SPEAKER_01 0:57

Hello and welcome back to Behind the Powder Podcast with me and Paulson Victoria. We're moving on now to chapter 4 of Paul Bailey's An English Madam The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne. Cynthia and Dominic were taken by ambulance to the home in Chiswick. The driver dropped me at the wrong end of Barrowgate Road. It goes on for miles. I had to troop up the whole bloody length of it, holding my baby with one hand and a heavy suitcase with the other. I nearly took off when I found the place. I was so terrified. Christ, I thought. What have I let myself in for? But after two or three days inside, I was laughing. I'll never forget, Sister Olive. She came up to me and said, Cynthia, I remember you saying you were scared to come into my home, and now you're screaming with laughter. She told me it was lovely to hear my laugh. It was reassuring. It meant I was on the mend. I realized then that it wasn't so bad in there. At least I was getting my food. And good food it was, too. Not more of those bloody salads. Of the dozen women in care, Cynthia was the only one who intended to keep her baby. It took guts to do that in the 1950s. The others were all worried what their parents would think and what the neighbors would say. Some of them had been pressured by their mothers into having the kitties adopted, despair the family shame. That sort of blackmail. While she was in the home, she managed to shake off her third con merchant. My father had slipped Tom a fiver when he thanked him for looking after me. Guilty conscience, I suppose. Tom got into his thick head that dad was loaded and scrounged fifteen pounds out of him. More than I ever bloody got. To tar up an old van he'd bought. She wrote to Hamilton. I've finished with Tom. I've just had about enough. One after another he wants stuff for that van, and there he is doing nothing. About time he started to work to help with the payments. And that fifteen pounds you sent him. I wish you would always consulted me. I would have never had let you sent it to him. I hate borrowing money. I never knew anything about it. He knew darned well I would have kicked off a fuss. That's no way to start any business. Melanie will tell you what happened. Tell her I said she can tell you. Admittingly, he probably spent it on the van, but it was the lies I didn't like. I shall go to work myself, I'll manage somehow. There's only one way to success, and that's the hard way. I already said I've finished with him, but one of the girls here have told me he's coming up the road to see me. I think he's sorry. And I do believe he'll pay me some money when he gets some. I told him to sell the van, but I don't think I'll ever get that money, what I've paid for it. But he's not going to fool me. I can get on without him. It will be harder, but it's worth trying. Dominic is growing into a lovely boy. I would never give up, even if I've got to scrub floors. Tom was confronted by a determined and resolute Cynthia. He was not going to fool her, she announced. She could get on without him. She reminded him, as she had reminded Terence, that he had assumed certain responsibilities. The acquaintance of the purveyor of first classmate returned to his lodgings and dashed off a letter to Hamilton. I am so sorry about not writing before, but I was so very glad about you sending me the money. And it all went on the van. I already showed Cinders the bills for it. I hope you don't think I am all for myself, because I'm not. Cinders has only got to say whether she wants to finish with the van or not. I mean all said and done, it's hers, and as for trying to twist her out of it, I am not made that way. We are getting on okay again for a change. I have got the van okay, it's running lovely now. I'm going to work for a while until I can get a few pounds so I can go down the markets with to do some business. I have put my heart and soul into that van, believe me, Mr Payne. I hope you don't condemn me for not writing to say I received money. I apologize very much. I will send it back soon and thanks again. I hope Melanie enjoyed her stay in London. Yours sincerely Tom. Assisted by the always sympathetic Olive, Cynthia staged another confrontation at Barrowgate Road. She was a cute old stick, she told me to write to Terry and say that I wanted to see him. I wasn't to let on that I was being looked after in a mother and baby home. So I wrote to him on ordinary note paper, just put fifty three Barrowgate Road, London four A at the top. He fell for the bait all right. Oh he fell for it hook, line and sinker. He thought I was in furnished rooms. He didn't mind parting with the train fare to London so long as he could get a fuck at the other end. That's what I reckoned. He was knocking on the door of the home by return of post. If you see my meaning. Sister Olive let him in. She was a cute old dear. Cynthia's inside, she said to him, without telling him where he was. Go right in. She showed him into a waiting room, didn't she? He must have been wetting himself. It was marvellous. It was really marvellous getting one over on Terry after the way he'd treated me. I walked into that waiting room and I said Hello Terry. This is a home. I sat and talked with him for half an hour, and Sister Olive made some excuse to come in and show us talking. It was evidence. It was definite proof that he was the father of Dominic. Terence had lunch with Cynthia and Melanie on the day the affiliation order was brought against him. They always say just before you go into court you shouldn't mix with the defendant, and it only goes to show how true that is. He knew my sister was a witness, that she was there to say I'd been going with him a lot. He was the bloody mad one for a change. We went to his little cheap calf and Terry started up on his high horse and turned to Melanie and said I hope when Dominic grows up that he'll have the brains of his father and not his mother. He could have bitten his tongue off. In court that afternoon the judge asked Melanie if Terry had ever said anything ever that suggested the child might be his. So Melanie said Well about thirty minutes ago in the restaurant he did say he hoped the child would have the brains of his father rather than his mother. And that was how he got caught. That one stupid boast, or bloody sarcasm, more like it did for him. He was ordered to pay me fifteen shillings a week towards Dominic's upkeep. I really needed that money for the child's sake, but he seldom paid me, and he got it down to a shilling towards the end. Terry was a schemer. He knew I wouldn't go on pushing for the money because it was such a bloody effort to get it out of him. The schemer was aware that Dominic had an industrious grandfather. He felt safe in the assumption that Hamilton would ensure that the boy came to no harm. My father refused to pay whenever Terry let me down. You've made your own bed, you lie in it. I used to take Dominic home two or three times a year, but Dad forbid me to bring him into the shop. He'd leave the garden gate unlocked for me. I don't want people to know you've had a baby. I want to keep it quiet. That's what he said. It was the tradesman's entrance for his own flesh and blood. Dominic's father had himself been abandoned as a baby. He had been left on the doorstep of a covenant, wrapped in a shawl. He used to get tearful about the nuns. I'm leaving all my money to that covenant. He said that the last time I saw him about a year ago. The money you forgot to give your son, I said. The money you waste getting yourself bloody maudlin. He was crying for himself as usual. Cynthia stayed at Barragate Road for six weeks. She was then sent on to another home, Torrington Park, where Dominic was cared for by the nurses during the day while his mother was out at work. She stayed there a month. She did not return to the prospective marketer who had put his heart and soul into the van. She lacked Tom's faith in his own business acumen, particularly now that she had a child to support. She began to fend for herself. It was bloody terrible. Any man who gave me a meal I let him screw me. I had to find lodgings where there was someone who could look after Dominic in the daytime. One place I went to, the husband started to take too much notice of me, and his wife had to get rid of me. People have got no idea what it's like when you're stony broke and dependent on people. When you're unmarried with a baby, they think they can take advantage. I shacked up with this bloke, Charlie. I lived in one dirty room with him. I left a baby with a woman down the road and smuggled him in at night without the landlord noticing. I stayed awake to all hours in case he started crying. On april sixteenth, nineteen fifty three, Sister Olive wrote to Hamilton I'm afraid Cynthia is not doing well at all. All looking after the baby as she should. I haven't heard from her myself, but I get bad reports from workers at the district where she is. It is all very disappointing. I had no money, that's why. There was no social security to speak of in those days. Later that year she gave birth to a stillborn child. It was Charlie's. We couldn't have afforded it anyway. I was having enough trouble keeping Dominic fed and clothed. Charlie wasn't a con artist, but he was always skint. I went to one welfare woman, I remember, and I said, Look, I can't look after the baby properly. I am trying, it's not that I'm not trying. I suppose the kid was neglected, but he wasn't cruelly treated. He was never bashed about or anything horrible like that. It was just that he was having to live in slum areas with slum families. I realized this was no good. I realized that this was no way to bring him up. He had to be fostered out. There was no other choice. I put an advert in a shop window in Holloway. I was living in a dirty rotten hole in Holloway Road. Foster mother wanted for little boy. I never thought I'd end up in Holloway prison, because when I used to pass it on the bus, I would joke to myself You'll have been there one day. You don't think jokes like that would ever come true, do you? Her advertisement elicited seven responses. One was from Hoxton in the east end. It was worse than Christie's basement, the dump she lived in. It was shocking. It made our Holloway home look like a bloody palace. I could never have left him there. This Mrs. Somerville, she wrote to me. I knew at a glance her letter was genuine. She hadn't been able to have children. I went to see her. I liked her straight away. She took to me and she took to Dominic. I let her have him. It was the wisest thing I ever did. She charged me two pounds a week to start with. She was very motherly. Life became relatively easier after Mrs. Somerville began to take care of Dominic. It wasn't easy for long because I was pregnant again. Can you imagine? After all I'd gone through here, I was pregnant again. I mean I wouldn't have minded if I'd enjoyed the sex, but I wasn't enjoying it. I was only doing it to keep a man. I thought he'd leave me otherwise. So there I was, getting myself in worse smook. I will say this for Charlie. He stuck by me. His only trouble was that he never had enough money. He was a casual labourer, and there were times when jobs were scarce. She gave birth to a healthy child. Charlie came from a broken home himself, and he said to me, We can't bring this boy up properly, so we'll have him adopted. He found a couple who couldn't click and they took him. He was just weeks old. She parted from Charlie on reasonably amicable terms. Ours wasn't a flaming bloody passion by a long shot. We kept each other company. That was about the depths of it. We were both lonely. I lost interest in him though. I wanted what I'd always wanted excitement. I realized I'd missed out on that if I stayed with him. I don't want any more. I'm finished, I said. He didn't make the slightest effort to persuade me. Why not? Was all he said when he suggested we split. Cynthia arrived in Margate with ten shillings in her pocket. It was her intention to work as a waitress for the summer season. I'll never forget the first day I was there. I went into a hotel and I got a job as a chambermaid. I had to have a roof over my head, that was the main thing. At least I'd have somewhere to sleep. That night I dressed myself up, put some makeup on, the Yanks were in town, and I thought one of them might take a fancy to me, and gave me a good time. Americans were never short of spare. I went to Greenland Park, the amusement arcade. I was walking past a ball game when a voice said Come over here, darling. I said straight back, You won't get any money out of me. That's how Sam and I got started. I was twenty two by now. Come here, he said. No, I said. I played that game when I was a youngster. You can never bloody win. Come here, he said. I don't want your money. He burst out laughing. I think he liked my savvy because though I was green I wasn't going to let him have even a sixpence. He told me I could play a game for nothing, and then he said, Bold and brass, meet me later on at the main entrance. I finish at eight. I said yes, I would. We had a meal and he was good fun to be out with, and two or three days after he said, Leave that hotel and come live with me. I've got a nice flat. So I did. She was hired as a waitress in a fish restaurant and lived with Sam until the season was over. Oh it was bloody wonderful. He was a con merchant too. He was a different kind of con man though. He conned with class. He knew how to get people to spend their money. I used to sit and watch him. They'd spend pounds on his ball game. He'd fake it so they would win once in a while. And of course that made them go on playing. The oldest trick in the world. But they always fell for it. We had some lovely bloody laughs the two of us. He said the first of several goodbyes to her at Victoria Station at the end of September. He had other women, of course. Cynthia never refers to women. The singular noun is made to do service for multitudes. Women are more romantic than men, is the typical utterance. Sam also had a mother, upon whom he doted. He lived with her in a tenant in the East End. He was very good to old Sophie. He used to say he would never let her go without. She was his excuse for not marrying me. I can't afford you and her, and it's not in my nature to let her go without. Oh he must have told me that a dozen times. I would have made him a good wife. I would have helped him save his money. During that winter in London, Cynthia discovered that she was pregnant. She contacted Sam, who insisted that she have an abortion. She complied with his demands. That first one was quite easy. There was no pain to speak of. It was all over and done with quickly. Sam was equally insistent on his right not to wear a contraceptive. His one aesthetic objection. His one was an aesthetic objection. He said it was like going to bed with your socks on. As a result, he impregnated her again the following summer, when they were living together in Margate. We bloody clicked, because he didn't draw out in time. You can trust me, doll, he said. He always called me doll, did Sam. I'll be very careful. After that I was too tense to enjoy having sex with him. Why don't you bloody relax? he'd asked me. As if I could, with a thought of ending up in the club at the back of my mind. Her second abortion was neither quick nor easy. The woman I'd gone to before wasn't available. I think she must have given it up. So we had to find somebody else. Sam got wind of another one who practiced in Aldgate. You couldn't see her face for makeup, and her hair looked like it had been dyed every colour of the rainbow. She was really a rough customer. I took against her the moment I clapped eyes on her, but I had to go through with it. I had no choice. And besides, she was cheap. She only charged a fiver. While she was getting things ready, I half expected Jack the Ripper to walk into the room. It was that bloody horrible. I was much more scared than I'd ever first been. Than I'd been the first time, because that first woman was clean. She was more than clean. She was pernicity, you know, fussy dus. She sterilized everything, but not that Aldgate cow. All of a sudden she, Aldgate, this is, with the war paint on her mush well, she got a bowl ready, and I could see she wasn't particular. Then she picked up her syringe and started to fill it with warm water, washing powder. I'll never forget that. She put dazz in the syringe. When you do an ordinary abortion with an enema syringe, you use mild carbolic soap. I must have been bloody mad because I didn't think nothing of it, except I remember her putting dazz in the water. I should have said something. She told me to stand over the bowl. What they do with an enema syringe is that they stick the tubes up because they know where to get to the womb. The first woman who did it didn't hurt me in the least. You could tell she was skilled. She knew what she was doing. When that second woman did it though, I was really frightened. It hurt like hell. That's alright, she said. You'll come away. Come back and see me tomorrow if you don't. She didn't seem to realise the pain I was in. She was so matter of fact. Cynthia rented a room in North London in which to have the abortion. Sam kept well away from me. He was squeamish. I'll leave you to get on with it. That's how much he cared. I had no friends. I was all alone. I took myself off to the cinema that evening. Every time I had an abortion I would go and see a film just to take my mind off what was happening. The pictures cheered me up. I saw the Roman spring of Mrs. Stone. I remember a Roman holiday. That was a funny coincidence, those two films being about Rome. I'll never forget I was in agony that night after Aldgate. I had nobody in the house to confide in. The landlady was only interested in her rent, and I lay there in that scruffy room until the morning, and the pain I was in was tro was terrible. It was the Daz washing powder. The Daz washing powder had smarted my insides. I got out of bed as soon as it was light. I was still in agony. I managed to dress somehow or another, and then I wandered up Finsbury Park Road to Loines Tea Shop very, very slow because the pain I was in was terrible. I can't say often enough how terrible it was. I was in Loines and I ordered a milk and a dash. They used to do a special coffee called a milk and a dash. It was the best thing I could have had. That warm liquid going through me. I didn't realise I would just wanted a milk and a dash. I craved nice hot milk, and I didn't realise. I came out of loins and I started walking towards Stephen's sisters road, and I caught sight of the toilets in the middle of the street. All of a sudden I felt something dropping between my legs. I thought, oh my god, the hot milk's done the trick. There I was, stuck in the Seven Sisters Road with blood running down me, and I knew I had to make it to the ladies' pronto. I had this lump wedged between my legs. I don't know how I managed to walk. I kept stopping. Because of the thing between my legs, I thought, oh Christ, it's the baby. Abortions were illegal in those days, and if I'd come away in the street in broad daylight, I could have been arrested. By some miracle I got to the laboratory, found a free cubicle. It was very emotional. No sooner had I closed the door behind me than it came away. It was hanging between my legs with the cord. It was a boy, and it was fully formed. So I must have been further gone than I reckoned. The first abortion I'd had, it wasn't formed. It was just some sort of lump. But this one was an awful feeling of guilt came over me because I could see it was a boy. I remember crying in the toilet and saying, Oh God forgive me, or something like that. I don't believe in God, but I remember asking him to forgive me. I told him I had to do it. I had to have it done. I remember wrapping the baby up in some newspaper and sticking it behind the S bend of the toilet, and I was weeping all the while. At the same time it was odd. I had a tremendous feeling of relief that the abortion was over, because I dreaded having another one, so I was really elated that it had come out, but I do remember crying and asking God to forgive me. She remained in the public lavatory until her tears had abated. I soon got over the God business. I had to start living again. It was always a worry finding someone to do an abortion, and now the worrying was through. I wanted to start afresh. I was still in pain from the washing powder, but I knew I had to get to Victoria and catch the train home. My father was expecting me. I had my suitcase with me and it weighed a ton, although it was light because of the pain I was in. I could hardly walk. I remember I stopped a bloke and asked him if he would carry my case across the road. I told him I'd just haven't I told him I'd just had an operation, and that's what I kidded him. He helped me on the bus, and then I caught my train. Dad was waiting for me at the other end. I'll never forget. My father was impatient with me for walking so slow, slower than a bloody snail, he said. Christ, Cinders, can't you walk quicker than that? I was trying to keep it away from him what had happened, I thought. If only you knew. I had no money. I was only home because I didn't have much money, and I knew I'd always get food down dad's as well as a comfortable bed with clean sheets. I really needed to lay in bed. My father was furious with me. Get out of that bloody bed, he shouted up the stairs, or I'll come and drag you out. He could never stomach laziness, and he wasn't to know that I wasn't being lazy. Oh it was terrible, having to keep the truth from him. It was so painful just getting out of bed that in the end I confined it in Melanie. I explained to her that I'd had an abortion, and I asked her if she could fetch me something. I can't recall what it was. From one of the other rooms. She got annoyed and said, I'm not running about after you. I said, Look, Melanie, I've just had a nasty abortion. I'll never forget my sister was that hard. It still didn't make any difference to her. She wasn't sympathetic at all. I'm not running about after you. Anyway, after two or three days my father stopped nagging me. I think Melanie must have told him what I'd told her. If he knew, he never let on. He wasn't exactly affectionate, but he was treating me a little better. Not being bowled at made a nice change. Unlike Terence, who frequently welcomed Cynthia with open palms, Sam never asked his doll for money. Men were providers, however, intermittently, and when they were short of funds they found a good excuse to disappear. Sam was constantly inventing such excuses. Cynthia was in love with Sam, was obsessed by the right little grafter, to the extent that she allowed his every indulgence. I must have been bloody mad. He was a very sexy person. He'd want it morning, afternoon, and night. And it used to get on my bloody nerves. It was just too much. He gave me so much that I could never learn to enjoy it. Why don't you ever have orgasms? he asked me. Well I was scared of getting pregnant for one thing. And for another, he didn't seem to understand that if he cared about my pleasure rather than his, I'd stand a better chance of coming too. A lot of men just don't care about satisfying women. Sam gave me so much sex I went off it for two or three years after we packed it in. It sounds daft when you think what I do for a living, but it wasn't until I was in my late 30s that I came for the first time. That was with Mohammed, who really knew how to fuck so that it was fun for both. Mind you, I was on the pill by then, which made life easier. I wasn't worrying all the time about clicking with Ma Muhammad and having black babies by the cartload. But it wasn't like that with Sam. Even though I loved him, that side of life was never fun. I remember crying once while he was doing it because I didn't want it, and I said so. It was that part of the month. He took no bloody notice. When the prick is hard, the brain is in the balls. And that's where he it was. I used to get into red with Sam and want him to cuddle me, show me affection, but of course a man like Sam couldn't cuddle for long without having a hard on. I would say to him, I'll let you cuddle me, but I don't want any of that because I'm not in the mood. And then he'd say, Alright, doll, I'm not going to do it. I don't fancy sex tonight either. The crafty sod. After cuddling me a little while he'd become so bloody hot. There was only one thing he could do to cool off. So in the end, I'd give it to him, and I'd never enjoy it. I'll never forget he came home this particular afternoon and we had a bit of a row. He said he was ready for it, and I said I wasn't. Anyway, I learnt early on in our relationship that the best thing to do was to get him despunked. Sam was marvellous company as soon as he'd came. When his cock was soft, he was a carnival bloke. With his brain in his balls though, he was a bloody pest with him that afternoon, but I took my clothes off and I lay on the bed and I picked up the evening paper. I thought to myself, I'll show you how much I want it. I'll read the bloody paper while you're screwing me. And that's what I did. I tried to block my mind from the fact that he was fucking me. Oh, he went bloody mad. He flung the paper across the room and called me all the cows under the sun. But as I say, when he had his brain in the right place and plenty of money to spend on his doll, he was the most wonderful man any girl could wish for. Thanks to Sam distaste for rubber ware, Cynthia had to undergo a third abortion. Sam would say he'd draw her out, and sometimes he did. Nine times out of ten he did. But when he didn't, I clicked. I'll never forget Sam found another woman to do it. She must have been a friend of his because she talked sense to him. Don't you leave that girl on her own, she said. She was somebody with a mother instinct. She told Sam that if I died he would be in real trouble, and that I shouldn't be left alone while I was coming away. I'll never forget it was absolute bloody heaven. I remember Sam saying to me, Look, doll, I'm going to be with you on this abortion. I'm going to be with you all night. It was really lovely having him there all night because on the other hand, occasions I'd been on my own. He said, You're not to do anything yourself. When it comes away I'll empty all the blood in the buckets. You're not to do anything. I'll empty the blood. I thought to myself, Christ, somebody's been talking to him. So we had the abortion, and we went to the pictures and he took me home, and I said it was going to come away that night, and he said, Don't worry, doll, I'm staying with you. I wonder why this sudden change. But I didn't say anything to spoil it, because it was really lovely. All night long I had the pains, but they weren't bad. Nothing like the Daz ones. The abortion had been done properly. I'll never forget. I got up in the morning and I said to Sam, I think it's coming away. And then it did. It came down my legs. Sam hadn't seen it when it happened before. It was a boy again. We had this one big room, and I was quite excited. I was elated. I said, Oh Sam, look, it's a boy. Of course, thinking back on it he was frightened. It's always frightening to a man, and I was taking it so casual. Anyway, I said to Sam, come and have a look at it. He was still in bed. He'd have his arm round me all night and for once he hadn't bothered me for sex. No, doll, I don't want to look at it. I'd got a newspaper and there, and I spread it out, and I laid the baby on it, and as I did, I was struck by its mouth. Sam had an E. G. Robinson mouth. People always called him Edward G. Robinson because of his big mouth. And there was this baby. He was fully formed, with Sam's identical mouth. I said, Sam, it's got your mouth. Come here and have a look. He said no, I don't want to look at it. All of a sudden I seemed to grow up because I thought that Sam didn't want to look at it because he was frightened. I thought, yeah, I can go through this. I can suffer the bloody pains. I can come away by myself in a public lavatory, but you won't even look at it. I had the baby in the newspaper and went over to Sam where he was in bed and put it right in front of his face. And I wasn't aggressive. I said, Look, Sam, and he said, I don't want to see it, I don't want to see it. I'll never forget he couldn't help seeing it. And it's a pity I it hadn't happened before because the tears welled up in his eyes and he was really taken aback. And he was always a bloke who didn't show his feelings that way, and he looked at it and he said, just to think, he said. That was once my kid. And he looked at me, he was crying, and he said, You know, doll, I promise you I'll never ever get you like that again. What a pity. What a shame he hadn't said that after the previous abortions. We might have had a different relationship. He said it too late. I suppose my mind was slowly changing. I'd started to ask myself what it was all about. I thought, I'm still not married to you. After four coming on five years, we've only got one room in Muswell Hill. That was the turning point. I stayed with him a few more months, and he made bloody well sure we didn't click, even though he still wasn't wearing a French letter. But when the time came to go to Margate with him for the summer, I put my foot down and told him I was staying in London. Okay, and that is chapter four of an English Madam The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne. That really took me aback the last few pages. I just I don't know. Um yeah, I'm it is I'm very I wanna go cry for her to go through all of that to not have any support, nobody, and I totally understand where she's coming from with sleeping with men where she doesn't it doesn't seem like there is any other option in terms of actually having a stable place, um, having a good job again, wages, poverty, women not having equality. You just have to remember in this day and age there are political parties that do still want to ban and make abortions illegal. And we need to remember we do not want to go back in those days where women end up in lavatories with abortions with children. We don't want to end up where women are getting back alley abortions hurting themselves.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

It's not safe and it's downright dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

We cannot go back to that. We need to have support systems, we need to keep illegal to keep abortion safe and to have that safety network. You shouldn't be shunned or shamed for doing what you think is right. Gosh, I never thought I'd end it an episode like that. I knew she had abortions when we um talked about just her life in the previous episodes. But I just I don't know. I think with me having a child, myself, and when I first got pregnant, I wanted a abortion, but nobody would go with me, and I didn't have the guts to go get an abortion myself. It does hit home in a sense. And being a parent is really hard. Really hard. I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode of Behind the Bad Podcast with me, Fulson Victoria. And I will see you next week with part five. Bye.