Urban Myths no. 4: Spring Heeled Jack.

Spring Heeled Jack in Hendon. © Tim Turnbull 2014.

From the South Barnet Recorder*:

Dean and Jeanette Jackson were returning from a night out celebrating their son’s Ricky’s birthday party when they saw a mysterious figure darting across the A41 just north of Hendon.

Mr Jackson, forty, an office supplies salesman from Mill Hill, said: “I saw a man on the other side of the carriageway, a tall geezer wearing this big black cape and I reckoned he was going to a fancy dress do or something. I couldn’t see a car, but then he ran across two lanes, vaulted up the bank and vanished from sight – all in just a couple of seconds. He had no face as such, he was wearing a sort of mask that lit up like a toy robot. We were well baffled and voiced our startlement straight away. He was dead quick, and could jump like a Grand National champion.”

Mrs. Jackson, a beautician – thirty-seven – added: “Dean and I have slept with the light on for the past six nights. It is far and away the strangest thing to have happened to us since we moved to Mill Hill from Worcester Park. Every year something special happens on Ricky’s birthday. Last year it was the Pope, this year it’s Spring Heeled Jack.”

* Not real news item. However, Spring Heeled Jack was an urban myth of the Victorian era. A mysterious dark figure reported to be responsible for a string of attacks in the 1800s and known for his ability to leap great heights, was first sighted in Wandsworth in 1837 and given the SHJ sobriquet by the penny dreadfuls of his (or its) day. For further reading, see The Legend of Spring Heeled Jack.  

See also: The Supermarket Spider, Airport Caterpillars, The Discarded Artist’s Statement.

Tim Turnbull’s poems have appeared in these pages before; this is the first time he has contributed as an illustrator. See: Clapham Common Clowns, Black Cab Blues, Frankie Howerd, Robert Graves, The Last Squat in Hackney.