SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hello and welcome back to Bayern Nevada Podcast, Me Forth and Victoria. Today we are continuing on reading an English Madam The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne by Paul Bailey. Chapter 3. He looked like Christie. Rather than return to her father. Cynthia decided to chance life on her own. She found a job as a waitress in Brighton, but soon relinquished it in particular circumstances. I was working at Loyne's the tea shop when this man approached me. He was a little bloke, but he made out he was somebody quite important. He looked like Christie, the mass murderer. Why don't you come and live with me? he said. I've got a daughter who is very, very lazy and I need someone to keep the place clean. He told me he had a nice house where I could stay rent free. I believed him. He was terribly polite, quietly spoken. He seemed a kind old gent. I must have been bloody mad because I gave up my job and left the furnished room I was living in and went off with him. I was desperate for kindness, I suppose. Well, his nice house turned out to be a basement flat. It was in a shocking state. There were hundreds of empty milk bottles everywhere, all over the floor. Christ, it was slum. It really was. There was a girl in the flat, but she wasn't the old man's daughter. Jessie, her name was. She was eighteen, like me. The first thing Jessie says to me is he hasn't got no money. He just pretends all that. He tried to have sex with her, but she wouldn't let him. That first night I had to sleep in the same room as him. He started feeling me, and I got very upset. I remember, and broke down in floods of tears. Okay, he said, I'll leave you alone. Only please don't go away. He didn't try to bother me in that way anymore. Looking back on it, I think he was after turning Jesse and me into prostitutes. He brought a couple of men back to go with me for money, but I wasn't having any. I said no both times. Even though I was bloody hungry, I couldn't get my job back because it was winter already. He wouldn't let me claim assistance money because he was claiming it himself, and I wasn't supposed to have lodgers and wasn't supposed to have lodgers. She remained in the basement flat for almost nine months. I stayed with them because I was lonely. He was a con man, old Christie. A right bloody shyster. He used to rob gas and electric meters. He was supposed to be the caretaker for the rest of the house, looking after it while the owner and his family were abroad. His idea of looking after it was to take their pieces of china, even their bloody wedding photographs, and sell them to the local junk shops. The electricity had been cut off because he hadn't paid the bill, so when it was very cold, when it was brass monkeys winter weather, he'd go upstairs and tear up the floorboards. Then the three of us would huddle round a blazing fire. Cynthia's acting talent was called upon occasionally. He liked to kid people that me and Jesse was his children. The few times he had enough of the ready to take us out on the town. I called him Daddy and snuggled up to him and played the doting little daughter. That was the only fun I had. Otherwise, life was one long bloody nightmare. There were days where she didn't eat. I used to lie in the bed as late as possible. I thought it'll soon be afternoon, and then it will be evening, and perhaps we'll have some money for food tomorrow. Or perhaps not. A cup of tea was a luxury. We couldn't heat the kettle until we'd set a bit of floorboard alight. Christy would come home sometimes and give Jessie and me a couple of shillings each. I would spend my two bob on bread and jam, but Jessie would waste hers by going skating at the ice rink. It used to get on my bloody nerves, the way she squandered her pittance, and then had the cheek to ask for a slice of bread and jam. I was too soft hearted to deny her. Cynthia remembered that as a small girl, she had scoured the beach for discarded lemon bottles. People flocked to the coast after the war. They hadn't seen the sea for five years. They were far too happy to bother about returning their empties and picking up the refund. Her father, on hearing of the manner in which she augmented her pocket money, gave her a severe reprimand. She was bringing the family into disgrace. I told him just before he died that he ought to have been proud of me. It was private enterprise. What I was doing. In Brighton in the winter of 1950, I she went in search of bottles again. She didn't find many, though there were days when she amassed enough to cover the cost of a loaf, a packet of margarine, and a pot of jam. With his keen eye further insulted and injured, Christie, the caretaker, increased the number of his charges to five. He brought home this down and out called Marcel. Her names stayed with me because of the waves. She wasn't French. She was a nutcase. She had a deaf daughter who'd just had a baby. There was no room for them in the basement. So he let them sleep upstairs on what was left of the floor. Marcel wasn't French, but she carried some foreign bodies into the house. She was so dirty and grubby she made Jessie, who was a bloody slut, look clean by comparison, Jessie said to me. He's been to bed with her, and she's got fleas. I'll never forget this woman had gone into our bedroom. Jessie's and mine, that is, Christy, slept at the back. And when we went in after her, we saw all these knits and fleas crawling up the curtains. She'd used a towel, God knows what for, which Jessie and I dumped at the end of the garden. It was covered in bugs. Jessie had a row with him. Get that filthy cow out of here, she said. It's either her or me. So choose between us. Christie didn't want her to leave. It was Marcel and her deaf daughter and baby who had to go. Their departure was welcome in that it meant that Cynthia no longer had to put up with their hungry expressions whenever she caught herself a slice of bread. They just stared at me. It was bloody pitiful. I resented giving them food, because I was sure Marcel's daughter was getting welfare money for the child. While they were in the house, she hardened her heart against Jessie, who was told to stop skating or starve. I remember the old boy giving me sixpence once. I crept out of bed at nine o'clock at night and walked all the way from Ditchling Rise to the centre of Brighton, where there was this soup bar. You could buy a decent bowl of soup for sixpence. It was lovely and hot, and it warmed me right through. I would eat it very slowly whenever I went there, to make it seem more than it really was. Hamilton was told nothing of her life in Brighton. He certainly made no attempt to discuffer how she was faring. She wrote him chervy letters from Ditchling Rise, where she maintained standards of personal cleanliness ignored by her fellow inmates. I saved every penny I could lay my hands on to pay for my sheets to go to the laundry. I always slept in a clean bed. I had that at least. Early in the summer of 1951, she found employment as a waitress on the West Pier, a job that she had been told would be hers two months before. I could have worked for Du Barry's the factory people, but the reason they didn't go into the factory was that you had to work a week for nothing in those days. They started paying you at the end of a fortnight. The second Friday, I didn't have enough money to feed myself so that I could do a proper day's work. I was bloody daft. I could have swallowed my pride and asked for a sub. I might have got it, but I didn't think. I lay in bed most every day at Ditchling Rise until they was ready for me on the West Pier. You were given free meals as a waitress. That was something to look forward to. Meat and vegetables after months of bloody bread and jam. I can't tell you what a beautiful prospect it was. The beautiful prospect at last became reality. Going into the kitchens and having wonderful food. Oh the elation. I felt the sheer bloody elation. One day I collected a few shillings and tips, and that was wonderful too. And though I had to wait till the end of the week for my three pound wages, it didn't matter because I was eating. The woman who ran the restaurant, she was sympathetic. She felt sorry for me. She asked me what sort of conditions I was living in, and I explained. I explained, but I couldn't just tell her the full truth. Christie was not happy that Cynthia was now relatively independent. He didn't like it. He was frightened that I was going to leave. He wouldn't take any rent off me. He wasn't a bad man. In his funny way, he looked on Jesse and me as his family. And he was scared, I suppose. That like other families, we would soon split up. On one of her days off, the young woman of Means travelled 25 miles to see Hamilton and Melanie. She wrote to her sister on her return. My dear Melanie, well, I arrived back alright the other night. What did the old man have to say? All grumbles, I suppose. It was nice to see you after all this time, but at the same time, I was upset to think that you wanted to join those friends of yours so soon only after you've spoken to me for a couple of seconds. You can always see those people at any time, but not always me. Perhaps you'll realize when you get older that when Dad dies and it's not all that far off, that there isn't anybody like your own flesh and blood. The only friend we ever had was our mum, and now she isn't here with us. We should be real sisters to each other and help one another when in trouble. I know in the past I haven't been what I should have been, but that doesn't mean to say I don't regret it because I do. When you're out in the world all alone, you learn such a lot about people and life itself, and it isn't always nice either. And then you realise how well I know I do, how lucky I am to have a father that cares for me, and a sister I think the world of, and do anything for. But in her little mind to understand, I can't exactly tell you on paper what I'm trying to say, it's very difficult. I've been longing to see you both, but I expect with you I was soon forgotted. In my heart, I know with Dad he wants to see me more than he dare show. Dad is a very funny person. I'm only just beginning to understand. Him, he's very much like me, has an awful lot of false pride, but with working every Sunday it's very difficult to get time off. I'm earning roughly about six pounds a week, waitress of course. But that still isn't what I intend to get this summer. Come over one Wednesday early if you can, get round dad, and it's my day off too. I'll pay half your fare as it will be a lot for you to pay out. It's five slash four day return, and then I'll take you out to tea somewhere, then perhaps to the hippodrome. That's up to you anyway. You won't have to pay for anything. Write back soon telling me the scandal. Fancy Rose expecting a baby. I expect they are all thinking why I haven't had one before now. Haha. Please send me Keith's letters to me, which he sent you if you don't mind. I shall love to hear what he says. Send them all in a package if you like. Also, you must please send on my bathing costume. As Ernie, that is one of Keefe's pals, is going to take me up to London to meet his people in fortnight's time. And I shall probably sunbathe. He's a very nice boy. He holds the same position on board ship as Keith does. Assist slash laundryman. In fact, he is the boy I mentioned who was wanting to write to you, remember? He's brought me a double string of pearls with diamonds in the middle. He's home next week. I hope to go to Yarnmouth for a week and a week in London, so please don't forget to send the costume, will you? I also go to elocution lessons now at 3 slash 6 an hour. Do you think I'm improving or didn't you notice? I'm putting an advert in the August tomorrow for a post which would mean going abroad. I hope if I get an answer the old man will give me his consent, else I can't go unless. Then you would have plenty of nylons. That's if I had the money. How I'd love to go abroad, that's always been my ambition. When I've done that probably I shall be able to settle down. Until I do, I don't think I ever shall. Well, I think I've written enough. Excuse writing in pencil, but I'm supposed to be working. We're not busy, but the boss keeps walking up and down. Still, I don't care. He can only give me the sack. There's plenty of jobs now. Cheerio, write soon, won't you? All my love, Cynthia. After the long dark spell in Christie's basement, Cynthia was beginning to regain her confidence. Nice boys like Ernie were paying attention to her, giving her presents. I was in a hell of a mess when I was living with the old man. I was looking for a genuine boyfriend. But I never found one. I was a pretty little thing, though I say so myself. And I could never understand why. And there was Christy bringing these blokes back. There's one in particular I remember. He had met the old boy in a pub, and Christie had said to him, I've got a girl at home. She's not on the game, but try her anyway. He offered me money, this bloke. I wouldn't do it, hungry as I was. He said to me, I've got nowhere to sleep. So I said, You could still do that in these days. You can get into my bed, but I'm not having any sex. I wanted his company. I was very lonely. I'm not having any sex, I told him. But we can talk instead. He said, You could never do that. Because men don't think you can be in bed and not have sex, because men probably can't. He thought that by the morning I would give in. That by then I'd be so excited I'd let him have it. He didn't understand. A lot of men don't. That for a woman it's different. A woman's got to be turned on emotionally. Well, I'll never forget. In the morning, he said he'd never had a woman say that and carry it through. We didn't have sex. Hard as he tried, believe it or not, he was quite pleasant to me in the morning. You know, a man who hadn't got rid of his spunk can turn bloody nasty. But he didn't. He took me out for a walk along the pier, and he even bought me a meal. Really lovely that was. He didn't give me any money. He said he would come back for me, but he never did. He probably would have got what he wanted if he had preserved. But I suppose as he didn't get it that day, he thought I was a dead loss, so I never saw him no more. She left Christy and Jessie to their unlikely life in Ditchling Rise and moved into a comfortable s furnished room near the seafront. She worked hard and ate well. When the season came to an end, she was unemployed once more. I decided that I wasn't going to go through another winter like that. London was the place for me. On September 6th, she wrote to Hamilton. My dear dad, hmm. Just a few lines to let you know. I'll be home for a few days before I go live in London for the winter season. It will be an opportunity for me to learn a bit more about nursing and at the same time learning a language which will enable me to being a stewardess. Thank you for letting Melanie come to Brighton last Wednesday. I think she enjoyed herself. She ought to have done seeing the money I spent on her. It seems rather a pity to think I have to entice her with nice things before she'll come over. Still, perhaps she'll change though. I doubt it very much. Goodbye for now till next week. Yours loving Cinders. The move to London from Brighton took an entire week to effect. What money she had saved was spent on settling her rent in Brighton and paying her London landlord a deposit for a room in Hammersmith. I remember travelling. Travelling up to London every day by train, carrying my few belongings. I managed to get on without paying a fare. I still don't know how I managed it, but I did. I took my bits and pieces up to London over four days, and I never had a ticket. To show you how bloody stupid I was, on the last bloody day I was stopped at the barrier by this fatherly man who said, You've got no ticket. No, I said. That is an offence, he said. I got away with it through my cheek. Honestly, really. I looked at him and I said, I know I don't. I know. Don't do anything. This is my last day. I've been doing this all week. He looked at me in real astonishment. I mean, he was bloody surprised. So he said, Well, I'll have to take your name and address. I gave him my new address and Hammersmith, but I heard no more about it. I wasn't prosecuted. I think the ticket collector must have taken pity on me. He knew I was telling the truth. You don't say bloody stupid things like that unless you're being honest. She had no difficulty finding a job. She was immediately taken on as a waitress in the restaurant at the department store, Swan and Edgar. She paid three pounds a week for the room in Blue Kirk Road, which she shared with a girl called Linda. I don't know why I did it, but I wrote to Terry and he came and stayed a couple nights. He got into bed with me, with Linda sleeping only feet away. I felt ashamed. My father, when he heard about it, was absolutely disgusted. You mean to say, he said, you let him do that to you? With that woman there all the time? Well, that's what happened. I only had sex with Terry and I clicked. I'd clicked with him once before, and he gave me some pills. I don't know where he got them from, and I came on again after taking them. But this particular time he tried to arrange an abortion, and I got scared. I couldn't go through with it. She was fortunate in her next employer, a kindly woman who owned a calf in Whitfield Street. She let me work for her until I was eight months pregnant. She was really considerate. One day I was in such a state, I got on a bus with no money on me, and an inspector booked me, and I had to go to court. She went to court with me and told the magistrate about the troubles I was going through. It was this lady who taught Cynthia the best way to poach eggs. I cooked hundreds of poached eggs every day. When I started running my brothel, I made sure there were always plenty of eggs in the kitchen. The girls get hungry and the customers often like a snack afterwards. I'm not much of a cook, but I do a beautiful poached egg. Terence contrived to steer clear of London and responsibility. The confident Cynthia who had left Brighton with vague ambitions to study nursing and to learn a language was in desperate straints. Once more, I met another con man in a pub in Goldhawk Road. He would have looked like Richard Woodmark if he hadn't been bold. He chatted me up and said he knew a butcher who let him have first class meat on the cheap. So he started coming round to see me, and he'd bring a couple of lamb chops. I was thrilled to bits with that. Being shown kindness. I thought he was showing kindness. He was getting his oats, man you, even though I was eight months gone, looking back on it. What's a couple of lamb chops for a fuck? He was another who got it easy. He was older too, and I thought he was being good to me at the time. I had a hell of a job trying to get rid of him after he found out that my father had money. She wrote to Hamilton when the baby was due after four months silence. What you have heard is true, but I did intend to go through with it without you knowing. I'm afraid there's nothing you can do to help me, as I've seen to everything myself. Thanks all the same. I'm quite in good health, I've been attending the local clinic and hospital for three months. I also intend keeping the child, and the father of the child is Terry, who eventually I'll sue, as I think he's trying to get out of it. Well, there's nothing much more to say, only stop worrying, there's nothing you can do about it. Love from Cinders. His response to this letter was to visit her in London and tell her off for being pregnant. His attitude was you've made your bed, you lie on it. He didn't offer me any money, though he could see how poor I was. I hated having to ask him for anything. But I got so bloody desperate at eight and a half months that I sent him a telegram. By this time I was only thirty shillings a week from national assistance. Please send me money urgently. Love Cinders. That was the message. Back came five pounds, which went a long way in 1952. Help of a more lasting kind was provided by Cynthia's welfare officer, Sister Olive. She asked me if I wanted to keep the baby. I said I'd like to, but I didn't think I could afford it. She said if you really want to keep it, I can help. Bring the baby to me and I'll put it in my home. Home? I said. What home? Mine, I run it. We'll help you get on your feet after the child's born. She put me in touch with Queen Charlotte's maternity hospital, and a lady, Almaner, arranged for me to have the baby there. Three weeks before the child was expected, Cynthia went to Queen Charlotte's for a routine checkup. I'd been bloody mad again. I should have been going regularly. While I was there they said to me, You've got to come in tonight. I was scared. Tonight? Why tonight? Then this nurse told me that they'd found I'd got toxemia. I could lose my baby. We want you in now. Once I calmed down I thought to myself, At least I'll get a decent meal in here. That's how desperate I was. The nurse was worried I could tell. She kept saying, You will come in now, won't you? I said yes. I'd stopped thinking about the toxamania. I was looking forward to my evening meal. Her evening meal, in her opinion, was no meal at all. It was a salad. I hated salads. I could just see this heap of lettuce, some tomato and beetroot. Nothing to get your teeth into. Got any food? I said. Eat it, they said. It was a bloody order. Then I heard someone say, We're going to induce the waters to bring the baby forward. And after that I don't remember no more, because they must have drugged me. I don't remember waking up properly till a week later. Whenever I woke up, I saw these spirit forms in my room. Spirit doctors, spirit nurses. I was dead scared to tell anyone. When the doctor said, Are you alright? I answered yes. But I wasn't, because I was seeing all these other spirit people behind them. One day I woke up and felt my stomach, and I suddenly realized I had had the baby. A nurse came in and I said to her, What's the time? She didn't reply. She just went over to the table and came back again. What's the time? I said. And still she didn't answer. Then a real nurse came in, flesh and blood, and it dawned on me that the other one I'd seen was a spirit. When I asked this nurse the time, she told me, Do you think I could have something to eat? It's funny, but after all those drugs I'd been given, food was the first thought in my mind. My dear, she said, you couldn't keep anything down. I told her again that I wanted something to eat. When she brought me a meal, I can't recall what it was, I said to her. I asked the other nurse to bring me something and to tell me the time, but she wouldn't answer me. She said, What other nurse? I'm the only nurse who has come into this room today. I felt really frightened then. If I enlarge on this, they'd think I'm crazy. That's the thought that came into my head. I was so terrified of what they might do to me medically that I thought I won't say it again. I won't say it again. I just clammed up. I saw those spirit nurses and doctors around me for days on end. I would put out my hands to see if I could touch them. When they came nearer, I ducked my head under the sheets. I was so bloody scared. As soon as I was awake and the spirits were all gone, they drugged me again. Cynthia did not see her son until he was a week old. It was weird. They brought him in to me. I didn't remember the birth or nothing. And then I heard the nurse say, Poor little thing, she's only a baby herself. Dominic weighed four pounds, that was all. What could you expect when his mother hadn't been eating solid food? Tom, the provider of lamb chops, telephoned Hamilton with the news of Dominic's birth. My father rushed up to London, but I was too drugged to see him. He bought me hundreds of flowers, they were all over my room. He spent a bloody small fortune on flowers, but it was too late. I mean, I was putting bits of cardboard in my shoes because they were falling apart, and he showers me with bloody roses. He gave me a couple of night dresses. I was conscious when he brought those, and he handed me a little money, but the damage was done. He thanked Tom for keeping an eye on me, for letting him know how I'd been. Then he took himself home. Cynthia wrote to him soon after. I'm writing to say he's going to be called Dominic Arthur. Now I've at last made up my mind. I did like Barry, though but I do think the other name is less unusual. The doctor said I bet I was better today, said I could get up to have a bath, which I asked if I could do. He looked at me and saw my makeup and the rouge lying on the locker and said, Now are you sure you're feeling alright? You're not just saying that, are you? Then with a smile, said, Don't put any more of that stuff on, else you'll set yourself on fire. It's terribly hot in this room and getting a little bit fed up. One or two of the nurses makes me mad. I'm sure to answer one of them back of these days. I know they do a grand job and work hard, but these student nurses, they are always in a blinking hurry, rushing about, and when I feed the baby with the ball, the little devil plainly ignores me with those eyes, and flatly refuses to suck after he's had a little drop. And they say he must have it. Then I have to force it down his little throat, then he vomits it all up. It makes me all of a panic, but I suppose I'll get used to all of it. Then the nurses are larky because I'm too slow feeding him. Then it makes them all behind you, see? I don't believe in forcing it down them, but they seem to. I don't know when I'm coming out. Not before Wednesday anyway. Ask Winifred for me if she'll let me stay with her for a few days at the end of September. Well, I'll close now, give Melanie my love, tell her I'll give her birthday present to her when I get out. Cheerio, thanks for what you've done, love, from Cinders. There follow eight kisses. Three days later, she sent him another letter. Just a short note to say on Saturda morning, I shall be going to live with Sister Olive for about two or three weeks until I find accommodation. I don't particularly want to go, but I suppose if you have the sweet, you've got to have the bitter. Anyway, they help you to learn how to look after the baby which is bound to be a help. It will be in Chisick, not far from the hospital. The Lady Armoura has arranged everything for me. It will be better in a way because I will be allowed more freedom and visitors. You and Melanie could come up and spend three or four hours with me taking the baby out, as I'm allowed out every afternoon. Well, I'll write again. If I don't see you before the weekend, give you the address, find out how their system is and let you know. Cheerio for now, love cinders. She was frightened at the thought of living in the church army home for mothers and babies, even though Sister Olive had assured her she would be cared for there. She definitely didn't want to go back to the room in Beauclerk Road, which she had been sharing for nearly a year with the increasingly untidy Linda. She had written to Hamilton weeks before Dominic's birth, begging him to break into the savings he had accumulated on her behalf. With them, she told him she could rent an unfurnished apartment where there would be no problem about having a growing child on the premises. Hamilton's reply to this prophetic request has not survived. He did not release the money. Perhaps he reasoned that his daughter might yet find herself in even worse circumstances. Shortly before Cynthia entered Queen Charlotte's sister, Olive had communicated with Hamilton, expressing her anxiety. I think she needs more supervision if she is not to go on making mistakes. The welfare officer went on to say that the room in Blue Cleric Road was not a fit place in which to raise a baby. She suggested that Hamilton should talk to her, Sister Olive, about Cynthia's future. The two met and talked. If the sister offered him advice, as most probably did, there is no evidence whatever to indicate that he followed it. For the girl who had gone to Earth, so to speak, with a man who looked like Christie, was to live even more grimly for the next five years. Well, that is the end of this part of the book. We'll be carrying on with chapter 4 next week. And this has been Behind the Padder Podcast, me, Post and Victoria, reading an English Madam, the life and work of Cynthia Pain. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, please leave a review. And bye!