Shadows of the Workhouse

the bench onto the floor. They shrieked with laughter. This was going to be a good day. A ride in a van! You wait till we get back and tell the others. The van stopped twice, and other boys of their own age climbed in. Soon there were eight boys, all shouting and skidding around the floor of the van as they turned corners, or pressing against each other to see out of the small back window in order to wave at people as they passed. Everyone turned to look, because motorised transport was comparatively unusual in those days. The boys felt very privileged, and infinitely superior to the people walking or travelling in horse-drawn carts and wagons.
    Eventually the van stopped and the back door opened. Frank saw a very large, grey-stone building in front of him, and he did not much like the look of it.
    “Where am I?” he asked.
    “This is the boys’ section. You come here when you are seven and stay until you are fourteen,” said a tough-looking man, who was a workhouse officer.
    “And where’s Peggy?” he demanded.
    “I don’t know who Peggy is, but she’s not here.”
    “Peggy is my sister and I look after her. My dad told me to.”
    The officer laughed. “Well, someone else will have to look after her. There’s no girls allowed in here.”
    Still Frank did not understand. He was unsure, frightened, and he felt like crying, but he wasn’t going to let the other boys see him, so he squared his shoulders, clenched his fists and put on a swagger as they were taken to the Master’s office.
    The interview was brief. They were told that they must obey the rules, obey the officers at all times, and that if they did not do so they would be punished. The Master then said, “You will be given your duties and lunch is at one o’clock. You will start school tomorrow.”
    Frank had wanted to ask about Peggy, but the Master so terrified him that he did not dare speak. He followed the officer to the dining hall with a feeling of panic in his heart that he had not known since the night when he had awoken to find his mother’s side of the bed empty.
    Lunch in a huge refectory with about a hundred and fifty other boys, some of them very big, was terrifying and he could hardly eat. He ate half a potato and drank some water, but it nearly choked him, and he could not stop his tears from falling. Some of the bigger boys pointed at him and sniggered. None of the male officers showed any sympathy. The three new boys who had come together were all considerably more sober now. The fun and high spirits of the van ride evaporated as the reality of the situation began to dawn upon them. They had left the small world and comparative kindness of the nursery, where there were women officers and nurses, for the harsh, often brutal world of the workhouse proper, where, for the next seven years, they would encounter only male officers.

    Back in the nursery, after breakfast, Peggy looked around for Frank, but could not find him. She looked in the lavatory and the washroom, but he was not there. She looked in the classroom and under the stairs, but he was not in those places either. Bewildered and frightened, she stood on the bottom stair hugging the banister, and stamped her feet. An officer came up to her, but she screamed and stamped her little feet even faster.
    “Poor little thing,” remarked the officer to a colleague, “she’s going to miss her brother, they were very close. She’ll just have to get over it in her own time. There’s nothing we can do.”
    Peggy was three years old and Frank had been with her all her life. She had not noticed the loss of her father, when she was eighteen months old, and had only the vaguest memory of her mother. But Frank was her world, her life, her security and she was utterly devastated. All day she stood on the bottom step, hugging the smooth, round balustrades, sometimes silent, sometimes sobbing. Sometimes she kicked the stairs and hurt her toe. Twice she wet herself, but still she wouldn’t move. Jane tried to talk to her, but Peggy shook her shoulders and screamed, “Go away.”
    “Leave her alone,” said an officer to Jane, “she’ll get over it in a day or two.”
    Towards evening Peggy started to bang her head on the balustrade. It hurt, but she wanted it to. Perhaps Frank would come when he knew she had hurt herself. When he didn’t come, she sobbed uncontrollably, then slipped down onto the stairs in a deep sleep. A nurse picked her up, carried her to the dormitory and