The Stains: Bored

I came across a tweet the other day that suggested the actor David Hemmings had lived briefly in Shrewsbury High Street. That is hard to reconcile with what I know of his life, but it did lead me to this record.

The Stains were a Shrewsbury punk band whose original vocalist was Dom Estos. And Dom Estos was Dominic Hemmings, the adopted son of David Hemmings.

His mother was Genista Ouvry, who acted under the name Jenny Lewes. Dominic had already been born when Hemmings met her during  a two-week repertory engagement in Leicester in 1960 and they fell in love. They married shortly afterwards and Hemmings adopted Dominic, but the marriage did not last.

A few more snippets...

The band turn up in a letter to the Guardian by Mark Webb in 2010:

I was amazed to read of Kevin ­Rowland's antipathy towards ironed creases in jeans ... In the 70s, playing drums in Dom Estos And The Stains, we got a gig supporting Dexys ­Midnight Runners at Shrewsbury Music Hall. Dexys got the bigger dressing room, but we had the electric socket. A knock on the door and Mr Rowland appears: "Hello, lads. Can I plug in my iron to do my trousers?"

Dom Estos appears still to be making music, under the name Dominic Ouvry, as part of Liquid Vision.

And a little googling suggests Genista Ouvry used the name Jenny Lewes because Lewes was her mother's maiden name.

Not only that: it suggests she was a direct descendant of George Henry Lewes, Victorian man of letters and partner of George Eliot (or Mary Ann Evans).

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If you thought Labour couldn't do worse than the EdStone...

The Tories don't understand fair tax contributions - perhaps they should google it.https://t.co/fS0mWts0UL

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) March 5, 2016

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Stewart Lee on his new series of Comedy Vehicle

Embed from Getty Images

We have seen Stewart Lee talking to Will Self and Alexei Sayle.

Here he is being interviewed by The Quietus:

Have you noticed a similar change happening in comedy? 

SL: I have. If you went to the alternative night with all the weird acts, which 25 years ago was downstairs at the Market Tavern on Islington Green on Essex Road, you'd see Simon Munnery who is the son of a plumber. Or Johnny Vegas, who is not a member of the upper classes. 

The same thing now, which is the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society at the New Red Lion, is a very good night, but there's a higher proportion of people whose parents bought them a flat. Inevitably, because you can't do that sort of stuff that doesn't pay, unless you've got some sort of fallback position.

The interviewer, Simon Price, takes Lee Terribly Seriously, but then maybe we should.

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The 1888 Jack the Ripper scare in Market Harborough

The Macabre Observer quotes the Market Harborough Advertiser of 20 November 1888:

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER.

A man suspected at Market Harborough. 

Some excitement was caused in a certain part of Market Harborough on Friday on hearing that a man answering the description of the Whitechapel murderer had come from London that afternoon and had taken up his abode with a Mrs Green, near the British school. 

The police were communicated with almost immediately and a watch was set on his movements. During the evening the man went to the station (followed by officers in plain clothes) and returned with his luggage - a portmanteau. 

On his reaching home again the police entered the house and searched the portmanteau, but nothing was found to connect the man with the crime of which he was suspected. He said his name was Dietrich and that he was a doctor at one of the London hospitals and gave his address at 22, Howland Street, Tottenham Court Road. He wore spectacles and his overcoat was trimmed with astrachan. Not being satisfied with this information, Supt. Bott placed a cordon of police around the house and telegraphed to Scotland Yard for instructions as to whether the man should be detained or not. 

This was about 9 o'clock and an answer was expected within an hour or two. At 11.30, however, no reply had been received and it was not until 5.10 on Saturday morning that an answer was handed to the police. This was of a somewhat vague nature, but the police were on it's receipt withdrawn from the house and no further notice was taken of the matter. 

One thing which had excited the suspicions of the neighbours and the police also, was that the same man was in Market Harbough about three weeks ago and stayed at the same house. His movements were then considered peculiar and the neighbours were actually alarmed about him. While here, no murders occurred in London, but after he had gone back, the latest horror was perpetrated."

The British School still stands in Fairfield Road next to Old School Mews.

My own pet theory is that there was no Jack the Ripper. A number of East End murders were grouped together and sensationalised by the press, with the result that we are still talking about them today.

This Skeptoid page and podcast gives some reasons for taking this view.

One figure who turns up regularly in the more imaginative conspiracy theories in this field is the medium Robert Lees. Read about him in my post Jack the Ripper: The Leicester connection.

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