Her Ladyship's Girl (24 page)

Mr Morecambe was nowhere to be seen when I got back to the house in Devonshire Place – which was just as well, because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I went to the bathroom on the
fourth floor and washed the dried-in tears from my face. Then I went to bed and cried again and it was a long time before the salve of sleep came stealing.

The politicians were telling everyone that war was going to be avoided and there were a lot of opinions flying about regarding Germany and what Adolf Hitler was going to do next, but I barely
took any notice, because all my time was taken up being a skivvy and a cook and a parlourmaid and a cleaner and a
Jill de tous les métiers
for Mr Morecambe and Fletcher and
Jennings. The shenanigans at the house grew louder and more boisterous as time went on and the dinner parties grew more frequent, despite the darkening war clouds. And I wondered if these people
really didn’t know what was going on in the world around them, or if they chose to ignore it simply because to accept the reality of it would have been too horrendous to contemplate. I was
kept busy morning, noon and night and I kept my bedroom door safely locked tight when the naked and the naughty were roaming round.

I found out from visits to the Duke’s Head that the area known as Fitzrovia round Marylebone was very bohemian and the pubs and clubs were often frequented by actors and artists and
soldiers and sailors and kilted musicians and queer men and women. Now, when they said queer men and women, I thought they meant those people were a bit eccentric, just like the Misters Fletcher
and Jennings, and I could understand why the two of them lived and socialised in that area.

But Pearl explained to me that there were certain types of men who rouged their lips and pencilled their eyebrows and scented their clothes and spoke with high-pitched voices. She showed me a
report in the newspaper about ‘painted and perfumed travesties of men, who lounged around Fitzrovia, leering at passers-by’ – although I’d never come across anyone like
that. The Misters dressed extravagantly, it had to be said, but certainly not to that degree. Pearl said these men attended private dances called ‘drags’. They went as
‘kings’ and ‘queens’ and the kings wore lounge suits and the queens wore evening dresses. I couldn’t imagine what a man might look like in an evening dress – it
made me laugh to myself. But I’d always been a one to live and let live and I minded my own business and got on with my work. As long as they didn’t interfere with me, it was their own
business what they got up to.

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 family 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.

T
he 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.