1: democratize education. Her sister stated that she was a member
Speaker 1: of the Workers Educational Association, an organization that had been
Speaker 1: set up in nineteen oh three. It provided evening classes
Speaker 1: enabling working class people to further their studies. Evelyn's brand
Speaker 1: of socialism may equally have been directly connected to the
Speaker 1: awful diseases that had carried away her siblings, as well
Speaker 1: as to her daily work as a pharmacist in the
Speaker 1: depressed Northeast, where unemployment rates were high, public health was poor,
Speaker 1: and doctors were expensive. She may have encounter a lot
Speaker 1: of working class people who couldn't afford decent healthcare because
Speaker 1: there was no decent free healthcare before the National Health
Speaker 1: Service in nineteen forty eight, and left wingers were in
Speaker 1: favor of having a free health service. If evelynce politics
Speaker 1: indeed included a vision of universal healthcare, they may also
Speaker 1: have been shaped by a further tragedy in the family.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty one, her twenty four year old sister
Speaker 1: Mary died with epilepsy at the County Mental Hospital. If
Speaker 1: Mary had spent any length of time in that institution,
Speaker 1: the medical bills may well have represented a financial strain
Speaker 1: for the family as well as an emotional burden. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight, on the eve of yet another World War,
Speaker 1: Robert Hamilton, a man who had seen so many of
Speaker 1: his offspring die, himself, succumbed to heart failure. Evelyn was
Speaker 1: now approaching forty and still working at the pharmacy in
Speaker 1: her home village, but then something snapped and she quit.
Speaker 1: According to Kathleen, she had mentioned for a considerable time
Speaker 1: previously that she would like a change, and was in
Speaker 1: fact seeking one. Evelyn's manager told a different story, describing
Speaker 1: how her sour attitude had made her continued employment untenable. Resourceful,
Speaker 1: Evelyn soon found another job as a traveling representative for
Speaker 1: a company making a tonic wine that claimed to ward
Speaker 1: off anemia, influenza, and menopausal symptoms. But perhaps the social
Speaker 1: activity of meeting and greeting druggists and shop owners bore
Speaker 1: her down, because by late summer she was experiencing symptoms
Speaker 1: of depression and insomnia. Just a few weeks into her
Speaker 1: new role, her manager, mister Blackwell, who described Evelyn as
Speaker 1: abrupt in speech, formed the opinion that she was mentally disarranged,
Speaker 1: and also that she was fully aware of this. Blackwell
Speaker 1: quickly terminated Evelyn's contract, paying her a month's wages in
Speaker 1: lieu of notice. Kathleen again offered a slightly different account
Speaker 1: of events. It was Evelyn who had chosen to resign
Speaker 1: and return home to Newcastle. Evelyn sought professional help from
Speaker 1: Professor Frederick Natras of the Newcastle Infirmary, a respected expert
Speaker 1: in nervous diseases, and after two months recuperating in the
Speaker 1: home of her recently widowed mother. Her health was said
Speaker 1: to greatly improve enough that she was soon packing her
Speaker 1: bags once more. This time Evelyn was heading south, a
Speaker 1: decision possibly implemenced by her father's death and its impact
Speaker 1: on the family's finances. People in the South were richer
Speaker 1: than their northern counterparts, meaning greater demand for pharmacy services
Speaker 1: and probably higher wages too. This would have enabled Evelyn
Speaker 1: to better support her widowed mother. She took a post
Speaker 1: at a psychiatric hospital south of London, but here she
Speaker 1: found herself understimulated and without enough work, and so in
Speaker 1: late nineteen forty one she took up the post of
Speaker 1: manageress at Yardley's Pharmacy on the eastern edge of London.
Speaker 1: Evelyn appears to have seen Yardley's a little more than
Speaker 1: a temporary job, perhaps a stock gap before returning to
Speaker 1: the North, but any plans would soon be brought to
Speaker 1: an abrupt and violent end. Bad Women, the blackout Ripper
Speaker 1: will return shortly. Evelyn Hamilton was quiet, dignified and studious.
Speaker 1: She maintained close links to her family, but to most
Speaker 1: other people she seemed self sufficient. Marching to the beat
Speaker 1: of her own drum, she apparently issued typical leisure activities
Speaker 1: like dance halls, preferring instead to take long nighttime walks
Speaker 1: in the countryside. It was this self contained figure who
Speaker 1: arrived in the unfamiliar suburb of Hornchurch, where people's accents
Speaker 1: and outlooks were different to those back home. At Yardley's,
Speaker 1: Evelyn earned around three pounds per week, roughly equivalent to
Speaker 1: a weekly wage of over a thousand dollars today, and
Speaker 1: she would send money to her mother. She appears to
Speaker 1: have been guarded from the word go solitary taciturn. Even
Speaker 1: aloof missus Eva Lever, who rented a room to Evelyn,
Speaker 1: found her to be withdrawn. Miss Hamilton never took me
Speaker 1: into her confidence while staying with me, and no person
Speaker 1: visited her at my house. She did not discuss matters
Speaker 1: with me. Evelyn's new colleagues also found her somewhat curious.
Speaker 1: Her manager suggested she was a rather eccentric type of person,
Speaker 1: always looks sort of frightened, and I should think she
Speaker 1: suffered with her nerves. He felt she seemed bored there,
Speaker 1: and suggested that apart from occasional cinema visits, she found
Speaker 1: little with which to occupy herself at Hornchurch, but Tina Gray,
Speaker 1: the fourteen year old shop assistant, agreed that Evelyn was eccentric.
Speaker 1: I was not very happy with miss Hamilton, as she
Speaker 1: was unsociable and grumbling and did not speak to me
Speaker 1: except to give orders. Frequently, after approaching customers, she would
Speaker 1: walk away without serving them. Bettina observed other oddities and
Speaker 1: Evelyn's behavior too. I know from what she told me
Speaker 1: that she went back to the shop most nights, and
Speaker 1: on one occasion she said, I suppose you wonder why
Speaker 1: I came back, but I cannot be bothered to explain.
Speaker 1: Now about four times during the cold weather, she filled
Speaker 1: a hot water bottle just before I left the shop
Speaker 1: and put it on the bench, and I could not
Speaker 1: say why she did. Was Evelyn sleeping in the shop?
Speaker 1: Bettina did not believe so, and missus Leaver confirmed that
Speaker 1: the pharmacist returned to her lodgings each night. So was
Speaker 1: Evelyn restless and agitated? Had a depression in insomnia perhaps returned?
Speaker 1: Did she go back to the empty shop rather than
Speaker 1: toss and turn in her bed? Today we might view
Speaker 1: Evelyn's behavioral traits and mental health troubles with a little
Speaker 1: more simpathy. But in nineteen forty two. Disdain, exasperation, and
Speaker 1: the shop unkindness of fourteen year old Bettina Gray would
Speaker 1: not have been uncommon responses. It's so oppressive being not typical,
Speaker 1: and so many of us don't feel typical. Who's applying
Speaker 1: all this pressure to be exactly like everybody else because
Speaker 1: everyone has a sack of rocks and everyone is a
Speaker 1: total weirdo, And yet we're like, you have to be
Speaker 1: like this, you have to be like this. Lauren Ober
Speaker 1: is a journalist. She was recently diagnosed with autism, and
Speaker 1: her podcast, The Loudest Girl in the World tells the
Speaker 1: story of her journey to understand what it means to
Speaker 1: be autistic. We shared Evelyn Hamilton's story with Lauren. A
Speaker 1: colleague characterized her as unsociable and grumbling and did not
Speaker 1: speak to me except orders, and I thought that is relatable.
Speaker 1: People have said that I come at them if I
Speaker 1: need something, like my hair is on fire, and I
Speaker 1: forget to say hi, how are you are you? Having
Speaker 1: a good day? Great? Me too? Anyway, I need this thing.
Speaker 1: You know, there's great pain in not getting the socializing
Speaker 1: or the sort of human interaction right in the way
Speaker 1: that everybody expects you too. There's a particular way that
Speaker 1: you should interact and if you're not doing just that thing,
Speaker 1: And particularly in the forties, I imagine it was a
Speaker 1: million times worse there because we didn't have names for things.
Speaker 1: We had a much narrower view of how people should act,
Speaker 1: So people describing your presence as grumbling. I felt for Evelyn,
Speaker 1: I felt like boy, it was probably a really hard
Speaker 1: road for her. Lauren says that for women, the pressure
Speaker 1: to get social interaction right can be particularly onerous. Women
Speaker 1: bear the vast majority of the weight in social situations. Yes,
Speaker 1: the pressures put on women and girls and people who
Speaker 1: are not men to sort of smoothly and gracefully and
Speaker 1: elegantly navigate social situations, it's just oppressive. It's so oppressive. Well,
Speaker 1: her employers, colleagues, and even the stranger she encountered each
Speaker 1: and every day might have found Evelyn exasperating an odd
Speaker 1: From a distance of eighty years, Lauren has huge admiration
Speaker 1: for her. This woman's life was so hard, and it's
Speaker 1: amazing that she got as far as she did. It's
Speaker 1: amazing that she was able to carve out a career
Speaker 1: for herself being sort of reserved or pensive or solitary.
Speaker 1: Those are not the qualifiers that make for a successful,
Speaker 1: like social person in the world. Though Evelyn was by
Speaker 1: nature detached, she could also crave interaction. At times, she
Speaker 1: would speak freely with total strangers. Maud Yoxel remembered meeting
Speaker 1: the pharmacist at Yardley's for the first time. They chatting
Speaker 1: and she informed me that she had no friends in
Speaker 1: Hornchurch and stated she was mensely starved. I invited her
Speaker 1: to my house as she appeared lonely. Maud said that
Speaker 1: they met again on several occasions, but on the whole
Speaker 1: Evelyn never described having any sort of social life. By
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two, Yardley's appears to have run into financial difficulties.
Speaker 1: Other druggers' shops complained of the toll that limited supplies,
Speaker 1: uncertain deliveries, and high wartime taxes was placing on profits.
Speaker 1: It's possible that Yardley's faced similar struggles, and in mid
Speaker 1: January it was decided that the Hornchurch outlet, among others,
Speaker 1: should close. Evelyn was fired, but quickly found another position
Speaker 1: in the northern port of Grimsby. She told her family
Speaker 1: of the move. This was the last they ever heard
Speaker 1: from her. February eighth, nineteen forty two, was Evelyn's final
Speaker 1: day in Hornchurch. She might have lain in bed until
Speaker 1: late that morning, as was her custom on Sundays. Reading
Speaker 1: the paper, she might have noted an impassioned opinion piece
Speaker 1: predicting social catastrophe unless women left the workplace after the
Speaker 1: war was over. And as for the ultra emancipated young woman,
Speaker 1: the writer of this column is yet to meet one
Speaker 1: who is happy or who is capable of making any
Speaker 1: other person happy. Elsewhere, it was reported that soldier Cyril
Speaker 1: Johnson had just been charged with the murder of a
Speaker 1: young bank clerk, Maggie Smail, in her home near London.
Speaker 1: Johnson reportedly killed Maggie because he hated women. That evening,
Speaker 1: after packing, Evelyn braced herself against the bitter February weather
Speaker 1: by donning a green woolen jumper, full length camel coat,
Speaker 1: and small turban hat. The time on her gold wristwatch
Speaker 1: read six pm. As she departed missus Leaver's house in
Speaker 1: the evening gloom. Maud Yoxall observed Evelyn heading south towards
Speaker 1: the train station and pausing to linger a moment in
Speaker 1: the doorway of yard Lease. She carried a suitcase and
Speaker 1: a polished, dark brown handbag. At seven twenty pm, Evelyn
Speaker 1: met with a clerk at the station and arranged to
Speaker 1: have the bulk of her luggage collected from missus Levi's
Speaker 1: house and sent on to Grimsby. She then hopped on
Speaker 1: a train to spend the night in London. A taxi driver,
Speaker 1: Abraham Ash, collected Evelyn at the train station at around
Speaker 1: ten pm and dropped her at a hotel, where an
Speaker 1: altercation ensued. A maid answered the door and there was
Speaker 1: a slight argument, the maid saying she had no beds.
Speaker 1: The woman, who was well spoken, although she spoke slowly,
Speaker 1: then returned at the cab slightly perturbed, and said they
Speaker 1: must put me up somewhere. I have got the money
Speaker 1: to pay for a room. Evelyn's train the next morning
Speaker 1: would be from King's Cross, but she told Ash that
Speaker 1: she did not wish to stay in this area, after all,
Speaker 1: it had an insalubrious rough reputation. At her request, they
Speaker 1: drove on to the Three Arts Club, a west End
Speaker 1: establishment where she had stayed at least once before, Housed
Speaker 1: in a tall brick and stucco fronted Georgian terrace, typical
Speaker 1: of the area. The club provided both short and long
Speaker 1: term accommodation to women only. Guests were subject to a
Speaker 1: long list of rules. For example, they couldn't introduce literature
Speaker 1: of a controversial character into the communal spaces, nor could
Speaker 1: they bring with them wines, spirits, or provisions of any kind.
Speaker 1: Above all, this accommodation was intended to be a safe
Speaker 1: space for women. It was here that Evelyn chose to
Speaker 1: spend the night. The manageress who showed at her room
Speaker 1: and gave her key, thought Evelyn seems agitated, though she
Speaker 1: could not say why. At some point between ten thirty
Speaker 1: and eleven PM, Evelyn went out into the darkened streets
Speaker 1: to find some supper. She walked for fifteen minutes or
Speaker 1: so to Maison Lyons at Marble Arch on the edge
Speaker 1: of Hyde Park, a twenty four hour restaurant that she
Speaker 1: could rely on to still be serving meals. Maison Lyons
Speaker 1: was consciously designed to appeal to will the evening madame table.
Speaker 1: Inside it was sleek, clean and glass walled. It even
Speaker 1: boasted a lady's boudoir and hairdressing salon, and had been
Speaker 1: fitted with so called sunshine lighting to create the effect
Speaker 1: of continuous indoor daylight. Maison Lyons sought to provide food
Speaker 1: fit for gourmets at popular prices. Evelyn sat alone at
Speaker 1: a table covered in starched linen. She ate some beetroot,
Speaker 1: and she may have ordered a drink for herself too.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was here that an raf cadet noticed her,
Speaker 1: marking her out as a solitary soul who would not
Speaker 1: be immediately missed. Perhaps you approach her and struck up
Speaker 1: an exchange. Perhaps he offered to see her safely through
Speaker 1: the dark night back to her accommodation. Or maybe Evelyn
Speaker 1: walked home alone and heard a man's footsteps trailing her.
Speaker 1: Her route back to her lodgings would have passed the
Speaker 1: grand houses of Montague Square, their windows blacked out, their
Speaker 1: white stucco reflecting the beam of her flashlight. At the
Speaker 1: end of the square was a squat air raged shelter,
Speaker 1: a dank structure of brick and concrete, damp, musty cold.
Speaker 1: It's inconceivable that Evelyn would have entered such a dark
Speaker 1: and squalid place willingly when she was just minutes from
Speaker 1: the safety of the Three Arts Club. But whether by
Speaker 1: force or by deception enter that freezing shelter she did
Speaker 1: Bad Women. The Black Out Ripper is hosted by me
Speaker 1: Hallie rubin Hold and me Alice Fines. It was written
Speaker 1: and produced by Alice Fines and Ryan Dilley, with additional
Speaker 1: support from Courtney Guerino and Atha Gomperts. Kate Heay of
Speaker 1: Oakwood Family Trees aided us with genealogical research. Pascal Wise
Speaker 1: Sound designed and mixed the show and composed all the
Speaker 1: original music. The show was recorded at Wardoors Todos by
Speaker 1: David Smith and Tom Berry. You also heard the voice
Speaker 1: talents of Ben Crow, David Glover, Melanie Gutridge, Stella Harford,
Speaker 1: Jemma Saunders and Rufus Wright. Much of the music you
Speaker 1: had was performed by Edgarchan, Ross Hughes, Christian Miller and
Speaker 1: Marcus Penrose. They were recorded by Nick Taylor at Porcupine Studios.
Speaker 1: Pushkin's Ben Tolliday mixed the tracks and you heard additional
Speaker 1: piano playing by the great Berry Wise Hi Berry. The
Speaker 1: show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, Heather Faine, Carlie Migliori, Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Daniella Lukhan. We'd also like to thank
Speaker 1: Michael Buchanan Dunn of the Murder Mile podcast, Lizzie McCarroll,
Speaker 1: Katherine Walker at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Earbe
Speaker 1: Historical Society. Bad Women is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Please rate and review the show and spread the word
Speaker 1: about what we do and thanks for listening.