A story about a mother of eight children who was born into the poverty of the East End of London in 1882. Born into a middle-class family, her father a French polisher, she married, maybe for love. I like to think so. But history was not on her side.
EMMA WALTON
My Grandmother was a 19th-century Prostitute
I believe I can see her some days. Dressed in a dirty grey skirt and a colored blouse, she moved through the East End with the surety of being in an environment she owned and thrived in. People liked her as they did her son many years later. She was a people person.
She is short, shapely, with good hips and breasts. Her hair is dark and shoulder-length. Her face is pleasant but not beautiful. Her skin is milky white, and her hands are small. Small hands, good heart, they say. She has a good heart, and once, before the children and before William’s furniture work stopped, she laughed with a giggle that sounded like chime bells ringing. A practical lady now, she had to be with eight children. I like to think that she went to the Ragged School for East Enders. Educational opportunities before then for the poor were mainly organised by religious entities. The Elementary Education Act of 1870, Forster’s Education Act, made it possible for all children to have an education.
William was not so harsh then. He loved the timber he carved and moulded. Once the family had worked as costermongers, but getting produce was so hard to come by, he changed his path. Some of his cousins bought taxi cabs, and he was sorry he hadn’t bought into the business. He didn’t have eight children then.
Emma was beautiful, her grey eyes entranced him, her voice like music when they were alone, like a harp playing. When she was with others, she laughed as hard and as raucously, and when she was angry, the sounds that came from her tiny frame did not match her normal demeanor.
‘Will, help me get some water for a wash for the children, it’s been weeks, and the fleas will be the death of me. I can wash a few clothes then.’
‘Emma, it’s far too much today. I’ve got to meet Jimmy at the pub. Do you want to join us?’
‘Aye, it can wait another day.’