I found this a really interesting programme.
I am old enough to remember all this as it happened, and the fear, and how it altered how people behaved - mainly women of course, but also some men who learned how not to behave in accidentally threatening ways (walking behind a woman at night, for example)
It's the unoackaging of the discourse round the murders I have found interesting. Because yes, I realise how much I had internalised the idea that it was hatred of prostitites that became a wider bloodlust. But it seems that might all be an invented narrative, and it was just a desire to attack women and doing so at night in relatively secluded areas was 'safest' and of course prostitutes are one group that fit those target selection criteria.
I remember the reclaim the night campaigning (took part!) - and the XRay Spex track that featured briefly.
But bizarrely, I never (at the time) associated that Thin Lizzy track with these murders.
The detail that struck me most strongly from the programme is that the women who survived Ripper attacks and said he did not have a geordie accent were not believed.
And the message that I'm getting is that here was considerably more blind faith in authority. Most if the time, that was fine - most people are sufficiently competent and dealing with matters in a decent and fair enough manner. Back then it was close to unthinkable that police would be less than upstanding (except rare exceptional bad apples).
But looking at this investigation, and the social attitudes it exposes, shows how those assumptions were not well placed.