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Spring-Heeled Jack, East-End Disappearances & Other Mysterious Characters

I was just musing on SHJ and his attributes and then wondered if there's a connection to the activity now known as Parkour (free running).

If someone was doing this 200+ years ago then there could be a connection?

It requires no special equipment, just a fully-functioning body, an athletic and adventurous nature and a pair of shoes. Thinking about it further, it would be perhaps surprising if some people hadn't been doing this for millennia.

It's a fair point.
SHJ may just have been a particularly athletic fellow.
 
I was just musing on SHJ and his attributes and then wondered if there's a connection to the activity now known as Parkour (free running).

If someone was doing this 200+ years ago then there could be a connection?

It requires no special equipment, just a fully-functioning body, an athletic and adventurous nature and a pair of shoes. Thinking about it further, it would be perhaps surprising if some people hadn't been doing this for millennia.

Nice idea.
 
I was just musing on SHJ and his attributes and then wondered if there's a connection to the activity now known as Parkour (free running).

If someone was doing this 200+ years ago then there could be a connection?

It requires no special equipment, just a fully-functioning body, an athletic and adventurous nature and a pair of shoes. Thinking about it further, it would be perhaps surprising if some people hadn't been doing this for millennia.

I think (and by that mean I mean that I have a vague memory of something) there was even a theory that it was some sort of acrobat or circus worker who was doing it. Somebody who was very physical and could do things that the ordinary person would find impossible.

One other thing that I must mention from reading older reports of seances and whatnot, is the exaggeration of the time. A piano scaping on the floorboards would be retold as flying through the air. A man saying that he was levitating in the dark would be recalled as him bumping along the ceiling or crawling on it like a fly.

I can well imagine that a man leaping/hurdling over a 4 foot wall became a 10 foot wall in the telling etc.
 
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It's a fair point.
SHJ may just have been a particularly athletic fellow.

I first read about the SHJ U/L many years ago, and had not really given it much thought as a fortean subject, thinking it quite absurd, however the last 6 weeks holiday the mother in law visited and stayed with us for a couple of nights.

She lives on the 2nd floor of a block of flats in the East End of London, which is opposite a well-known east London school.

She told me that a few nights prior around twilight, she was standing on the balcony of the flat having a cigarette, and saw a tall dark clad figure approach the railings of the school playground, and leap over them in one bound. I went to that school as a kid, and know that the railings are at least 6ft tall.

I asked if it was possible that the figure scaled the railings in the same way a soldier might negotiate a high wall on an assault course, i.e. get over it in sort of a cartwheel fashion, but no she was adamant that the figure hurdled the railings in one leap.

I pulled the A-Z of amazing and mysterious happenings book from my bookcase, found the SHJ entry and let her read it, her eyes widened and she said that’s exactly how the figure acted.

She’d never heard of SHJ and I don’t believe in it, but I found her story a bit odd - It was twilight after all, so she could very much have been mistaken and she is getting on a bit.

Who knows though.
 
That free running thing looks dangerous......but then I'm an old man.
At any rate didn't Spring Heel supposedly accost some people and do other things beyond free running? Or are you saying he combined that with attacking people?
 
At any rate didn't Spring Heel supposedly accost some people and do other things beyond free running? Or are you saying he combined that with attacking people?

yes he did! I think the free-running idea is about how he moved around rather than the other things? @AnonyJoolz ?

I first remember it from, I think, The Unexplained. There were some cracking contemporary illustrations!
 
Just some more info..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-heeled_Jack
1555364995624.png
 
The only time I've read anything Fortean about the spectacularly boring town of Aldershot is in a SHJ report.

I lived near there for a while. Lots of odd things happened but nothing Fortean. Although my first ever DJ gig was in a squaddie club there with a mate....we were close to being murdered until we found a copy of Tom Jones 'Sexbomb' single that a previous DJ had left behind. The place went nuts for it, so we alternated that with 'Three Lions' until closing time, and got rapturous drunk applause.
 
yes he did! I think the free-running idea is about how he moved around rather than the other things? @AnonyJoolz ?

I first remember it from, I think, The Unexplained. There were some cracking contemporary illustrations!

Yep, if people weren't used to seeing such athletic feats in their streets (that rhymes!) - and I guess it's still unusual now - and as it was before the advent of visual moving media then such sightings might well have given rise to the idea his abilities were super-normal and spooky.

The only time I've read anything Fortean about the spectacularly boring town of Aldershot is in a SHJ report.

I lived near there for a while. Lots of odd things happened but nothing Fortean. Although my first ever DJ gig was in a squaddie club there with a mate....we were close to being murdered until we found a copy of Tom Jones 'Sexbomb' single that a previous DJ had left behind. The place went nuts for it, so we alternated that with 'Three Lions' until closing time, and got rapturous drunk applause.

Aldershot - one of my favourite places :) the nearest you'll get to Kathmandu without leaving England. Nepalese grannies teaming lunghi or sarees with woolie hats, acrylic cardies and big trainers if the temperature dips below 20c!
 
Does anyone know the most recent SHJ sighting? Anything post 1904?
 
Is there a phenomenon called "Spring Heeled Jack" or are we still dealing with a very long lasting (not saying lived) singular occurrence?
 
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@Frideswide I don't want there to be a phenomenon called SHJ - I want there to be one entity responsible for it all. It's so much more romantic with one Victorian throwback still prancing around, leaping buildings in contraceptively tight trousers.
 
I have come across contemporary newspaper articles, which might highlight the genesis of our story.

The first use of the terminology, 'Spring-heeled Jack', I can find within newspaper.com (mainly US based), is an article published by the Standard, London, on 29 February, 1838.

If I attach all of the relevant pages im sequence, this
would be first - see under, 'POLICE INTELLIGENCE'.
 

Attachments

  • The_Morning_Chronicle_Tue__Jan_9__1838_ (1).pdf
    1.2 MB · Views: 35
@Frideswide I don't want there to be a phenomenon called SHJ - I want there to be one entity responsible for it all. It's so much more romantic with one Victorian throwback still prancing around, leaping buildings in contraceptively tight trousers.
Wasn't that High Heeled Jack ?
 
I have come across contemporary newspaper articles, which might highlight the genesis of our story.

The first use of the terminology, 'Spring-heeled Jack', I can find within newspaper.com (mainly US based), is an article published by the Standard, London, on 29 February, 1838.

If I attach all of the relevant pages im sequence, this
would be first - see under, 'POLICE INTELLIGENCE'.
Can't read it. The print is minuscule and the resolution isn't good enough to zoom in.
Did people go blind trying to read these broadsheet formats so long ago? :pop:
 
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