Gordon Cummins: The Blackout Ripper

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2021

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“In war, one of our great protections against the dangers of air attack after nightfall will be the "blackout". On the outbreak of hostilities all external lights and street lighting would be totally extinguished so as to give hostile aircraft no indication as to their whereabouts. But this will not be fully effective unless you do your part, and see to it that no lighting in the house where you live is visible from the outside. The motto for safety will be 'Keep it dark!'” So read the opening paragraph from Public Information Leaflet No.2, published in England on the eve of war, 1939. What may have kept people safe from German bombs, however, had its own disadvantages. Criminality thrived in the gloomy, empty streets. In 1942, as the German bombs began to fall less frequently, a new threat opened up on the streets of London, altogether more silent, emerging from the shadows with a rye smile and unrelenting charm. SOURCES The Daily Herald (1942) Waiting Woman is Murdered. Feb 10, 1942. p.3. London, UK The Daily Mirror (1942) Three Women Murdered In Two Days. Feb 11, 1942. P.8. London, UK. The Daily Mirror (1942) Razorblade Killed Ex-Soho Actress. Feb 12, 1942. P.8. London, UK. The Daily Mirror (1942) Fifth Woman Murder In Week. Feb 14, 1942. P.8. London, UK. Civil Defense (1939) Public Information Leaflet No.2. Lord Privy Seal’s Office, UK Read, Simon (2006) In The Dark. Berkeley Publishing Group, USA. Thomas, Donald (2003) An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War. John Murray, UK. ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In war, one of our great protections against the dangers of air attack after nightfall will
0:06.3	be the blackout. On the outbreak of hostilities, all external lights and street lighting would
0:11.9	be totally extinguished, so as to give hostile aircraft no indication as to their whereabouts.
0:17.9	But this will not be fully effective unless you do your part, and to see to it that no
0:23.0	lighting in the house where you live is visible from the outside. The motto for safety
0:28.3	will be, keep it dark.
0:32.0	So read the opening paragraph from public information leaflet number two, published in England
0:37.1	on the eve of war 1939. What may have kept people safe from German
0:42.3	bombs, however, had its own disadvantages. Criminality thrived in the gloomy empty streets.
0:50.0	In 1942, as the German bombs began to fall less frequently, a new threat opened up on
0:55.5	the streets of London, all together more silent, emerging from the shadows with a rye
1:00.6	smile and unrelenting charm. This is dark histories, where the facts are worse than fiction.
1:09.3	Hello and welcome to dark histories, season five, episode five, I'm Ben as always, it's
1:20.2	good to be back and I hope this episode finds you all very well.
1:25.2	So before we start, I got a bit of news and it's pretty cool. So I'm not going to go
1:30.3	to into it now, but I know that not everyone listens to the episode, like all the way past
1:35.7	the end of the story and listens to the kind of second part, if you like. So just a heads
1:40.1	up to do people that might turn it off. You might want to kind of listen to listen into
1:45.4	this week's episode, like right to the end or like skip through that bit, if you don't
1:50.3	want to listen to it or whatever, because I've got a bit of news, say dark histories
1:55.7	coming up to it's a hundredth episode and fourth year anniversary. And it's kind of
2:02.1	going to hit about the same sort of time, basically. So to sort of do like an all in one
	...

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