Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950S

bred, a cheerful East Ender, but he looked grim when I spoke to him. He told me that he came in early every morning to clean up before the children came to school: filthy, blood-and wine-sodden mattresses were thrown over into the school playground; sanitary towels, underwear, blood-stained sheets, condoms, bottles, syringes - just about everything. The caretaker said he burned the rubbish each morning.
     
    Opposite the school in Graces Alley was a bomb site where the same sort of filth was thrown by the café owners every night. This was never cleaned up or burned; it just accumulated, and stank to high heaven. I could not bear to go past it - the smell from fifty yards away was enough for me - so I never did visit Graces Alley, although I was told that a few Stepney families still lived there.
     
    The brothels, ponces and prostitutes dominated the area and the squalid derelict buildings seemed to stand gloating over the sordid trade, and evil, cruel practices. The more Cable Street became known for its cafés, the more the customers flocked there, and so the trade fed itself. The local people could do nothing. Their voice was silenced by the noise of the jukeboxes. In any case, they lived, I was told, in deadly fear of complaining and were crushed by the magnitude of the problem.
     
    There had always been brothels in the East End. Of course there had; it was a dock land. What else would you expect? But they were always absorbed and tolerated. It was when hundreds of brothels sprang up in a small area that life became intolerable for the local inhabitants.
     
    I could well understand the fear felt by local people, and that to complain, or in any way interfere with the profits of the café owners, would mark you out for retribution. A knifing or a beating would be all that you would get for your courage. I was glad that I walked down Sander Street in broad daylight. Through the dirty windows the haggard, painted faces of girls could be seen leaning on the windowsill, looking out, openly touting for men. As Sander Street led directly off Commercial Road, men were constantly looking into it, and going down it. These houses used to be a neat little terrace only ten or fifteen years before, a place where families lived and children played. The day I went, it looked like something from a horror film. The girls in the windows did not pester me, of course, but there were a lot of big, sinister-looking men around, who glared at me as if to say, “You get out of here.” Did any Stepney family really live amid all this? Apparently yes. I saw two or three little houses with clean windows and net curtains, and a well-scrubbed doorstep. I saw one old lady shuffling along close to the wall, eyes down, till she came to her door. She looked around furtively, then opened the door with her key and shut it quickly after her. I heard two bolts slamming shut.
     
    There is a saying amongst the masters of working dogs, be they sheep dogs, guard dogs, police dogs or huskies, ‘Don’t treat them with kindness, or they won’t work for you.’
     
    It is the same with pimps and prostitutes. The girls are treated like dogs, but usually far, far worse. Dogs have to be bought or bred, and in consequence are usually well looked after. They are expensive assets, and the loss of a valuable dog is a serious matter. But girls on the game are utterly expendable. They do not have to be bought, like a dog or a slave, yet they live a life of slavery, subject to the will and the whims of their masters. Most girls enter the trade voluntarily, not really aware of what they are doing, and within a very short time they find that they cannot get out of it. They are trapped.
     
     
    Zakir had left Mary with the words, “Be a good girl, and do what you are told, and I will be pleased with you.” Mary lived on this promise for months. Just for a smile from Zakir she would, and did, do anything.
     
    He left her at about 8 a.m. with Gloria, a hardened old pro of about fifty who occasionally worked, but whose main job was to keep the girls up to scratch. She stared at Mary unsmiling, and said, “You ’eard what he said. You ’ave to do as you are told. You’d better get on wiv cleaning up the café and the kitchen before Uncle comes down.”
     
    Mary didn’t know what to do. The whole area looked so big, and was in such a mess, that she didn’t know where to begin. In the sheelin’ back in Ireland, cleaning was a simple business - a bed, a