Shadows Of The Workhouse: The Drama Of Life In Postwar London Read online

  “An half-couter [half sovereign] next throw.”

  A gasp goes up from the onlookers, and they bet among themselves for or against Frank.

  “Done,” says Tol defiantly.

  Frank tosses. “Heads,” he calls. The three coins fall, all heads up.

  “You stinking fish,” screams Tol, and pledges his jacket and his boots to honour the debt. He is getting aggressive, and the crowd presses closer. Tol jerks his elbow savagely. “I wish to Christ you’d stand back.” Tol’s lips are pressed together, his eyes anxious and watchful.

  The tense atmosphere has attracted men to the scene, who start their own betting on the two gamesters.

  Tol adopts new tactics to bring back his luck. He pushes aside the onlookers and shifts his position a quarter-circle to the right before throwing.

  “I’ll have it off you. A half-couter,” he cries with bravado, knowing full well that he is pledging half his stock money.

  “Done,” says Frank, confidently.

  Betting amongst the onlookers continues and Frank and Tol know that sovereigns are being placed on one or other of them.

  Tol spits on the coins, then takes a halfpenny and tosses it on his hand to see what he should call. He then spits again on the three coins and shifts his feet defiantly on the cobbles. He tosses his three coins, calling out “Tails.” The coins fall, all tails up. His features relax, and he looks round the circle with a triumphant grin. He puts on his jacket and boots with a triumphant air. Money changes hands among the spectators.

  That throw marks the end of Frank’s luck for the day. He tosses again and again and, four times out of five, loses. He can hear the bets of the men going against him, and grinds his teeth in fury. If it were an accepted part of gambling to murder your opponent, he would do so. Tol calls again and again. Every time Frank accepts and challenges in return. He loses all his winnings, all his earnings, his neckerchief, his jacket, he even pledges his magnificent velvet cap, vowing it will bring him luck. It doesn’t, and he loses it.

  With the cap in his hands, Tol stands up. He casts a contemptuous look at Frank, spits on the cap and throws it in the river.

  “I’m off now to get a liner [dinner].”

  He swaggers away to the admiring gasps of the boys and the amused shrugs of the men.

  Seething with fury Frank vows revenge. “You wait, you scab, I’ll ’ave you to rights. I’ll muck you, you scurf, you,” he screams.

  The men laugh and saunter off. The boys lose interest. A new game starts.

  Frank tried to strike a jaunty pose as he stood up, but with no jacket, no neckerchief and no cap, he didn’t feel like the cold, calculating gamester any more. He turned quickly and walked in the opposite direction from Tol.

  He walked for hours, not feeling the keen wind blowing off the Thames, his mind full of the next game, when he would get even. He’d show ’em. He’d ’ave the houses [trousers] off that lousy skunk. He’d get ’is money back, an’ more. Hatred filled his heart when he remembered the insult to himself and his trade. Being called a stinking fish was more than a man could stand. He’d get even. His luck’d be back next week. Not for an instant did it occur to him that he had been a fool. The passion for gambling had him in its obsessive grip.

  In anger and resentment Frank trudged on, unaware of his surroundings, hating everyone, scowling at those who passed. Ahead of him was a two-bit jerk of a little nipper in baggy trousers, and shoes down on the uppers, leading a little girl, not yet out of nappies, by the hand. He hated them both. The little girl was laughing as she toddled along on unsteady legs. Suddenly she fell and let out an exaggerated howl of pain. The boy bent down and helped her up. He wiped her eyes with his sleeve, and rubbed her knees, spitting on his fingers in order to clean them. He laughed and said: “All better now,” but the little girl wouldn’t be consoled. She rested her blonde head on his shoulder and put her arms around his neck. He picked her up and carried her into a court, and Frank saw them no more.

  Life turns on little things. The momentous events in history can leave us untouched, while small events may shape our destinies.

  Frank stood quite still in the street, suddenly feeling cold. The heat of revenge left him, and a cold uncertainty entered his heart. He shivered and leaned against the wall, feeling unexpectedly dizzy. What was it? Everything seemed so cloudy, so misty. What could it be? He didn’t seem to be real any more. He touched his face and felt tiny soft arms around his neck. He breathed in and could smell the lovely scent of a baby’s hair. Stunned, he wanted to run after the boy and the little girl, to find out who they were. But they had gone. Had he really seen them – a boy in baggy trousers and a tiny girl with blonde hair – or were they ghosts? He shivered and rubbed his eyes, trying desperately to recall something. But the mists of forgetfulness swirled around, and he could not remember what it was.

  He made his way back to the lodging house, his mind in turmoil. He was Frank the coster; Frank the rising man; Frank the desperate gambler, feared by all. What did those kids in baggy trousers and nappies mean to him? Nothing! He tried to shake off the image. All right, he had a sister and she was in the workhouse. So what? That wasn’t his fault, was it? Let her look after herself, like he’d done. Anyway, he hadn’t thought of her for years, and, likely as not, she’d forgotten all about him. He hadn’t asked his father and mother to die, that was their lookout, he’d got on all right without them. He shook off the thought of the boy and girl, and whistled his way back to his lodgings. He’d had nothing to eat all day, because he had lost his money, but he wrapped himself up in his blanket in defiance of hunger, and lay down on his palliasse. Sleep evaded him, however.

  He heard the other men coming into the lodging room. He heard their cursing and swearing, their belching and farting, and he hated them. How could they be like that? A ghost of a man crept up to his bed, a big man who was strong and gentle. This man looked after his wife, who was frail and coughing. The ghost merged into the farmyard sounds and smells of the men around him, and Frank fell into a light sleep. For the first time in years he dreamed of his mother, whom he had loved so passionately. She was leaving him to go to work. With a cry of anguish he sat up in bed. He felt all over the bed for her, but she wasn’t there, and then he remembered where he was and wept bitterly. He remembered now that terrible night when she had not returned, and he remembered holding little Peggy in his arms until the next day when they had been taken to the workhouse.

  Memories came flooding back as he lay staring into the darkness: the court where they lived, the room they shared, his mother laughing and singing to him, or his mother coughing and his father anxious. The big ghost hovered over the place, but never quite materialised. He remembered the tiny baby, born not much bigger than a teacup. He thought of the times they had washed her, he and his mother, and put baby clothes on the little creature that were far too big for her. He remembered his mother feeding her, and he wept afresh at this strange and beautiful memory. He buried his face in the straw palliasse, as he had done so often in the workhouse, to muffle the sounds of his sobs. The ghost came nearer and seemed to want to speak to him but did not.

  Frank woke at the sound of the other costers getting ready to go to market. What a crazy night! What had been going on? This was the real world. He threw a boot at his mate, and asked him for the loan of some stock money for the day. He knew that costers always helped each other out when one of them hit hard times.

  At Billingsgate he was the cool, hard, professional buyer again. His eyes never missed a trick. His ears didn’t miss a sound. He hollered his way through his round with double the usual energy and was sold out by 2 p.m. He found his mate to repay the loan. It was a point of honour for costers to repay a debt.

  He counted his earnings. There was enough for stock money for tomorrow, and a tightener [dinner] today. He went to Betty’s and ordered the best Kate and Sidney [steak and kidney], with spuds and two doorsteps [thick lumps of bread], followed by spotted dick [currant pud
ding] and custard, and a pint o’ reeb [beer]. No. He thought again. Make that two pints o’ reeb.

  That’s what a man needed inside im, some good grub. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday, what with the game, and queer goings on. No wonder he’d felt funny. A man couldn’t keep goin’ without a good lining to his stomach. He sat down with his back to the door. Betty brought his food and pinched his ear, but somehow he didn’t feel like responding and she retired, offended.

  A big man came in. He had hired a boy to hold the bridle of his horse, and called out to the boy as he entered, “You look after her, lad, while I’m away.”

  Frank heard the words, and the ghost came back and sat down beside him. He remembered, at first dimly, and then as clearly as though it were yesterday, that he had promised his father that he, Frank, would look after his mother and his sister. The spotted dick nearly choked him, and he could eat no more. Did Betty hear him mutter, “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m sorry,” as he glanced sideways, or was she imagining it? She certainly saw him brush a tear from his eye with his sleeve, and said to Marge, the cook, in her motherly way, “Vere’s somefink up with vat young ’un. Can’t eat ’is spotted dick, an’ all. Sumfing’s up, I tells yer.”

  Frank sat at the table for a long time, unable to move. The ghost left him, but the memories remained. His mother was dead but his sister, as far as he knew, was alive and in the workhouse. He thumped his fists on the table and dug his nails into his hands as he remembered the tyranny and cruelties he had endured. He prayed that it had not been as bad for his sister in the girls’ section. Perhaps they were kinder to girls. He remembered the time they had spent together in the infants’ section, and carrying her to his bed when she cried at night. He recalled fighting a bully who had called her “baldy”, and he grinned with satisfaction. He remembered a little girl called Jane, who was a friend to them both, and he prayed that Jane had looked after Peggy when he had been transferred to the boys’ section. He had never prayed before, but now he did so, and he vowed to heaven, his teeth and fists clenched, that if his sister was still alive he would find her and get her out of the workhouse. He would look after her as he had promised his father.

  Betty came over, concerned, and cleared the table.

  “How about a nice cup o’ Rosie Lee, luv, good an’ sweet? On the ’ouse, o’ course.”

  PEGGY

  Frank found himself in the workhouse once more. This time he was waiting in the Master’s office. He had smartened himself up, as best he could in a communal lodging house, and was waiting with dread in his heart. Was she still alive? Children died in workhouses. He had seen it himself, and had heard stories from people he had met. If Peggy had died, he’d kill those responsible and swing for it. Footsteps came along the corridor, and he stood up.

  Frank’s first surprise at meeting the Master after nearly four years was how little he was! He had a childhood memory of a large, terrifying man, whose word was absolute law and who had the power to beat and flog for the slightest misdemeanour. Yet here was this flabby little man, about a head shorter than Frank himself, who looked as if he hadn’t the strength to lift a bit of cod off a plate, never mind a box of them off a slippery quayside. Frank looked at his puny muscles and compared them in his mind with the lean and muscular men he had worked with for years, and nearly laughed out loud. Was this the terror of the workhouse, this pathetic-looking jellyfish?

  But he had come for a purpose, and must be polite. He enquired about his sister: was she still alive? Yes, the Master replied, without giving anything away, she was. Frank gave a huge, shuddering sigh of relief. Where was she, then? The Master replied, guardedly, that she was in the girls’ section, where she was well cared for. Frank’s joy was unconfined. Here, in this very building? Could he see her, then? His eyes were eager. The Master was prim. No. Boys were not allowed in the girls’ section.

  Frank was nonplussed. “But I can’t help bein’ a boy,” he blurted out. “If I was ’er big sister you’d let me see ’er, wouldn’t you?”

  The Master smiled, and agreed, but rules were rules, he said, with such finality that the interview ended.

  Frank’s joy at knowing she was alive was greater than his disappointment at not being allowed to see her. But he would see her – damn the Master – and he changed his round so that he would be near the workhouse gate at 4 p.m. when the girls returned from school. He hung around, shouting “whelks and eels” as the crocodile of girls marched past him. But he couldn’t pick her out. There were a couple of dozen little girls with blonde hair, about the age that she would be, but even though he went every day for a fortnight and looked carefully at them, he couldn’t recognise his sister. Several of the bigger girls giggled and nudged each other, winking at him as they marched past. Normally he would have flirted back, but he had no heart for flirting now. He changed his round again.

  He sought another interview with the Master. On this occasion he had carefully prepared his questions. If he couldn’t see his sister because of the rules, what were the rules about taking her away altogether? The Master was surprised at the boy’s persistence and explained, condescendingly, that any relative could apply for the discharge of an inmate and, provided the applicant could prove that he could provide adequately for said inmate, the application would be considered favourably.

  Frank’s quick brain translated. “You means, if I can support my sister, I can get her out of ’ere?”

  The Master nodded.

  “An’ what would you means by ‘support’?”

  The Master looked at the eager fourteen-year-old sitting before him, and smiled at the impossibility of his hopes. “I would say, firstly, that the applicant must be of good character and must have decent accommodation. He must prove himself able to support the inmate for whose discharge he is applying, and should have a reasonable sum of money saved against illness or loss of work.”

  “An’ ’ow much would you call a ‘reasonable sum’?”

  The Master tapped his pencil, and smiled archly.

  “Oh, I would say twenty-five pounds. That is a fair sum.”

  Frank swallowed. Twenty-five pounds! Ask a working boy today to save £25,000 and he might swallow and turn pale, just as Frank did.

  The Master concluded the interview and assumed that he would see no more of the boy.

  Frank dragged his feet miserably back to the lodging house. The obstacles seemed insurmountable. Why couldn’t he just take her? When he entered the squalid doss-house, in which about twenty men slept and ate, he realised the Master was right. He couldn’t possibly bring a girl here. He would have to be able to provide for her and find somewhere decent to live.

  Frank then worked as he had never worked before, spurred on by necessity. He did his fish round, as ever, but instead of knocking off when he had sold it all, he looked into the fruit-and-nut trade, and hawked them around the pubs and theatres and music halls until ten or eleven at night. He doubled his income. He changed his habits and became something of an outcast from his old mates, because he never gambled, never flashed his money around by joining them in the tavern. They resented it and ridiculed him. He opened a Post Office National Savings Account. No coster ever saved. Conspicuous spending each evening in the pubs and taverns was their habit. But Frank wasn’t interested in what the others did. He had opened the account because he knew that in a communal lodging house he would eventually be robbed. When he learned that he would earn four per cent on his investments he was thrilled and carefully worked out how many pennies that would be to every pound saved. By the age of fifteen he had saved eight pounds.

  There is no doubt about it, Frank was a brilliant and imaginative coster. He went into the fried-fish market, arranging for the fish to be cooked at a baker’s and employing a lad to hawk it around at a fixed rate, plus the bunting system. He looked into the roast-chestnut market and worked out that the hire of the gear would pay for itself around Christmas time. He was right. By the age of sixteen he had twenty-five pounds in
his Post Office account.

  He then looked round for a room to rent for himself and Peggy. It had to be a decent room – on that point he was determined. His sister was not going to be dumped in any old hole. She would be twelve years old now, quite the young lady. He had not seen her since she was little more than a baby, but he visualised her as petite and pretty, and felt sure she looked like his mother. Mother and sister merged into each other in his imagination, a numinous female ideal, the guardians of his hopes and longings.

  He found a room on the top floor of a house at eight shillings a week, plus two shillings for the rent of furniture. It was an upper-class house, he felt. There was a gas stove on the middle landing for everybody’s use, and a tap in the basement, There was even a lavatory in the yard. He was well satisfied.

  Frank stood again in the Master’s office. He had on his best clothes and his Post Office book was in his pocket. The Master had not expected him, and was astonished when he saw the proof of twenty-five pounds saved in only two years. How had a boy of sixteen achieved it? He looked at him with new respect and said: “Your request will have to be considered by the Board of Guardians. They meet in three weeks’ time.”

  He gave Frank the date and time of the Guardians’ meeting and told him to come back on that evening.

  Frank asked if he could see his sister, and was told curtly that he would see her in three weeks’ time. Seething with frustration, he looked at his powerful fists and nearly knocked the man down. But he remembered he had to be “of good character”, so thrust his hands behind his back. He would never get Peggy out if he hit the workhouse master!

  The Guardians debated the application. It was unusual, but they agreed to release the girl, if she wished to go with her brother. Frank was called into the boardroom and interrogated. They seemed satisfied and were especially impressed by the Post Office book. They told him to stand by the window, and Peggy was called away from her evening duties.