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What's everyone's theory on him?
Last place he was officially seen was in William Henry Street right here in Liverpool.
He also is supposed to have jumped from the reservoir on High Park Street, L8.
Peter Haining, in his book 'The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack' claims Jack is the Marquis of Waterford (i think!)
I don't agree though, that is all too simple for me!
Discuss!
Rumour had it that he bought his shoes in 'londons' at the top of london road, there was a big queue outside just like the January sales.
He's a Ninja.
Who else can jump that high?
Hello MissInformedQuote:
Originally Posted by MissInformed
The jury appears to be out on whether Spring-heeled Jack was an actual phenomenon or whether it was a hoax. Certainly, whatever it was, it continued over a number of decades, from the very beginning of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837 until the last-known appearance in Liverpool on William Henry Street in 1904, so in a way it unlikely that one person, one hoaxer, could have been responsible for all those episodes.
Chris
Hi Chris
I agree with you, I don't see how it could have been one person over such a long space of time.
Peter Haining's book is well worth getting hold of though,details all of the early crimes credited (seems the wrong word!) to 'Jack'.
Spring Heeled Jack once took to the spire at St Francis Xavier's spire in Everton but upon inspection of the spire close up - there's no marks on it that Slemen suggested.
Surprisingly, iv'e never seen this pic of him in any books?
....
thats great jona.
I am not sure about the spire in Everton.What Slemen book is that in?
Erm...I'm not going through all my books for you Missy :Colorz_Grey_PDT_16:
It's deffo a Slemen jobbie though as that's where I first learnt about him. It was claimed that he clung to the spire at SFX and left lots of marks but there's nowt there!
Now if you had asked me the question on Friday when I was off work, I would have had all day to browse :)
:)ohhh... I think it might be Haunted Liverpool 1, there is a Spring Heeled Jack update in 12.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jona76
You first heard about him in Tom Slemen?! Get yourself a Richard Whittington Egan book!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jona76
Haunted Liverpool 12. He's on the front of it and the books more about him on that 1 :)
(my son's info not mine !! ... I don't read 'em !) :rolleyes: :D
Scared eh?
Spring Heeled Jack Is a Ninja, I can't believe anything else.:Colorz_Grey_PDT_24:
No one else Human could jump that high.
My Grandfather claimed to have seen him, mind you he was coming home from the pub after a good win on the horses at Chester:) . He lived in Rupert Hill, Everton
what year was that billo?
I'm not sure, I've just spoken to my mother and she said that her mother (born in the late 1890's) remembers being told that he was seen in Shaw Street.Quote:
Originally Posted by MissInformed
I think gran often said ''oh,he's seen Spring heeled Jack again'' whenever my Grandad came home the worst for wear.:)
Peter Haining's book really isn't as good as it should be. If you look up spring heeled jack on wikipedia (not usually the most reliable of sources) you'll find a lot on the article's "talk" page from Mike Dash, former editor of Fortean Times magazine who wrote up the whole SHJ story in the 1990s, going back to the original sources. This is what he has to say about his Liverpool appearances:
Quote:
Jack did not appear at St Francis Xavier’s Church in Everton in 1904. His alleged appearance at the church dates to the 1880s. The actual account is non–contemporary and vague in the extreme. According to an interview reported by Richard Whittington–Egan in Liverpool Colonnade (Manchester 1976) pp.139-40:
‘An elderly man, still living, has also told how, one night in 1888, when he and a number of his fellow-members of Everton’s St Francis Xavier’s Boys’ Guild were playing in the school-room, someone came rushing in with the news that the dread Spring-Heeled Jack was in Shaw Street. Out into Haigh Street ran the boys, and up William Henry Street. When, however, they reached Shaw Street, they saw no sign of the weird creature, although an excited crowd told them that he was crouched on the steeple of a nearby church.’
• No Liverpool witnesses in either 1888 or 1904 described ‘a tall muscular man, fully dressed in white and wearing an “egg shaped” helmet’. No accounts describe hysterical laughter, Jack running towards a group of dismayed women, or taking a gigantic leap over their heads.
The press reports in the Liverpool papers of the time actually describe an apparent poltergeist case and make no mention of SHJ. London papers of the same date do, but not in the exaggerated terms employed by later authors, who are plainly guilty of extensively elaborating their accounts. The most detailed account appeared in the News of the World (25 Sep 1904) - not, then or now, a paper of good repute - and even this states merely:
‘Everton (Liverpool) is scared by the singular antics of a ghost, to whom the name of ‘Spring Heel Jack’ has been given, because of the facility with which he has escaped, by huge springs, all attempts of his would-be captors to arrest him. William Henry-street is the scene of his exploits, and crowds of people assemble nightly to seen them, but only a few have done so yet and, ‘Jack’ is evidently shy. He is said to pay particular attention to ladies. So far the police have not arrested him, their sprinting powers being inferior.’
Years later, an elderly woman named Mrs A. Pierpoint, who had lived in the area at the time, gave an account to a Liverpool newspaper suggesting that the ‘Spring–heeled Jack’ rumour had originated in the activities of a local lunatic. The Liverpool Echo of 19 May 1967 reported:
‘Mrs Pierpoint also had a story to explain the so-called “Spring-Heeled Jack” of that same district at the time. “He was a local man slightly off balance mentally,” she said. “He had a form of religious mania and he would climb on to rooftops of houses crying out: ‘My wife is the Devil!’ “They usually fetched the police or a fire-engine ladder to get him down. As the police closed in on him, he would leap from one house roof to the next. That’s what gave rise to the ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’ rumours.”’
I recommend the material available on Mike's website at
http://www.mikedash.com/investigations_jack_paper.htm
Gareth
I'll just hop over and take a look at that :unibrow:
If he had got his soes from "LONDONS" on London road i'm not surprised he leapt everywhere! One shoe was allways bigger than the other from there:unibrow:
I never knew Tom Slemen was a Ninja.......I've got to stop reading two threads at once,
Tom (Pepper) Slemen introduced us to his new extended Spring Heel Jack story a couple of weeks ago in the Echo (I think) with a whole host of undiscovered "new" facts.
Hope the books are selling well.
Hang on I need to go and get my daily pinch of salt
so it could have been the shoes or he could have been an Alien....maybe he was wearing a pair of "Doc Martians"
Don't 'Mock ay son'
I dont know where he was from but he did have a bit of a brogue, although he could have been from Lake Como.
I like the theory that spring heeled Jack was an alien from a high-gravity world.
Maybe his crashed UFO still lays on the bottom of the Mersey or buried in one of Mr Williamsons tunnels.
yes I have watched to many episodes of the X-files :)
I've been up to the top of SFX church spire on more than one occasion and I've never seen any marks indicating anything out of the ordinary.
I was told once that he got new facts from callers about his Ripper suspect too nearly every day!