Her Ladyship's Girl Page 19

  One day in July 1938, Mr Morecambe came to me and said there would be a fancy dress party on the Saturday evening. As usual, Fletcher and Jennings zoomed round the kitchen and prepared everything and then left me to clean up the awful mess they’d made. At 7:00 p.m., I expected to have to dress in my parlourmaid’s uniform and help Mr Morecambe to serve.

  ‘It’s a buffet tonight, Anwyn, so you won’t be needed.’

  He told me I could take the rest of the night off if I liked. But I was too tired and it was too late to go out anywhere, so I just went to my room. Music was coming up from downstairs and a tumult of loud laughter and, later on, squeals and shouts and other strange sounds. I couldn’t sleep for the din of it all, so I decided to take a look. I crept downstairs in my chemise and peeped in through the half-open door of the main dining room.

  ‘Oh, my good God!’

  There were men dressed in lounge suits and others in evening dresses. I knew they were men and not women because they were big and brawny and some of them had moustaches. It was a drag dance, just like Pearl had told me about. There was a group of musicians in one corner playing jazz, and everyone was dancing and cavorting around like lunatics. Mr Morecambe was in the middle of it, serving drinks as fast as his feet could shuffle. Then the lights went out and there was a terrible commotion of screeching and whistling and howling like a pack of wolves and caterwauling like cats. When the lights came back on again, half the clothes were on the floor and the naked stuff was starting. Time for me to get back to my bedroom and lock the door! Tight. But before I could, the front door came crashing in and about twenty policemen swarmed into the house. I didn’t know if they were real coppers or more guests in fancy dress – until they grabbed me and handcuffed me.

  ‘This one actually is a woman, Sarge.’

  I was hauled into the dining room, which had become more chaotic than it was a few minutes ago. Policemen were running round the room trying to catch the guests, who were jumping over chairs and tables and trying to get to the door, blowing kisses back at their pursuers as they went. The Misters Fletcher and Jennings, dressed as a king and queen, tried to reason with the police, saying it was a private party and they were way outside their jurisdiction. But the sergeant wasn’t listening, even when he was threatened with being reported to the Home Secretary. The guests were eventually rounded up and continued to, what I can only describe as, spoon over the policemen.

  ‘What’s the matter, dear?’

  ‘Don’t call me dear!’

  ‘Are you a real policeman?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You look far too nice.’

  Mr Morecambe was being questioned by the sergeant, while the gaudily dressed guests were led out, still flirting with the constables, and shoved into a police van.

  ‘Why are these men dressed as women?’

  ‘They’re queens tonight. They take it in turns.’

  ‘Take what in turns?’

  ‘To be kings or queens.’

  It all seemed very natural to Mr Morecambe and he assured the sergeant that he was merely a servant and not a participant in the impious party. The police believed him, but not me. I was taken to Harrow Road police station.

  ‘Are you a lesbian?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘You know, a woman who likes other women.’

  ‘I like some other women.’

  Apparently, it wasn’t illegal to be a lesbian, so they had to let me go and they told me I’d have to make my own way back to Devonshire Place. I said I had no money because they’d arrested me in my nightshift, but that made no difference to them. Luckily, Mr Morecambe was in the reception room when I came out. He drove me home.

  I wanted to ask him about the drag dance but I decided not to say anything. He said nothing either until we got back to the house. He let me in and told me he had to go back to the police station because he’d left a solicitor there who would sort out the misunderstanding and the Misters Fletcher and Jennings would want to be taken somewhere to settle their nerves. I was glad it was all a misunderstanding, as I didn’t like the thought of them having to spend the night in a police cell.

  Mr Morecambe said I should go to bed and leave everything until the morning. But I wouldn’t have been able to sleep, knowing that the dining hall was in such a state, so I cleared it all up and it took me two hours. It was 3:00 a.m. when I finally got to bed. I locked the door in case there was a naked man still lurking – one the police had failed to find. Mr Morecambe didn’t come back that night. I was up and in the kitchen when I heard him coming in at about 9:00 a.m.

  News of the raid on Devonshire Place got round, even though it was never in the newspapers and no charges were ever brought against anyone. But some policeman must have leaked the story because everyone in the Duke’s Head knew about it the next time I went down there and they all had a hearty laugh at my expense. Shortly after, the house was put up for sale. Mr Morecambe said he was very sorry, but he wouldn’t be needing my services any more. He gave me a very good letter of reference and a month’s wages and said I could stay on in the house until I found somewhere else to live or it was sold – whichever came first. He himself would be around because he had some matters to see to, but the Misters wouldn’t be back. I never saw them again.

  I asked Pearl for my old job as a barmaid-cum-cook back, but she said she couldn’t just sack one of her girls to make a place for me. That wouldn’t be fair. However, she knew they were looking for someone at the White Lion on Commercial Road in Aldgate. She gave me a letter to show them and told me to ask for Albert.

  The White Lion was even rougher and more working-class than the Duke’s Head. The clientele seemed to be a mixture of Spitalfields market men, part-time labourers, street-sellers, loafers, criminals and characters who looked like they’d just stepped out of a Charles Dickens novel. It was Monday lunchtime when I got over there and the bar was full of men drinking strong ale out of pewter tankards. At least if a fight started here, there’d be no broken glass. As usual, the conversation stopped and all heads turned towards the door as I entered. Unlike the Duke’s Head, there was a big burly man behind the bar.

  ‘Is Albert here?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘Pearl sent me.’

  ‘Pearl who?’

  ‘From the Duke’s Head.’

  I limped towards the bar and handed him the letter. He pretended to read it, but I could see he was holding it upside down. Then he shouted.

  ‘Boss!’

  A grumpy-looking man wearing a gaudy waistcoat came up from the cellar with a dripping wet cloth slung over his shoulder.

  ‘What?’

  The burly man handed him the letter and pointed at me. The boss read Pearl’s note.

  ‘Annywinny?’

  ‘Anywyn.’

  He tried to say my name, but he couldn’t get his tongue round it.

  ‘I’ll call you Annie.’

  He took the wet cloth off his shoulder and threw it to me, then beckoned for me to follow him through the bar and down some steps into the cellar. I could see he noticed my limp.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘An accident.’

  ‘Long as it don’t hamper your work.’

  ‘It won’t.’

  Albert was a gruff man with a heart of gold. He looked like a criminal of some kind, with long sideburns down his face and a wide wool cap perched on the side of his head. There was devilment in his eyes and his nose had been flattened more than once in fist fights. The floor of the cellar was covered in beer and Albert had been trying to clean it all up. He explained that one of the barrels had sprung a leak and the girl who would normally have been doing this had walked out last week.

  ‘Why did she walk out?’

  ‘Caught her with her hand in the till.’

  ‘Didn’t you call the police?’

  ‘Nah . . . I’d have been doing the same if I was her.’

  He said she was a poor girl from a big famil
y and what was the point of putting her in jail? It wouldn’t get him his money back. But he couldn’t have her working there after that, so he had to give her her marching orders. I helped him to clean up the spillage and he asked me what I did at the Duke’s Head.

  ‘Cook, barmaid.’

  ‘Cook?’

  I explained to him about Pearl doing the food and how it had caught on and brought in the passing trade. He was interested.

  ‘You think that might catch on here?’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘What kind of food?’

  I told him it was just basic, traditional stuff at the Duke’s Head – pig’s feet and pie ’n’ mash and bacon ’n’ cabbage and sandwiches and stuff. He said he’d look into it. Otherwise, the job at the White lion was similar. But there was no cleaning woman coming in, so I’d have to take care of the toilets and clean the floors and sprinkle the sawdust, as well as washing the tankards and serving behind the bar. The pay was a pound a week to start with, rising to twenty-five shillings if I was seen to be suitable – which was more than I’d ever earned in my life, and I had alternate Saturdays and Sundays off. There was a room upstairs for me to live-in and Albert didn’t want any rent for it.

  ‘When can you start?’

  I threw the wet cloth back at him.

  ‘Looks like I already have.’

  He grinned at me and I knew we’d get along.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The White Lion was an old pub with an infamous history of crime and conspiracy and murderous carnage. Albert didn’t mind much about my limp, because it didn’t interfere with my work and he said it gave the pub a bit of atmosphere, whatever that meant. I think he told people I was the Strange Limping Lady from Tom Norman’s Circus or something like that. I don’t know if they believed him or not. After they got to know me, the men who drank there were friendly, just like they were at the Duke’s Head, and they were just as frisky after they’d had a few pints of Dutch courage.

  The big, burly man was called George and he ran the pub during the day, with me helping out behind the bar if I wasn’t busy cleaning and clearing up. There were two other barmaids, May and Lizzie, who worked the evenings with me, and Albert was usually around then too. The room upstairs was fairly basic, but it was comfortable enough once I tidied it up and made it my own. There was a bathroom that I shared with Lizzie, who also lived above the bar, and I had use of a small kitchen for cooking whenever I wanted. But there were no paying guests like at the Duke’s Head and there was a separate side door to the rooms upstairs. So privacy was an added perk of this job.

  The area round Spitalfields had a long reputation for being the worst criminal rookery in London and the haunt of robbers and prostitutes back in the late nineteenth century. Flower and Dean Street was known as the most dangerous street in the city and nearby Dorset Street was the site of the brutal killing and mutilation of Mary Kelly by Jack the Ripper. Some of the worst wynds had been demolished by the time I got there, but it was still a dodgy place and homeless vagrants still slept in Itchy Park, in the shadow of Christ Church. Albert told me never to go wandering down the side alleys on my own at night, but I liked dancing on my evenings off, despite my limp, and I sometimes took shortcuts. Luckily enough, no nasty mishap ever befell me.

  Probably next in notoriety to Jack the Ripper was Ikey Solomon, who plied his trade round Houndsditch and Petticoat Lane. He was said to have frequented the White Lion to do his dealings and Albert had several pictures of him hanging on the walls. Ikey was a receiver of stolen goods, otherwise known as a ‘fence’. He dealt mainly in jewellery, but also in valentia cloth and lace and bobbinet and all sorts of other articles that he sold in a pawn shop in Bell Lane. He ran a whole tribe of boys who he trained to steal and pick pockets, and it was said he was the inspiration for Fagin in Dickens’s Oliver Twist. He was once caught stealing from a large crowd at a meeting outside Westminster Hall and he got rid of the evidence by eating the banknotes.

  He was eventually convicted and sentenced to penal transportation, but he escaped from the prison ship Zetland. He was recaptured and taken by hackney coach to Newgate Prison. But the coach was being driven by his father-in-law, who took a detour through Petticoat Lane, where Ikey’s friends overpowered the guards, and he got away again. He fled to New York, but his wife and children were arrested and transported to Tasmania. When he found out about this, he followed his family out there and that was the end of his reign around this area of London. But some said his ghost stalked the streets around Houndsditch and Whitechapel, and Albert was sure he’d seen the man’s silhouette sitting at a back table in the pub one moonlit night. It didn’t bother me. I’d seen worse things than Ikey Solomon’s ghost wandering around in the dead of night.

  I had every alternate Saturday off, and Sunday the following week, and I went out dancing on those nights with either May or Lizzie, or on my own if they were working. Most of the big dance halls were in the West End, but there was the Sackville Club in Fenchurch Street, which wasn’t far away, and Quaglino’s near The Tower and the Victoria Danse Salon in Holborn and the Moulin Rouge in Brixton. Local church halls also ran dances on a Saturday night and there was always somewhere to go. I liked to dance and my limp got a lot of funny looks when I was doing the Lindy Hop. The bigger venues had orchestras and the smaller ones usually had a three-piece combo and some just a piano. The floors in the West End were sprung or highly polished and the others were just plank or stuck-down sheets of linoleum. Most of the people could dance after a fashion, at least enough to get round the room without crippling their partner for life – if you’ll pardon the pun. The music was a mixture of all sorts – traditional waltzes and quicksteps and jazz and swing, and it took people’s minds off the drudgery of their working lives and the doomsday predictions of global warfare.

  And so life went on. I stayed at the White Lion all through the rest of 1938 and into 1939. Then the war came, despite what the politicians had told us. The war started on 1 September 1939, with the German invasion of Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. It didn’t affect us all that much in the beginning. We thought the brave boys of the expeditionary force would go over there and mop it all up in a matter of months and we were more affected by the cold winter in January 1940, when the Thames froze over and everyone went out to skate on it. But the mop-up didn’t happen. The Germans surrounded our troops, along with the French and Belgians, and in June 1940 they had to swim for the boats at Dunkirk to make it back. After that, the Luftwaffe tried to destroy our air defences so the Germans could invade. They attacked Portsmouth and the RAF airfields and aircraft factories, and the Battle of Britain started and was fought out during the summer of 1940. But Hitler failed to gain air superiority and chose not to invade. Instead, he decided to blitz London.

  They’d been evacuating people from the south of England from late 1939 – then the London Blitz started in September 1940 and loads of cockney kids began to get sent away to the country. Everything had to be blacked out. The windows of the White Lion were painted black to stop the light from getting through during the hours of drinking, and the lamps were dimmed inside. We never knew if it was day or night and, during that winter, it was black as the hob of hell outside at night-time. The street lights were either switched off or dimmed by being taped up, so only a pin-point of illumination was visible. All vehicles and traffic lights had slotted shutters fitted which aimed the beams downwards, and the edges of the kerbs were painted white so people would know where they were. The bases of trees were also ringed with white paint and men were told to leave their shirt tails hanging out so they could be seen. Signposts and train station names were removed in case the Germans invaded, and loads of people got lost as a result. Deaths doubled on the blacked-out roads and thousands of people were killed from accidentally walking into trees and falling off the kerbs and getting run over.

  East London was hardest hit during the Blitz, because the Germans wanted to dest
roy the factories and the docks – it went on for hour after hour, night after night, and we had to run to the air-raid shelters until the sirens went for the all-clear. I considered going back to Wales at this time, but there would be no work for me there and it felt like I’d be a rat deserting a sinking ship. No, if May and Lizzie and George and Albert had to put up with it – so would I. A lot of pubs in the Aldgate area were bombed during the Blitz and the White Lion was one of the few that escaped. We held events to raise money for the war effort and sometimes the cellar was used as a bomb shelter when we didn’t have time to get to the Tube station. Pubs were seen as the beating hearts of their community, a place where people could meet and gain strength from comradeship in a very British way. As more and more pubs were destroyed, the busier we became, so the war did well for Albert and the breweries that didn’t get blown up.

  Albert had started selling hot food like I suggested by then. It didn’t catch on at first, but now it was proving to be a wise investment for him, catering for police and soldiers and air-raid wardens working long shifts and for bachelors who’d rather pay for a meal than have to make it themselves. A lot of the East End cafes and pie’ n’ mash shops were blown up during the Blitz, or their owners just shut up shop and left town till the bombing was over. Albert saw this as an opportunity and it was true what the old saying said – it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Meat and butter and sugar and tea were all rationed and the already basic fare we served became more and more like Mother Hubbard’s menu. But there were always dodgy geezers coming in with stuff for sale, and Albert made good use of the black market in the area to get food the ordinary person wouldn’t be able to lay hands on. But, even then, a lot of the essentials were hard to come by.