Victorian Slums and Cocktails…agenda for a London trip.
I’ve been doing a bit of research about life in Victorian London for my final MA assignment due later this month. Last week, while Mac was working in London, I took the opportunity of going down there with him for a few days. Keen to demonstrate a writing-research motivation, I managed to find time in between shopping trips and cocktails at Selfridges, to don my walking boots and tramp around the streets of Shad Thames and beyond.
The Shad Thames area is located right next to Tower Bridge, behind Butler’s Wharf.
This is part of the Bermondsey area and makes for a fascinating trip. The old wharfs and warehouses are now plush apartments with names such as Cayenne Court or Vanilla & Sesame Court, reflecting the original use of the properties for the storage of imported spices. Many of the old buildings still have the original lettering on the walls.
The dockers would gather at Shad Thames twice a day in the hope of being hired for a half-day’s work ferrying the spices, tea and coffee in barrows from the riverside wharfs into the warehouses, further inland.
Visiting the notorious Jacob’s Island where Dickens located Bill Sike’s lair in Oliver Twist was a highlight although it took me a while to find it as it is marked only by a Southwark Council historical plaque. Jacob’s Island was once one of London’s worst slums and described by Dickens himself as the “filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London”.
It was named such because of the deep ditches surrounding the housing. These contained deadly stagnant water, which unsuspecting residents used for cooking, drinking and washing and the cause of a terrible Cholera epidemic.
Though the Jacob’s Island area is now desirable, commanding apartment rents of around £2.5K per month , ’twas not always so:
“…crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it – as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Jacob’s Island.” Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
Nearby St Saviour’s Dock, where Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist fell to his death into the stinking mud of Folly Ditch (don’t worry, Bullseye was fine), has its
own tales of horror. In these historic streets, one can easily imagine the great Thames, packed solid with loaded vessels containing cargoes of spices, coffee and tea, awaiting offloading and transportation into the warren of cobbled streets filled with warehouses. Sometimes, due to the logistical problems of unloading and sheer volume of goods, the laden ships could wait weeks to be processed….ripe indeed for opportunist pirates to plunder the goods, ooh-arrgh. Consequently, an appropriately gruesome Victorian punishment would be meted out without the inconvenience of a trial. Their termination of choice? A public hanging, of course.
These would often take place at St Saviour’s Dock, giving the locals something to do other than another night watching Nancy sing on the tables at the Tavern.
St Saviour’s Dock where the public hanging of pirates would often take place. The inlet river took on the name ‘Neckinger’, after the ‘Devil’s Neckinger’ - London slang for the noose used to hang the pirates.
The Shad Thames area is also home to the The Anchor Brewhouse, an historical site, originally opened in 1787. The Thames-side brewing spot was mentioned by both Chaucer and Shakespeare in their tomes. A particularly intriguing place is Horsleydown Old S
tairs, which is a gloomy tunnel/alleyway leading directly down to the river and runs adjacent to the Anchor Brewhouse. The unusual name is thought to be derived from the instruction, “Horse lie down” to the old carthouses to rest who transported the barrels of beer around the area.
Horsleydown Old Stairs is a quirky little alleyway leading directly
down to the Thames.
The view of Horsleydown Old Stairs from the other side - photo taken from
Tower Bridge.
Shad Thames is a chic area today, retaining its character and cobbled streets but dotted with quaint shops and numerous bars, restaurants and cafes.
So now, all there is left to do is to incorporate said research into my fictional piece of prose. For that, I first need more coffee….
Quick…someone hide the ducking stool!
Although I haven’t closely followed the Amanda Knox trial, I have certainly become interested in the language used to describe her in court. It is rare we see such displays of emotive and elaborate description, legal eagles are ordinarily known for their reserved and selective comment.
Knox is fighting to have her murder conviction overturned following a 26-year sentence together with her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
Addressing the jury, lawyer Carlo Pacelli said, ‘Within her lives a double soul: one which is angelic, good, compassionate … tender and ingenuous.” Pacelli continued, “And then a Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic, diabolical one which sometimes leads her to borderline and dissolute behaviour.”
Pacelli urged the jury not to ‘fall under the spell’ of Knox and described her as a she-devil with a dirty soul.
Looking at the language alone and not becoming embroiled in her guilt or innocence, I do feel that Knox is being billed quite sensationally as a femme fatale with the evil, almost mystical qualities that this archetype embodies.
I wonder if Knox’s former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was described in such a colourful manner in his trial. Could it be that Western society vilifies women – particularly in regard to sexual crimes or those involving children – on a
scale that exceeds men who commit similar offences?
I found this quote from Michele Elliot, in a 2009 article in the Guardian. She writes about an unrelated crime to the one discussed here but her thoughts are interesting.
‘Women abusers are also treated very differently by the media. If a woman is accused of abusing
very young children, then she is likely to be far more vilified than if she were a male. It is as though we don’t really expect any better from men, but from a woman, it is the ultimate taboo.’[1]
And I think the same applies in the Knox case where an attractive young woman appears to have willingly taken part in a
sexually-motivated murder. It seems sexual crime is a strictly male arena in the eyes of the law and the media and
any woman who commits such a heinous act is not only bad and guilty but tantalisingly evil.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that men have it easy. Sentencing as a whole is generally more lenient for women and, as Elliot points out in her article, sexual crimes against teenagers are certainly thought of as less serious when carried out by a female perpetrator rather than a male.
But that lawyer, Pacelli, really is wasted….with his imagination he should be on my Creative Writing course. Someone needs to tell him to “Calm down, dear.”
‘MILE 81′ by Stephen King
REVIEW
King is so legendary that criticising his writing feels like questioning your doctor or correcting your kid’s teacher. Sometimes, though, it has to be done. And I’m sure he gets very tired of being surrounded by sycophants, don’t you think?I love the early King books but haven’t been keen since ‘From a Buick 8’, if I’m honest. King generally pens a good short story so I pre-ordered ‘Mile 81’ on my Kindle for £1.99.
I liked the start of the tale, King is fond of – and good at – putting teenage boys together and observing the dynamic that runs between them. When young Pete Simmons is left to his own devices because the older boys won’t let him play, he goes in search of trouble at an abandoned rest area…and finds it.
‘Mile 81’ has car/unidentified demon horror running through it…we like. The story ends in such a way that it might happen to someone else….maybe even us or that annoying neighbour with the dog that barks at 3 am. We like this more because we know it won’t really. King satisfies on a number of fronts in the story, he gives us what we know and love…some of the time.
However, King has an infuriating habit of clarifying what he says in brackets, like he doesn’t trust the reader to get it first time. He’s always done it to some extent but outdoes himself in ‘Mile 81’ to the detriment of the story. When our young hero Pete skulks round the abandoned truck stop, we are told that Pete is careful not to run his bike tyres over any broken glass. Okay, fine – we understand. We don’t need – (in brackets) – ‘there was a lot of it on this side of the fence’. When Pete lifts his bag, which holds a bottle of vodka, up onto a loading dock, King goes on to explain – (in brackets) –‘being especially careful on account of the half-full vodka bottle’. It’s okay! Stop fretting legendary one! We remembered what was in the bag because you told us that just a few pages ago. Two examples here of the countless occasions
it happens in this one story. I think King is probably aiming for a conversational-type of storytelling but the brackets only serve to irritate and distract.
Short story rule: don’t include anything that doesn’t move the story along. So the reading tension wasn’t particularly cranked up by details about Pete’s ant-farm project and the grade his friend got for it at school. We can let that go, it’s Stephen King, the rules don’t apply to him, right?
When Pete finally gets inside the disused restaurant, he wanders around looking at stained mattresses and posters of naked women constantly laughing, giggling….laughing and giggling….laughing and
giggling….OVER AND OVER AGAIN!! Yep, he’s a young lad, stuff makes him laugh and giggle. We got it the first few times.
So, a good start, over-waffling in the middle section where scary stuff happens and then quite suddenly, the whole dilemma is resolved and the story is finished. And what’s strange is that our hero is never in danger, he sleeps through the whole thing….so why make us care about him in the first place?? With better editing and pacing, the story could have been great. Instead it was just okay.
But I’d forgive Mr King almost anything….and I’d never criticise him to his face.
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