Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's no one else on Montague Place. When plumber
Speaker 1: Harold Bachelor and his sixteen year old assistant William Baldwin
Speaker 1: set off for their first job of the day, the
Speaker 1: sun has only just risen on this cold February morning.
Speaker 1: The pair pass three brick built air raid shelters, ugly,
Speaker 1: squat and dank that have been hastily erected amid the
Speaker 1: neighborhood's grand Georgian townhouses. Something glinting on the ground catches
Speaker 1: their gaze, something classy and reflective. William reaches down to
Speaker 1: pick it up. It's the end of a broken flashlight,
Speaker 1: and that's when he sees her. Two feet protrude from
Speaker 1: one shelter's entrance look at the the feet of a woman.
Speaker 1: Harold ventures In then hurriedly goes to fetch the police inside.
Speaker 1: The woman lies on her back, her head turned to
Speaker 1: one side, her scarf loosely covering her face. Her clothing
Speaker 1: and underwear had been ripped open, exposing her chest and abdomen.
Speaker 1: Her legs are stained with blood, her face and neck
Speaker 1: are dark with bruises. She has been strangled. Evelyn Hamilton's
Speaker 1: gold watch stopped at one a m. But When it's
Speaker 1: removed from the pharmacist's cold wrist, it begins to tick
Speaker 1: once more as its hands sweep the dial. The police
Speaker 1: set about trying to identify the presumed sexual pervert who
Speaker 1: murdered its owner. But Evelyn Hamilton's killer is wasting no
Speaker 1: time either. He's already seeking out his next victim. Tonight
Speaker 1: he will meet an aspiring stage starlet coincidentally another Evelyn,
Speaker 1: Evelyn Oatley, and he'll follow her up the stairs to
Speaker 1: her tiny Soho apartment. This is the seldom told story
Speaker 1: of women in World War Two who were killed not
Speaker 1: by the enemy, but by husbands, lovers, and strangers wearing
Speaker 1: the uniform of their own side. It's also the tale
Speaker 1: of a particular string of murder victims that history has
Speaker 1: swept from view. I'm Hallie Rubbinhold and I'm Alice Fines,
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Bad Women the Blackout Ripper. Exactly
Speaker 1: what brought Evelyn's mother, Rosina Magdalena Weber, from the high mountains,
Speaker 1: dark forests, and fairy tale castles of southern Germany to
Speaker 1: the lead mines and textile mills of Earbey is a mystery.
Speaker 1: So is the story of how she fell in with
Speaker 1: her volatile, even violent English lover Walter Judd. In the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, economic turmoil and political persecution had seen many
Speaker 1: thousands of Germans migrate to Britain, and they came from
Speaker 1: also social ranks, from wealthy businessmen and bankers to the
Speaker 1: impoverished political refugee Karl Marx. Most were economic migrants. According
Speaker 1: to one German author, Britain had a reputation for abundance
Speaker 1: money lies on the street. He said that his compatriots
Speaker 1: would arrive on British soil with little money and little
Speaker 1: to no knowledge of English. They'd spend a few days
Speaker 1: in a hotel before looking for a more permanent home,
Speaker 1: and many found prosperity. German migrants were merchants and shop owners,
Speaker 1: but they also worked in the textile industry, tailoring, and shoemaking.
Speaker 1: They entered the food and catering trades too, as waiters,
Speaker 1: hoteliers and butchers. New arrivals took lowly positions in German
Speaker 1: owned enterprises, hoping to save enough money to strike out
Speaker 1: on their own success. Wealth and social mobility seemed easier
Speaker 1: to attain in Britain than back home, and perhaps Razina
Speaker 1: Weber had heard tell of the bounty enjoyed by her
Speaker 1: fellow countrymen over But while she trod a well worn
Speaker 1: path of migration, her circumstances were unusual. She appears to
Speaker 1: have moved to Britain alone, without any of her family
Speaker 1: at her side, and undertaking more common among German Men
Speaker 1: than women, and one that must have taken considerable courage.
Speaker 1: Sometimes pimps placed disingenuous job adverts in German newspapers to
Speaker 1: lure women to Britain and ensnare them in the sex trade.
Speaker 1: Rosina may well have noticed one such announcement and migrated
Speaker 1: in hope of obtaining a new position, perhaps in domestic service. Equally,
Speaker 1: she may have been encouraged by a friend or relative
Speaker 1: who'd already emigrated, Or she may simply have stopped off
Speaker 1: en route to the United States but ended up staying.
Speaker 1: While London attracted many immigrats, German communities thrived in other
Speaker 1: cities too. Bradford, a center of textile production in the north,
Speaker 1: boasted a Little Germany district with chapels, warehouses, and factories,
Speaker 1: bilt with the wealth generated by the newcomers. Maybe Rosina
Speaker 1: stopped off in Little Germany for somehow she met Walter Judd,
Speaker 1: the son of a shop owner from Eyrbe, a small
Speaker 1: rural parish nestled amid the rolling hills and windswept moors
Speaker 1: northwest of Bradford. When the couple married in nineteen oh five,
Speaker 1: Rosina was already pregnant with a son, Hermann, in April
Speaker 1: nineteen oh eight, a daughter, little Evelyn, followed. But if
Speaker 1: Rasina had hoped for a life of domestic peace in
Speaker 1: England's rural north, she'd be swiftly and bitterly disappointed. Walter
Speaker 1: jumped between jobs, taking whatever work he could. It's unlikely therefore,
Speaker 1: that the family were ever of comfortable means. At one
Speaker 1: point he was listed as a master greengrocer, selling vegetables
Speaker 1: as his father had, But at another time he was
Speaker 1: a weaver at a local mill. That is until he
Speaker 1: left the looms of the factory floor and joined a
Speaker 1: walkout over wages and working conditions, with some describing him
Speaker 1: as the ringleader of the strike action. As the dispute
Speaker 1: rumbled on, Walter even led a throng of at least
Speaker 1: two hundred furious weavers to the house of a fellow worker,
Speaker 1: who would knock down tools and join their strike. Walter
Speaker 1: Judd appeared at Skipton Police Court on Saturday, charged with
Speaker 1: throwing a stone through the window of a man named Tattersall.
Speaker 1: He was convicted of the crime. Walter seems to have
Speaker 1: been an erratic man and a rabble rouser who at
Speaker 1: his worst was also violent. We cannot know how Rosina
Speaker 1: responded to her husband's involvement in these clashes of a
Speaker 1: heavy fine levied on him, as punishment would surely have
Speaker 1: been difficult for the young family to bear. More trouble
Speaker 1: followed in nineteen o nine, when Evelyn was just a
Speaker 1: year old. Her father again attracted the attention of the courts.
Speaker 1: Walter was out of work and had been drinking for
Speaker 1: several days straight when he entered a local inn and
Speaker 1: demanded more beer. Get Walter, discovering that the landlord's wife
Speaker 1: was alone, he surprised her by unsheathing a number of
Speaker 1: sharp knives and spreading them across a table. You will
Speaker 1: look well if I cut your throw for you, he
Speaker 1: was said to have growled. One newspaper reported that he
Speaker 1: followed the frightened landlady into a back room, uttering abusive
Speaker 1: and violent language. Only the arrival of a local Butcher,
Speaker 1: perhaps with Cleaver in hand, convinced Walter to leave. In court,
Speaker 1: Walter claimed he was so drunk he hardly knew what
Speaker 1: he was doing and offered a humble apology for his
Speaker 1: sinister and threatening behavior. But a criminal record with eight
Speaker 1: previous convictions raises questions about what home life would have
Speaker 1: been like for Rosie and the children. Walter certainly abused
Speaker 1: alcohol regularly. Was he temperamental and violent at home? Two?
Speaker 1: Another court case, this time brought by Rosina herself, answers
Speaker 1: some of those questions. It paints a portrait of abject
Speaker 1: domestic misery. In the summer of nineteen ten, Walter had
Speaker 1: been released from another local jail and, between bouts of drinking,
Speaker 1: had found work as a laborer. One morning, he slipped
Speaker 1: out of the family home and did not return. According
Speaker 1: to Rosina, to finance this adventure, he'd sold a truck
Speaker 1: that didn't belong to him and took his hook with
Speaker 1: the money. With the family breadwin had gone, and desperate
Speaker 1: for an income, Rosina said she had to sell their
Speaker 1: home simply to be able to feed four year old
Speaker 1: Herman and two year old Evelyn. When Walter resurfaced five
Speaker 1: weeks later, he asked his wife to bring their children
Speaker 1: and move back in with him, but Rosina refused. He
Speaker 1: had no home to take them to, and besides, she
Speaker 1: had a different plan. She would send her children to
Speaker 1: live with foster parents and go into domestic service to
Speaker 1: earn her own living. The prospect of parting from her
Speaker 1: tiny children was no doubt heartbreaking, but Rosina was adamant.
Speaker 1: There was no other way. She was willing to work
Speaker 1: night and day, she said, but she could not tolerate
Speaker 1: Walter any longer. Life with my husband is not worth living.
Speaker 1: Walter did not attend the court hearing to answer the
Speaker 1: charge of desertion, and the magistrates made an order of
Speaker 1: judicial separation. The couple remained married, but Rosina was to
Speaker 1: have custody of the children, and Walter would pay seven
Speaker 1: shillings per week towards their maintenance. Better than nothing, perhaps,
Speaker 1: but still a pittance on which survival would be a struggle.
Speaker 1: When the household census was taken the following year, Walter
Speaker 1: and Rosina were still living apart. Rosina, it seems, had
Speaker 1: been compelled by her circumstances to go through with her plan,
Speaker 1: surrendering Evelyn and Hermann to foster parents. This arrangement was
Speaker 1: probably organized through the local boarding out committee. The foster couple,
Speaker 1: who lived in the nearby town of Keighley, would have
Speaker 1: received a weekly payment to cover the children's basic needs.
Speaker 1: They would have pledged to provide Evelyn and Hermann with
Speaker 1: proper food, lodging, and washing, and who endeavor to train
Speaker 1: them in the habits of truthfulness, obedience, personal cleanliness, and industry,
Speaker 1: as well as to take care that they attended school.
Speaker 1: Members of the boarding out committee might come and inspect
Speaker 1: the foster home at any time. Proponents a boarding out
Speaker 1: touted it as a system by which children born in
Speaker 1: unfortunate circumstances could form ties among persons of their own
Speaker 1: class and become self reliant, independent citizens. Even so, this
Speaker 1: transition to a new home must have been painfully disorientating
Speaker 1: for young Evelyn. Rosina stayed close to her offspring, taking
Speaker 1: a job as a general servant just a few streets away,
Speaker 1: scrubbing and cooking in the home of a German butcher.
Speaker 1: She would have lived with the family above their shop,
Speaker 1: and this shop stood alone a German island in an
Speaker 1: area said to be thickly populated with Irish men and women.
Speaker 1: But in this community, Rosina and her children had still
Speaker 1: not found safe harbor, and they would soon be exposed
Speaker 1: to yet more peril, violence, bad women. The blackout Ripper
Speaker 1: will be back in just a moment. Rosina's new employer,
Speaker 1: the butcher Carl Andrassy, had previously been in trouble with
Speaker 1: the authorities for putting diseased offul into his meetples a
Speaker 1: tubercular cowslung, to be precise, and they'd find him for
Speaker 1: his malepractice. The court finds the defendant guilty. He must
Speaker 1: pay a fine of three pounds and costs. He'd been
Speaker 1: in caught again for letting a wait for the shop
Speaker 1: scales become chipped and worn, thus short changing his customers.
Speaker 1: Both of these matters were considered trivial, but suspicions about
Speaker 1: Andrassy and his business practices festered in the neighborhood, fueled
Speaker 1: by prejudice, xenophobia, and war, all of which would soon
Speaker 1: flare into an explosion of hatred. Germanophobia was noticeably increasing.
Speaker 1: There was a general and persistent undercurrent of antiimmigrant sentiment
Speaker 1: among locals, but now a particular dislike of Germany was
Speaker 1: on the rise. Germany was a nation growing in confidence
Speaker 1: and global clout, a nation challenging the interests and dominance
Speaker 1: of Britain. In the of the British, German migrants were
Speaker 1: associated with one industry, in particular, twelve hundred German butchers
Speaker 1: sold to the public. Because food can be a potent
Speaker 1: symbol of national identity, Germanophobia focused itself on these butchers,
Speaker 1: and the quality of their wares was hissed that German
Speaker 1: meets were putrid, gangrenous. Scandalized newspapers had long fermented this
Speaker 1: alarm the intellect of man staggers before the problem of
Speaker 1: what a German sausage may contain. Germanophobia reached fever pitch
Speaker 1: at the outbreak of the First World War in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: That summer, the press proposed a conspiracy theory ordinary Germans
Speaker 1: in Britain were in fact spies reporting secrets back to
Speaker 1: the Fatherland. And then came lurid reports from the fighting
Speaker 1: in Belgium that invading German troops had committed unspeakable atrocities there,
Speaker 1: raping young girls, mutilating children, and shooting nuns. Accounts of
Speaker 1: how the trouble began ary. Some said the attitude of
Speaker 1: the Drassies since the outbreak of the war had annoyed
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. The butcher had seemed to celebrate German victories
Speaker 1: against British troops, supposedly dancing and laughing in front of
Speaker 1: his customers. Finally, an Irishman, Kelly, entered the shop at
Speaker 1: the head of a crowd and asked for a pound
Speaker 1: of German sausage, laying the emphasis on the German. Others
Speaker 1: claimed that he had requested a pie without any poison
Speaker 1: in it. Andrassy reportedly responded to this insult by cursing
Speaker 1: and then striking Kelly on the nose. Some said they
Speaker 1: heard Kelly yells, that's due to the Germans, what they
Speaker 1: are doing to the Belgian. The round setting of the
Speaker 1: shop that ensued was said to be of unprecedented ferocity.
Speaker 1: Huge crowds gathered outside, and scores of stones crashed through
Speaker 1: the downstairs windows, as well as those of the apartment above.
Speaker 1: The Lucina may wealth have been cowering. Police constables who
Speaker 1: intervened were pelted with rocks and bottle. A police inspector
Speaker 1: was struck on the head and left with a bloody gash,
Speaker 1: while other officers were said to be bleeding profusely too.
Speaker 1: You are worse than the Germans for protecting them, shouted
Speaker 1: the mob. A priest, Father Russell, finally succeeded where the
Speaker 1: authorities had not and dispersed the crowd, telling them that
Speaker 1: if they really wanted to fight the Germans, they should
Speaker 1: head to the army recruiting office. But the following day
Speaker 1: the violence resurged and spread. More German shops were wrecked
Speaker 1: and looted, and the windows at the police station where
Speaker 1: the Rassi family was sheltering was smashed. Evelyn would have
Speaker 1: been six years old, very young, but still old enough
Speaker 1: to understand that people in her town were angry and
Speaker 1: old enough to feel afraid. That wave of violence in
Speaker 1: Keighley and in towns across the land marked out something
Speaker 1: important about the character of the First World War, something
Speaker 1: that a government minister underlined in a speech the following year.
Speaker 1: This was not a conflict between armies, but between nations,
Speaker 1: he said. Every individual, whether civilian or not, has got
Speaker 1: to throw his weight into the scale. The British people
Speaker 1: took up that challenge with vigor. There were more anti
Speaker 1: German riots over the next four years, and German women
Speaker 1: and children were targets of this violence too. German immigrants
Speaker 1: were also affected by government policy. Some lost their jobs,
Speaker 1: and enemy aliens were required to register with their local
Speaker 1: police stations. Their freedom of movement was restricted, and some
Speaker 1: were even repatriated back to Germany. Rosina and her children
Speaker 1: may well have known Germans who suffered desperately under these measures,
Speaker 1: but they themselves would likely have been spared the very
Speaker 1: worst of this treatment. Residing with our foster parents. Evelyn's
Speaker 1: heritage may not have been widely known, and for her part,
Speaker 1: Rosina had ceased to be a German national an alien
Speaker 1: upon her marriage to Walter. Although they had separated, they
Speaker 1: were still married, and Walter enlisted and fought the Germans
Speaker 1: for king and country. Rosina often also went by a
Speaker 1: name that sounded unquestionably English, Rose Judd. Still, there was
Speaker 1: a troubling strand of public discourse that did implicate Rosina,
Speaker 1: Hermann and Evelyn. Journalists and politicians invoked the racialized language
Speaker 1: of bad blood when they spoke about British children of
Speaker 1: German parentage m I five. The British Security Service described
Speaker 1: such children as enemy painted and matrilineal. German kinship was
Speaker 1: a particular cause for concern. Those born to German mothers
Speaker 1: were more likely to be seen as potential future threats.
Speaker 1: British citizenship, on paper was no match for British German bloodstock.
Speaker 1: You can't mutralize an unnatural beast, a human abortion, a
Speaker 1: Hellish freak, but you can exterminate it, fumed one nationalistic
Speaker 1: magazine editor. For young Evelyn, the world must surely have
Speaker 1: seemed to be filled with bidder enmity. Not only was
Speaker 1: her home life troubled, her neighbors had also revealed that
Speaker 1: at any moment they could turn violently on anyone they
Speaker 1: considered different. But there were bright spots amid the gloom,
Speaker 1: glittering distractions from grim reality. Keithley had a thriving theatrical
Speaker 1: and entertainment scene, boasting several theater a Picture Palace with
Speaker 1: five hundred seats, and the Cozy Corner Picture House, which
Speaker 1: projected all the world's finest synodromas three times daily at
Speaker 1: popular prices. Pill tickets for the unwelcome missus hatch please
Speaker 1: cheap and comfortable. The cinema was an immensely popular form
Speaker 1: of escapism for the working classes. You considered the front
Speaker 1: for top and sabne chairs further back of sentipence booking
Speaker 1: ahead was it necessary. The auditoriums were warm, and the
Speaker 1: darkness also afforded cinemagoers some privacy. These diseased a love.
Speaker 1: Florence Turner films would be projected onto a whitewashed screen
Speaker 1: on the back wall of the auditorium, and because they
Speaker 1: lacked sync sound, they were often accompanied by a piano
Speaker 1: or other instruments. Sometimes there were sound effects too, like
Speaker 1: the tapping of coconut shells to simulate the clip clop
Speaker 1: of horses hoofs. Evelyn may well have sat in one
Speaker 1: of the dark and packed out Keighley Picture Houses on
Speaker 1: a Saturday evening, the air thick with cigarette smoke, gazing
Speaker 1: up at all and wonder as the grainy moving images
Speaker 1: flickered across the screen age. Military discipline and the experience
Speaker 1: of war failed to mellow Walter Judd during his service.
Speaker 1: He was charged with insubordination and received twenty eight days detention.
Speaker 1: He'd also been wounded, and the gunshot had left him
Speaker 1: permanently disabled. At war's end, a pension was awarded to
Speaker 1: make civilian life with such an injury a little easier
Speaker 1: Evelyn was listed as a dependent. Walter and Rosina appeared
Speaker 1: to have briefly reconciled. In nineteen nineteen, they were living
Speaker 1: together and Keighley, but this arrangement did not last. By
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one, he was once more residing with his
Speaker 1: mother and siblings back in the village of Eyrbe, working
Speaker 1: as a casual laborer. Walter would never again lived with
Speaker 1: his wife and children, and he would end his days
Speaker 1: in a lodging house for the homeless. Perhaps Evelyn and
Speaker 1: Hermann felt abandoned by their father, or perhaps by this
Speaker 1: point they were simply accustomed to his absence. These upheavals
Speaker 1: seemed not to have soured Evelyn, for she grew into
Speaker 1: a warm, kind hearted young woman with a jolly disposition.
Speaker 1: By now a teenager, she attended school and work part
Speaker 1: time at a local mill. She would later confide that
Speaker 1: as a young woman, she gave birth to a baby
Speaker 1: out of wedlock. Sex education was almost non existent at
Speaker 1: this time, and abortion, still illegal, wouldn't have been a
Speaker 1: safe or straightforward option either. Apparently, the child was adopted
Speaker 1: by a couple and the family moved to Canada. There's
Speaker 1: no corresponding birth certificate in the archives, but it's still
Speaker 1: possible that this story is true. Evelyn might have given
Speaker 1: birth and a local mother and baby home, many of
Speaker 1: them run by rather strict religious organizations. The job would
Speaker 1: just being taken for adoption without consulting the mother. Historian
Speaker 1: Pat Vane is an expert on social history. In the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, women who don't have support from their families
Speaker 1: or any other sort of easy support are often forced
Speaker 1: into adoption, and that was really quite common. Evelyn would
Speaker 1: have been well aware that as a young single mother
Speaker 1: life would be a grinding struggle and attracts societal hostility. Still,
Speaker 1: having her baby wrenched away from her would have been
Speaker 1: a scarring traumatic experience. Life moved on. Evelyn, who was
Speaker 1: said to be enthralled with show business, probably punctuated the everyday,
Speaker 1: repetitive drudgery of working at the local mill with trips
Speaker 1: to the nearby coastal town of Blackpool. Seaside resorts, which
Speaker 1: had boomed during the nineteenth century, were designed to inspire,
Speaker 1: awe and overwhelm the census. As spaces devoted to pleasure.
Speaker 1: They offered a break from the workaday routine of the
Speaker 1: shop floor, factory bench, or kitchen sink. Blackpool boasted piers, promenades,
Speaker 1: and pavilions. The town was also decked out in colored lights,
Speaker 1: the annual illuminations, which when switched on each autumn, attracted
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand visitors, and its palatial all weather winter
Speaker 1: Gardens complex included one of the largest ball rooms in
Speaker 1: the world, the Empress. The resort positively brimmed with entertainment, music, theater, circus,
Speaker 1: performances and burlesque shows. Blackpool's audiences are reputed to possess
Speaker 1: highly developed critical powers that London producers so often present
Speaker 1: their plays in Blackpool before emitting them to London. The
Speaker 1: town attracted big named stars, and it congratulated itself on
Speaker 1: hosting previews of shows before they hit London's West End.
Speaker 1: If Blackpool likes it, any other place on Earth will
Speaker 1: love it. It was here in Blackpool, perhaps promenading by
Speaker 1: the seafront after watching a stage musical or catching a
Speaker 1: film screening in tremendous natural color the Hippodrome that Evelyn
Speaker 1: met Harold Oatley. She was around twenty four years old,
Speaker 1: Harold around twenty eight. The pair struck up a relationship.
Speaker 1: They had things in common Harold too, had boarded out
Speaker 1: with a couple as a child after his mother passed away,
Speaker 1: and had then been adopted. Both shaped by turbulent childhoods
Speaker 1: and fractured family life, they may well have understood each other,
Speaker 1: and yet while they shared common ground, Harold and Evelyn
Speaker 1: were also very different. Harold's was the humdrum life of
Speaker 1: a roo ural poultry farmer in the nearby village of Thornton. Evelyn,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, seems to have dreamt of one
Speaker 1: day treading the boards herself, possibly inspired by the West
Speaker 1: End idols she saw in Blackpool. It wasn't such an
Speaker 1: absurd dream. Wildly successful singer and actor Gracie Fields came
Speaker 1: from the Northwest and was utterly unashamed of her provincial
Speaker 1: working class roots. She'd worked part time at a local
Speaker 1: mill and had a Lancashire accent, just like Evelyn, and
Speaker 1: so while Harold stayed up north tending to his birds, Evelyn,
Speaker 1: like her mother before her, looked for new opportunities elsewhere.
Speaker 1: She set her sights on the epicenter of showbiz and
Speaker 1: took lodgings in the heart of London's West End. But,
Speaker 1: as is so often true with glittering dreams of fame.
Speaker 1: The reality would be somewhat bleaker, bad women. The Blackout
Speaker 1: Ripper will be back shortly. In the nineteen thirties, The
Speaker 1: Windmill Theater was a somewhat odd new addition to London's
Speaker 1: theater land. A converted five story cinema, the balconies and
Speaker 1: turrets of its facade were squashed into a tiny frontage
Speaker 1: that peeked out between the neighboring buildings, slightly set back
Speaker 1: from the main drag of rival theaters in a narrow
Speaker 1: side street. The Windmill sat in a cosmopolitan quarter, continental
Speaker 1: grocers and restaurants, interspersed the shops of Italian tailors, artists,
Speaker 1: and theatrical costumers, Physically at the boundary between slightly seedy
Speaker 1: Soho an upscale Piccadilly. The Windmill occupied in entertainment Borderland two,
Speaker 1: poised on a knife edge between licit and illicit pleasure.
Speaker 1: Perhaps this combination of bohemianism and racy countercultural nightlife fueled
Speaker 1: Evelyn's enduring fascination with the venue in its environs. Settling
Speaker 1: in Soho, Evelyn picked a fitting alias for herself, a
Speaker 1: starlet's name. Here she was no longer. Evelyn Judd but
Speaker 1: leta ward, and she told Harold she'd obtained a situation
Speaker 1: at the famous Windmill Theater with continuous daily performances of
Speaker 1: singing and dancing. It promised the snappiest shows in town,
Speaker 1: and according to the writer Elizabeth Bowen, the venue was
Speaker 1: so intimate that windmill girls would perform practically in your lap.
Speaker 1: The theater would eventually become famous for its nude show girls,
Speaker 1: with a prudish government censor only tolerated if they stood
Speaker 1: stock still. It was deemed these girls functioned as a
Speaker 1: national safety valve, satisfying unruly male sexuality in the contained
Speaker 1: setting of the theater auditorium. I never seen a wolfe.
Speaker 1: Evelyn was said to have worked at the Windmill before
Speaker 1: full nudity was allowed, and Harold believed she was a
Speaker 1: dancer in the chorus. In the nineteen thirties, chorus girls
Speaker 1: were chosen for their raw singing, acting, and dancing abilities.
Speaker 1: Their training was short, and for the most part, their
Speaker 1: performance skills tended to be rudimentary, so it needn't have
Speaker 1: posed a problem if Evelyn lacked formal training in these arts.
Speaker 1: As a Windmill girl, she would have been subject to
Speaker 1: a makeover that observed a precise notion of femininity, with
Speaker 1: carefully plucked eyebrows, good teeth, red lips, and permed hair,
Speaker 1: or even a platinum blonde wiggin out the way. On stage,
Speaker 1: she would have sung tap Downstone, high kicked. It was
Speaker 1: a thrilling ride that the hours were long and the
Speaker 1: pay was poor, equivalent to a shot girl's salary. The
Speaker 1: archetypal Windmill girl was intended to be remarkable for her
Speaker 1: freshness and beauty, and while men were expected to sit
Speaker 1: in the stalls and ogle her, she herself was to
Speaker 1: be docile, passive, and innocent of sexual knowledge, or at
Speaker 1: least to appear so. Theatrical historians have said Evelyn's name
Speaker 1: does not appear on any of the programs or show
Speaker 1: bills for the Windmill Theater over the years, and nor
Speaker 1: does her alias lead award casting doubt over the claim
Speaker 1: that she performed here. However, for historian or prostitution and
Speaker 1: nightlife expert Professor Julia Lade, this isn't conclusive. Chorus girls
Speaker 1: are so hard to find in the historical record. There's
Speaker 1: actually very little record in general about theater and the casts,
Speaker 1: but chorus girls are particularly poorly documented, and in her
Speaker 1: own research for her book The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey,
Speaker 1: Julia found that chorus girls sometimes deliberately concealed themselves through
Speaker 1: multiple aleases. That's one thing I learned about pseudonyms in
Speaker 1: my research for my book is that people very rarely
Speaker 1: only have one. So perhaps Evelyn had another name altogether
Speaker 1: and used this at the Windmill. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: she was already much older than the typical Windmill recruit,
Speaker 1: who was usually only eighteen or nineteen, So another possibility
Speaker 1: is that Evelyn worked at the Windmill, not as an
Speaker 1: official dancer, but in another capacity, such as welcoming spectators
Speaker 1: to the venue. She could have been a hostess who
Speaker 1: sometimes went up on stage when one of the other
Speaker 1: women were not available. She could have worked clearing glasses.
Speaker 1: She could have worked behind the bar, and again longed
Speaker 1: to be on stage potentially and was quite happy for
Speaker 1: people to assume she was. Whatever, the truth that Evelyn
Speaker 1: wished to be associated with this iconic site of West
Speaker 1: End entertainment is important a central plank in the mythology
Speaker 1: she was building around the character of lta ward for
Speaker 1: women working and living in that space. The windmill would
Speaker 1: have been seen as a coup, as an interesting, exciting
Speaker 1: place to work, as having made it as a review artist,
Speaker 1: so I can see why she may herself have allowed
Speaker 1: that story to circulate. But show business was not lead
Speaker 1: towards soul occupation. The testimony of close friends suggests that
Speaker 1: Evelyn also earned her living in Soho by selling sex,
Speaker 1: and it may well have been through the world of
Speaker 1: the theater that she entered this trade. These theater spaces
Speaker 1: were contiguous with the spaces where commercial sex would have
Speaker 1: been bought and sold, and so women working in those
Speaker 1: spaces would have been exposed to it. The other thing
Speaker 1: about working as a chorus girl a theater is that
Speaker 1: it paid incredibly poorly, and women were often compelled to
Speaker 1: supplement their earnings with other work, be that licit or
Speaker 1: illicit work. The contracts at these theaters were also notoriously bad,
Speaker 1: but you'd be signing a contract essentially saying we can
Speaker 1: terminate you whenever we want, and we can withhold pay
Speaker 1: and all of those things. And so that's another way
Speaker 1: in which those two industries were linked through their precarity.
Speaker 1: Hostesses and dances working in these spaces will also encouraged
Speaker 1: to sell the illusion of sexual availability at work, So
Speaker 1: the women working there, even if they weren't explicitly selling sex,
Speaker 1: were expected to act available and to trade on that
Speaker 1: kind of sex appeal to get men to buy drinks,
Speaker 1: to get men to come in, and also of course
Speaker 1: for tips. So if you're working at the coach check,
Speaker 1: for example, for tips. And so there's lots of ways
Speaker 1: in which these worlds are entangled. Theater provided multiple entry
Speaker 1: points and in no way saying that every woman who
Speaker 1: was involved in theater was also sex, but there's definitely
Speaker 1: an overlap. Evelyn continued in this way for a time,
Speaker 1: seeing clients and enjoying the drinking, dancing and music of
Speaker 1: Soho's exhilarating nightlife with her friends, but in summer nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty six, something happened to make her change her course.
Speaker 1: Aged twenty eight, she packed her belongings, returned north and
Speaker 1: agreed to marry Harold. When they wed at the district
Speaker 1: register office, it was by license, rather than having band
Speaker 1: thread out in the local area. A license was a
Speaker 1: more discreet and fast, swifter way to marry. But if
Speaker 1: Evelyn was in a rush because of a pregnancy, she
Speaker 1: must have lost the baby, for it seems that no
Speaker 1: child was ever born to the couple. The pair lived
Speaker 1: together at Harold's quaint Thornton Bungalow, river Meade, but there
Speaker 1: were strings attached to this union. Before the wedding ceremony,
Speaker 1: Evelyn had compelled Harold to submit to a particular proviso,
Speaker 1: and my wife insisted that if she should ever tire
Speaker 1: of her life with me, that I would allow her
Speaker 1: her freedom so that she could come back to London
Speaker 1: to live. Maybe Harold had hoped that the new Missus
Speaker 1: Oakley would be satisfied with domestic routine, that London was
Speaker 1: well and truly out of her system, and she wouldn't
Speaker 1: ask him to make good on his promise. But the
Speaker 1: pull of the West End would prove too great to resist,
Speaker 1: and before long Evelyn was once more yearning for the
Speaker 1: bright lights of Piccadilly, for the vibrant chaos and commotion
Speaker 1: of Soho's criss crossing thoroughfares, and maybe quite simply for
Speaker 1: the close, supportive and fun friendships she'd formed there. Evelyn Oakley, convivial,
Speaker 1: kind and a dreamer, could not have known that with
Speaker 1: each trip back to London, and with each new friend
Speaker 1: she made, she was moving ever close to another person
Speaker 1: with an alter ego, though one more sinister and more sadistic.
Speaker 1: Are you? Soon she would meet an airman who pretended
Speaker 1: to be an influential and wealthy aristocrat, an airman with
Speaker 1: sharp features and piercing eyes, Bad women. The Blackout Ripper
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Hallie rubin Hold and me Alice Fines.
Speaker 1: It was written and produced by Alice Fines and Ryan Dilley,
Speaker 1: with additional support from Courtney Guerino and Offa Gomperts. Kate
Speaker 1: Healy of Oakwood Family Trees aided us with genealogical research.
Speaker 1: Pascal Wise Sound designed and mixed the show and composed
Speaker 1: all the original music. The show was recorded at Woodoor
Speaker 1: Studios by David Smith and Tom Berry. You also heard
Speaker 1: the voice talents of Ben Crow, David Glover, Melanie Gutridge,
Speaker 1: Stella Harford, Gemma Saunders and Rufus Wright. Much of the
Speaker 1: music 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 Toliday 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 Fane, 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.