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

by Jennifer Worth

  They went to a tunnel under a bridge. Other men were there already and each man had a boy. They greeted each other in their own lingo. A door was opened, revealing a pitch-black cavern, and a naptha flare was lit with a match. The flame leaped up, revealing a stack of barrows, trucks, handcarts, donkey carts, bridles, hooks, chains, ropes, tarpaulins – a medley of wood and metal.

  Tip growled to Frank, “Watch wot I takes, and be sure you remembers it. If you don’t ge’ the right gear, you can’t do yer job, an’ the tally bloke there, he’ll cheat you if ’e can.”

  He selected what would be needed for the day, and paid the rental to the man with the flare. “Push this ’ere, an’ let’s get goin’.”

  A boy called out, “Hey, yennun – you.”

  Frank took no notice.

  The boy kicked him hard. “Don’t you answer ven, yennun?”

  Tip explained. “He means ‘new one’. That’s you, see? Take no notice, we got work ’a do. You’ll pick up ve lingo in no time.”

  In pain, and limping, Frank pushed the barrow. He had learned to hide all signs of weakness in the workhouse and it had stood him in good stead.

  “Now, we mus’ get a move on.” Tip leaned his weight on the barrow and it sped over the cobbles, rattling on solid, iron-framed wheels.

  Billingsgate was London’s fish market, and lay on the north bank of the Thames, east of the Monument. Fishing boats came in throughout the night and the market stalls, laden with fresh fish, were ready for business when the market opened at 4 a.m.

  Tip’s electric excitement is, if anything, intensified and every nerve in his body seems to be quivering. A fishy, seaweedy smell hits his nostrils, and he inhales deeply. “Beautiful, be-oootiful,” he murmurs appreciatively.

  The noise all around is intense. Above the babble of voices Frank can hear the shouts of salesmen, standing on boxes or tables, roaring out their merchandise and their prices. A Babel of competition.

  “’Andsome cod, best in the market – all alive.”

  “Fine Yarmouth bloaters – oo’s the buyer?”

  “Eels O! Eels O! Alive O!”

  “Wink, wink, winkles, best for tea.”

  “’Ere you are, guvner, fine brill, come an’ look at ’em, guv. You won’t find better.”

  “Over ’ere. Finney ’addock. ’Ad – ’ad – ’ad – ’addy ’addock.

  “Now or never – whelks, whelks, whelks, I say.”

  On all sides everyone is asking “What’s the price?” whilst shouts of laughter from salesmen and customers, bargaining and bantering, pepper the noise of the crowd.

  Frank can see, in the semi-darkness of the sheds, the white bellies of turbot shining like mother-of-pearl; living lobsters, their claws flailing helplessly in the air; mounds of herrings with scales glittering like sequins; huge baskets piled with grey oysters, blue mussels, pink shrimps, sackfuls of whelks, their yellow shells piled up high; buckets of grey-and-white eels slithering and sliding all over each other.

  Frank sees porters in strangely shaped leather helmets, rather like squashed pagodas, carrying fish baskets on their heads. Eight hundred tons of fish pour in and out of Billingsgate every day and all of it, down to the last herring, is unloaded and portered in this way. A man whose neck is ‘set’ can carry sixteen baskets, each weighing a stone, on his head. These powerful men are the backbone of the fish market, and their history is one of high romance. The quinquereme of Nineveh, laden with spices and precious oils, was unloaded in exactly the same way in medieval London. Caesar’s galleys, rowed up the Thames by chained men, were berthed here, London’s most ancient port, and unloaded by men such as Frank sees.

  Frank flattens himself against a wall as one of these giants passes, shouting: “Move over – make way, please – gangway.”

  A thin man, trembling under the weight of his load, mutters, through clenched teeth: “Shove to one side, can’ choo?”

  Everywhere ragged, desperate-looking men and boys are clamouring for the job of porterage, hoping to earn a shilling or two before the day’s end.

  Through the arches of the open end of the huge covered building, silhouetted against the grey sky of dawn, Frank can see the masts and tangled rigging of the oyster boats and lobster trawlers. Sails, black against the skyline, shift and tremble. He sees the red caps of sailors as they draw in the sails. He hears the chug-chug of primitive engines as a throttle is opened. He hears the shouts of men as they unload their vessels.

  “Keep close beside me,” Tip growls, “an’ listen to everyfink. Don’t miss nuffink, see? You gotta learn how to buy.”

  He assumes a nonchalant air and saunters down the gangway, whistling as though he were on holiday. He passes through the arches onto the quayside, where the river glides black and secretive, and silver threads of light pierce the wakening sky. They clamber over ropes and rigging to the long row of oyster boats moored close along the wharf – known as “Oyster Street” in the trade – where the fishermen sell direct from their boats.

  “No middlemen here. Best prices,” hisses Tip out of the corner of his mouth.

  Each boat has its blackboard and the master, in his white apron, walks up and down calling his prices. The holds are filled with oysters and sand, which a man turns over with a spade, rattling the masses of shells.

  Tip discusses price with the master, shakes his head and walks away, saying loudly to Frank, “I knows of better oysters dahn ve sewers.”

  The oyster merchant shouts after him. Tip ignores the shouts, and clambers over shrimp nets and weights to reach a fisherwoman, with huge muscular arms, shouting the price of shrimps. The master of the vessel is behind her, filling a jug with shrimps and letting them fall back like a shower of confectionery. Tip breaks the head off one, and sniffs it.

  “I wouldn’t give that to my dog,” he says and hands it to Frank, who doesn’t know what to do with it.

  Clambering over ropes, rigging, sails, cans of engine oil, netting, lobster pots, gangplanks, ladders, baskets, trays – all littered over the quayside in a seeming mass of confusion, Tip and Frank scramble the whole length of Oyster Street. Nothing is bought.

  Six o’clock is approaching. Tip snaps into action, his nonchalance leaving him as fast as he had assumed it. He returns to the fisherwoman, and buys shrimps at half her asking price, oysters for a third. Brill and dab he buys, which he had earlier disdained as “poison”, with a bucket of eels added, “to clear ’em”.

  Buying is over and the excitement has passed.

  Tip hired a porter – a starved-looking man of sixty – and refused to pay the sixpence the man asked.

  “Three pence, then,” said the man, humbly.

  “I’ll gi’ yer tuppence, take it or leave it. I can soon find another, stronger’n you, you miserable ol’ skele’on.”

  The man took it, and staggered out of the gate to where Tip and Frank had left the barrow.

  “An’ now for breakfuss,” said Tip.

  A COSTER LAD

  The woods are lovely and dark and deep,

  But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  Robert Frost

  “Betty, my dear, I say, Betty, why you look charming’ this mornin’. I’ll draw up my chair here an’ get close in by this nice, invitin’ fire. An’ you, Betty my love, can ’ave the infinite pleasure of supplyin’ me with some good ’am an’ heggs an’, if you got some nice ’ot muffins an’ butter, I’ll ’ave ’em an’ all, an’ some of yer best Rosie Lee, good an’ strong. Betty, my love – why you do look ravishin’ this fine morning – you can look after vis young lad, like wot he was your own son. Bring him the same, cause ’e’s new, an’ there’s a hard day’s work ahead, an’ likewise a man can’t go to work on an empty stomick, no more can a boy.”

  Tip leaned back in his chair, put his feet on the table, and placed his order, with an expansive wave of the hand. Frank sat down to the best breakfast he had ever had in his life. After years of workhouse brea
d and margarine it tasted like nectar. The muffins oozed butter down his chin as he sank his teeth into them; the yellow yolk of the egg ran over the pink ham and he dipped his bread into it. He ate with concentrated enjoyment. Men and boys came in and sat down. Betty rushed around serving. The fire crackled and tobacco smoke filled the air. Voices merged into a quiet hum, and Frank fell asleep, his head on the table.

  A heavy hand hit his shoulder. “Right now. It’s eight o’ clock, an’ we gotter get a-goin’ on the round.”

  Tip walked swiftly out into the yard and Frank staggered after him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. They arranged the cart together, Tip instructing every move, securing the sides, the shafts, the step, placing the trays, the weights and measures, the knives, bags and torn newspapers. At each move, he would say: “Now don’t forget this one.”

  They started the round. If Frank thought that life in the workhouse was hard, that was because he had not experienced life as a coster. From that day on he never stopped working and he never stopped loving every minute of it.

  He hollered his way down the streets, bawling out the day’s catch. Shrimps, mackerel, herrings, whelks – his high-pitched voice carried from one end of a street to the other. He learned quickly, and within a month he could gut a fish so fast you wouldn’t see him do it. He charmed the ladies with his appealing eyes, so that they bought things they didn’t want. He flicked a mussel from its shell with a twist of the knife, faster even than Tip. He could worm a whelk before it knew what had hit it.

  The round was about ten miles’ walking distance. Tip usually closed the barrow at about three o’clock in the afternoon. Anything left over was Frank’s to sell. A tray was suspended round his neck and he went out alone. Tip would size up the value of the fish on the tray and say what he wanted Frank to get for it. Anything over that amount was commonly known as a “bunt”, or “bunce”, and the boy could keep the money. This was regarded as a coster boy’s pay, because they received no wages for their work, food and lodgings being regarded as quite sufficient recompense for a day’s labour.

  Frank quickly discovered that this was to be the hardest part of his day’s work. The tray was heavy and his legs soon felt heavy too. Buying was mostly over for the day, and customers were few, so they had to be first attracted, and then persuaded to buy. The fish was getting stale and nothing can disguise the smell or look of stale fish, especially in summer. Frank often had to trudge several miles before he had sold his stock and gained the money Tip demanded for it. Frequently there was nothing at all left over for his bunt. But on other occasions there was, and Frank was ecstatic at having earned himself sixpence or a shilling – a fortune for a boy who had never had anything of his own. To earn his bunt became his main aim, and often he did not return to the lodgings before nine or ten in the evening. He would then crawl under the table, dog-tired, and sleep until 3 a.m., when he was wakened to go to the market.

  Frank picked up the lingo within a few weeks, and was soon talking fast and confidently in the incomprehensible jargon costers proudly shared. He assumed the devil-may-care swagger of the other coster lads. He copied Tip’s easy-going banter with the ladies. He also copied Tip’s flamboyant style of dress, achieved with a few cut-downs from the master-dresser and a few bits such as a neckerchief and shoelaces which he had bought himself with his bunts. His ambition in life was to buy himself a flashy cap.

  He adopted the costers’ attitude to money: “Spend it while you’ve got it, tomorrow you may die.” He saw that costers worked very hard and that a good trader earned a lot of money. He saw this money being thrown around each evening in the pubs and taverns with extravagant ease. Any man who had had a good day wouldn’t hesitate to spend his entire profit on drinks for his mates. If he’d had a bad day, another coster would buy for him. If any coster was in hard street, or was turned in by the police, there would be an immediate whip-round for him. No coster saved a penny, not even a halfpenny, for the future.

  Costers didn’t live in homes; they lived in lodgings, where they dossed down for a bit, and then moved on. The lodgings were always unspeakably squalid and cheerless, because costers and their women were hardly ever in them. Life was lived in the streets, the markets, the pubs, the penny hops, the penny gaffs, at the race tracks and in the bawdy houses. Life, with all its richness, was lived outside. Costers went back to their lodgings only for a few hours’ kip, before the next day dawned and the markets opened.

  Above all, Frank learned the trade. Unless he had been trained from boyhood, no man had the slightest chance of becoming a successful coster. The tricks and dodges, the graft and guile, were just as important to learn as the skills of buying and bartering. Frank learned all this lore from the other coster lads as they went around in the early evenings, selling off the day’s ‘left-overs’ and trying to earn an honest bunt. He learned to cover his fish with parsley, to keep it smelling nice. He learned to squeeze a lemon over it, to improve the taste. He added a few nuts to his store, to increase his range. He learned to sell four pints of whelks as five, by taking a bit off the top of each. He learned where he could sell fish heads and tails, and the best times to find the buyer. He learned to mix dead eels with live ones to increase his stock by five to one, and “they don’t notice one’s dead until vey gets vem ’ome”. He made the acquaintance of an unscrupulous pieman who would take eels that had been dead for two days for ready money. He learned that herring and mackerel look fresher by candlelight, so he carried a candle stuck in a turnip for dark evenings. He learned to wheedle and whine, saying his master would knock him about if he didn’t sell his wares. He always sold.

  By the age of twelve, Frank was as sharp as a terrier. He was up to every dodge in the business, and there were some who said he was as clever a man as Tip. He spent long hours in the markets, he knew the price of everything and forgot nothing. An expert in slang, he conducted all his business in the lingo. He could chaff a peeler so uncommon curious that the only way to stop him was to let him off. He was a master of his trade.

  At the age of thirteen Frank decided it was time to go it alone. He wasn’t going to give the best years of his life to a master, not he. He’d be his own master, do his own buyin’ and sellin’, and keep his own profits He’d show them how it was done.

  He left Tip and Doll and moved into a common lodging house for men – the back room of a public bar that was open only to the water’s edge. The floor was rough stone, the ceiling and walls unplastered. For twopence a night he could hire a straw mattress and a blanket on the floor. Any other lodgings would cost him tenpence a night. So Frank took it, reckoning that he would hardly be there anyway, and why waste good money on a place he only slept in?

  The men were rough, obscene, vicious, and put the fear of God into the lad, but he was growing fast, was quick on his feet and good with his fists. He coped, but only just. His greatest terror was of being robbed. He had seen it happen more than once. A sobbing lad of about twelve stuck in his mind. The boy had been skinny and pale and had lost all his stock money overnight. If a lad can’t buy, he can’t sell. Frank gave him a shilling to buy some walnuts for the theatre trade, and learned to keep his stock money safe. He kept it in his socks and slept each night with his socks and boots on, and the boots tightly laced.

  Most of the men in the lodging house were casual labourers, picking up a day’s work if and when they could. All were unskilled. Frank considered himself an aristocrat, being skilled in the fish trade. He hired his own gear, bought his own stock, and sold in the streets, keeping all his profits which he spent on flashy clothes, fancy food, beer, girls, the penny hops, the penny gaffs and gambling . . . gambling.

  By the age of fourteen, it would be safe to say Frank was a desperate gambler. All the coster men and boys gambled, but none more seriously than Frank. The love of the game was first in his thoughts and dreams, and not a spare moment would pass but he would toss a coin and invite a bet on it. He did not care what he played for, or who he played with, as long
as he had a chance of winning. Every day he worked untiringly, spurred on by the thought of the money he would earn, which he could lay against the odds with the next gamester he met. Many a time he lost not only his money but his neckerchief and jacket as well, but nothing could dampen his ardour for the game, a run of continual bad luck making him more reckless than ever.

  The coster boys would meet at various points to pitch against each other. They met under railway arches, in pub yards, on the quayside of the river, or even on the shingle when the tide was out. If ever a group of boys’ backs and heads were seen crouching in a circle, it would be safe to say that it was a group of gamblers, and ten to one Frank would be in the middle, calling the loudest, the quickest, the fiercest.

  “Sixpence on Tol.”

  “Sixpence he loses.”

  “Done.”

  “Give ’im a gen [shilling].”

  “Flash it them [show it].”

  Tol wins and the loser bears his losses with a rueful grin.

  Now Frank goes into the ring and takes up a stance to toss his coins. His face is scornful.

  “Sixpence on Frank.”

  “A gen he loses.”

  “I take that one.”

  “Owl [two shillings] on Frank.”

  “Kool Tol, he’s fritted [Look at Tol, he’s afraid]. Done.”

  Frank is cool and determined. He plays three up, and calls “Tails.” The three coins fall, all tails up. Frank takes his winnings.

  Betting starts again. Tol throws, calling “Heads.” The coins fall, one head, and two tails. He throws again. The coins fall, showing three tails. Frank takes his winnings. Tol curses and spits, and throws again. “Heads.” Again they come down tails. Frank wins. He stares hard at Tol.