THE FIGHT
A district midwife in Poplar, East London, in the 1950s could find herself in many strange and unexpected situations. It was about 7 o’clock when I reached the tenements on a cold, wet night, and a menacing sound greeted me. Two women were fighting. I had never seen such a thing before and crept closer to listen to the comments of bystanders.
The fight, apparently, was over a man. Well of course, I thought, what else would two women fight about?
It was dark, but light from some of the windows illuminated the scene sufficiently to show that both women’s blouses had been torn off, and they were clawing, hitting, punching, biting and kicking each other. One had long hair, which was a great disadvantage to her, as it gave her adversary something to grab hold of. Literally hundreds of people were in the courtyard – men, women and children – shouting, jeering, cheering, egging them on. The woman with the long hair had now been forced to the ground, and the other was on top of her, banging her head against the cobblestones.
Just as I was thinking, Dear God, someone’s got to stop this, I heard the piercing sound of police whistles, and two policemen rushed into the yard, wielding their truncheons to show that they meant business. Had they not come when they did, the woman on her back might have been seriously concussed, if not killed. The police were everywhere in the East End in those days, always on the beat – on foot, of course, as there were very few police cars. Within minutes at least another ten policemen had arrived, summoned by the shrill and distinctive sound of the whistle – there were no short-wave radios to connect members of the force, and the whistle was the only means of summoning help. If they heard it, police would run from every direction towards the source of the sound. Now, at the sight of the Law, the crowd disappeared.
Within less than two minutes I was alone in the courtyard with the police and the two women, who had by now been separated. The injured one was shivering and moaning in pain. The other was standing over her, held back by a young policeman; but that didn’t stop her snarling and swearing and spitting at the woman on the ground.
‘You’ll be charged for this,’ warned the officer.
‘Fuck you, see if I care,’ she screamed and attempted to kick him. Another prevented her, saying, ‘If you attack a policeman it will be the worse for you. And if this woman dies it will be a hanging matter.’
That brought her to her senses. It had not been many years before that Ruth Ellis had been hanged for murdering her lover. The episode had shaken the nation, and memories were still very much alive. Even in the dark and rain, with filth streaked over her face, the woman seemed to turn pale.
I kneeled down on the wet cobbles to examine the other female, who lay quite still. She was soaking wet, and her long, sodden hair hung down over her face and shoulders. I examined her as best I could in the dark and said, ‘The first thing we have to do is get some blankets. She is in a state of shock, and the cold will do her as much harm as the head injury. Then we must get her to hospital for an X-ray.’
She moaned, ‘Nah, nah, I don’ wan’ no ’ospital. I’ll be all right.’
It seemed terribly quiet after all the noise. There was not a soul in sight. A policeman shouted out into the night air, ‘Anyone who can hear me, bring a couple of blankets.’ His voice echoed around the four walls of the tenement courtyard.
A few minutes later several doors opened, and women came out carrying blankets. They gave them to us and retreated silently back to their flats, shutting the doors behind them. All the lights were off by this time, and faces that we could feel but not see were pressed against every window.
I rubbed the prostrate woman’s limbs with a blanket to try to warm her, and we wrapped another one around her. Finally she sat up.
Her assailant perked up no end.
‘Garn, she’s all righ’, the cow, she deserves more’n she got, more’s the pi’y. I’d like to see ’er in ’ell.’
‘We’re taking you to the station,’ said the young policeman.
‘She started it, the fuckin’ bitch.’
Then suddenly she changed her tune. Perhaps in the heat of the moment she hadn’t realised that she was half-naked and surrounded by men – or maybe, in her state of undress, the idea of a police station seemed an attractive one. She sidled up to the young officer and rubbed her bare breast against his arm, giving him a lewd wink. Her shrill voice dropped about an octave and a half, and she said huskily, ‘Is tha’ an invitation, dearie?’
I, and most of the policemen, laughed. This dirty, rain-soaked woman trying to play Delilah looked so ridiculous. But the funniest part of all was the young policeman’s reaction. He could not have been a day over nineteen, young enough to be her son. He looked pink and clean and high-minded. He glanced down at the substantial breast rubbing his arm and jumped like a scalded cat. We roared with laughter. All the faces watching at the windows must have been laughing too. The young man was covered with confusion and turned scarlet.
‘Where are your clothes?’ he spluttered in a prim Scottish accent. I don’t suppose he meant to sound pompous and priggish, but he did.
It was a fair question, too. Where indeed were her clothes? They were scattered around the place, trodden by the crowd into the puddles. She advanced on the confused young man and with each hand lifted a huge, pendulous breast, waving her nipples in his face.
‘Your guess is as good as mine, dearie.’
With a cry of alarm the young policeman leaped away. None of his colleagues was going to help him out; the scene was too good to miss. He knew he was beaten, so he grabbed a spare blanket that was lying on the ground and gave it to his tormentor.
‘In the name of Heaven, woman, cover your nakedness,’ he appealed to her in desperation. The other men fell about laughing. But things were getting out of hand, and the dignity of the Law had to be preserved. An older officer stepped forward.
‘We are not going to charge you,’ he said. ‘Go to your flat, but I want your name and flat number.’
She turned sullen again. Her moment of exhibitionism over, she reluctantly gave her details.
‘Now off you go, and don’t let’s have any more of this, or you’ll be in real trouble. This is a caution.’
Then he turned to his men.
‘Now all of you, back to your duties. You two stay here with the nurse and the injured woman. Report back if you need help.’
They left, suppressing their mirth and as they walked away I could hear voices saying, ‘Coverr yourr nakedness, woman!’ The young Scot bit his lip and looked to be on the verge of tears. He wouldn’t live this moment down and he knew it.
The injured woman was sitting on the wet ground throughout this scene. As the other left, she screamed out, ‘Look at ’er, the filthy slut. She’s always like that, throwin ’erself around. She’s no be’er than a whore. Trollop! Filth! Garbage!’
She screamed the words at the retreating figure, who made to come back and attack her again, but the second policeman barred the way.
‘Now get off!’ he said. ‘If there’s any more trouble you will be charged.’
Finally she left. The injured woman had obviously got her verbal energy back, but I was concerned about her head, having seen and heard several terrible blows as it was banged against the stones. She could easily have sustained a fracture and needed medical treatment.
I said, ‘We’ve got to get her to hospital for an X-ray.’
‘Nah! Nah!’ she cried; ‘I won’ go to no ’ospital. Yer can’t make me. I’ll be all right. Jes leave me alone.’
We couldn’t possibly just leave her there in the rain, so we agreed that we would take her back to her flat and then depart. She was still shaky and weak. She pulled the blanket around her, shivering. The young Scot was very kind.
‘You can lean on me,’ he said. ‘Just show us the way, and we’ll get you home.’
There were four flights of stairs to climb, and she could scarcely walk, but she managed it, grim determination forcing her on. She kept muttering ‘no ’ospital, no ’ospital.’ I think it was the dread of hospitals, and the fear that if she stumbled and fell she would be forcibly carried to one, that kept her going.
The long walk around the balconies seemed interminable. I could see faces pressed against the windows which vanished as we drew close. One little boy’s face remained as we passed, and a hand shot out and snatched him back. I heard a curse, a heavy slap and a yelp of pain. I winced for the child. He was only being curious.
When we got to her door, the woman refused to let us come in with her.
‘Nah, get orf,’ she said, ‘bleed orf. I’ll be all right.’
We left, and I never saw her again. Women were tough in those days, really tough. Perhaps this woman was so used to violence that it had become part of life. Perhaps some kind neighbour took care of her for a few days. If she did have a hairline fracture of the skull, it mended in its own time and with no assistance from the doctors.
A charge was not brought against either woman. For one thing the injured woman made no official complaint, and for another personal fights in those days were common. Police just separated the adversaries and, unless some other crime was involved, charges were seldom made.
Such scenes were no surprise to the Sisters, I discovered, when, full of the importance of my story, I related it at luncheon the following day. The nuns had seen it all before, and sometimes a great deal worse. It was a violent area. However – and we all agreed on this – overall we saw far more goodness and kindness and open-handed generosity than the opposite.
On reflection it was surprising there was not more violence in the tenements, because people lived so close to each other. There was no privacy, no chance of solitude, seldom even quiet. Nerves must frequently have been stretched to breaking point within the family and between neighbours. Domestic violence was regarded as a fact of life. Even in the 1950s it was accepted that men beat their wives. We often saw women with bruises or black eyes, or limping. They never complained to the police: ‘keep out o’ the way o’ coppers’ was the rule. They may have talked about it among themselves, but in an attitude of resignation, rather than complaint. Times were changing, however, and the younger women, those of the post-war generation, were certainly developing more independence. But the older women accepted it all. The saying was ‘If ’e don’t beat yer, ’e don’t love yer.’ Twisted logic if ever there was some, but it was a belief widely held on to.
Life was not easy for the men either. They worked desperately hard and were accustomed to harsh treatment from their employers – it was just accepted as an aspect of their employment. The majority of Poplar men were dockers, and traditionally dockers were treated as beasts of burden, and expendable at that. Such treatment would brutalise any man. Yet the vast majority were not brutes; they were decent hardworking blokes who brought home most of their money to their wives and tried to live as good husbands and fathers. But, for all their hard work, they did not seem to get much peace or comfort in their homes, because of the overcrowding and too many children. What man, after ten or twelve hours of hard manual labour, would look forward to returning home to two or three small rooms with half a dozen kids running around? It was a matriarchal society, and ‘home’ was for women and children. The men were often made to feel like outsiders in their own homes.
Consequently the men spent most of their time in each other’s company – all day at work and in the evenings meeting their mates at the Working Men’s Clubs, the numerous Seamen’s Clubs, the dog races, football, speedway and pubs. Pub life was convivial and provided the welcome and good cheer that home so frequently did not. Pubs also provided alcohol, which relaxed tired muscles, soothed frayed tempers and consoled the yearning for hopes and dreams long since abandoned.
THE MASTER’S ARMS
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, by John Keats
The Master’s Arms in Poplar had seen much history in its hundred years. It was a freehold, started by old Ben Masterton in 1850, and passed from father to son over four generations. Many of the big breweries had tried to buy the family out, but they were a stubborn lot, the Mastertons, and in spite of the difficulties of running a freehold, not to mention the financial insecurity, they had always refused to sell, preferring shaky independence to safe wage earning. It was said that old Ben, with his one sound leg and one wooden one, had fallen off a trading vessel when drunk, and the ship had sailed away without him. He had nothing else to do but indulge his favourite activity, so he started a drinking house, which became a firm favourite among the seamen. He married a local girl who enjoyed the bawdy life, and she bore fourteen children, six of whom survived childhood. Old Ben ultimately expired in an alcoholic stupor, as everyone had said he would, and two of his sons took over the business, at the time of the economic depression in the 1880s, when it was nearly impossible to get work in the docks, and thousands starved as a result. In times of hardship pubs always flourish, and people will always drink, whatever the suffering of their families.