help. Maybe he too was trapped within the confines of his birth
and living his real life within the far broader walls of his imagination. Kindred spirits appear in the strangest places.
Little did he know where this would lead me to!
By the time my parents had made their decision about the farm and the journey to the home country, I had a mind of my own and was fiercely opposed to the idea of joining them.
There were few alternatives: remaining in the countryside and finding employment as a maid on a local estate or moving to the nearest village with hope against hope I could fit in, but I knew
that was doubtful. Villages are the same everywhere and whenever I’d had to venture through our local township’s constantly muddy streets, I invariably felt the villagers looked down on
me, the country girl, the Irish lass, as if I were an inferior form of species, when I was all too well aware that the step they occupied on the evolutionary ladder above me was just an inch apart
from mine and that their disdain was totally unjustified.
I wanted more from life.
That seed of pleasure was already working away at me, hidden, insidious, an appetite begging to be fed. It was still unformed but its power had been growing since the spectacle of the crowds
dancing in the barns had opened a window into the pleasures of the world in which I loved, but did not yet participate.
When I revealed my plans to my parents, they were profoundly shocked.
This was in 1921.
It would be another seven long years before women would obtain the right to vote in Britain. By which time I was, of course, old enough to vote, make love, be dissipated, seduce, manipulate
the hearts of men, be as wicked and unrestrained as I wished.
I informed them I intended to travel to London and live there.
My mother cried, my father roared his disapproval and the arguments continued well into the night and lingered for a whole week.
A terrible fate would befall me if I ventured into such a den of iniquity, I was warned. A place that no woman alone should even consider visiting. Let alone unaccompanied. Even the
entreaties of our priest who was summoned to the farm, bemoaning how I would be wasting my life if I persisted in my decision, failed to budge my persistence. I still remember the way the light
shone on his bald head, and I couldn’t take any of his remarks seriously, knowing as I did that he had built me up to this.
I had always been a particularly obstinate sort of person, and the efforts to dissuade me from the path I had decided to take only served to reinforce my determination.
You see, I had read so much about London, and it felt like another world, one of attraction and danger, of noises and crowds and colour the like of which we country folk didn’t even
have an inkling of.
It was the hustle, bustle and heartbreak of Charles Dickens, the dark, inviting alleys of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the glamour and passions of Marie Corelli’s
popular romances. It drew me in like a moth to a flame. As if I knew already it would be more fun being a good time girl and participating fully in its excesses.
Maybe then I was just an impressionable young girl, but my feelings went beyond mere curiosity and the superficial appeal of modern cities. After the perpetual silence of the country, the big
city felt like a challenge I had to attack, come to grips with. I was aware of its dangers, and the way I look at it now, they attracted me, the ‘bad’ part of me, the wanton side that
lurked under my virginity and my dormant desires.
Neither God nor the Devil could have stopped me once I decided that London was the place for me. Or maybe the Devil was actually whispering in my ear and I was mistaking his voice for my free
will? Then again, I’ve never had any faith in religion. I put my faith in other things. In my heart, and my heart drew me relentlessly towards London.
So it was in October that I arrived in the capital.
I carried
and living his real life within the far broader walls of his imagination. Kindred spirits appear in the strangest places.
Little did he know where this would lead me to!
By the time my parents had made their decision about the farm and the journey to the home country, I had a mind of my own and was fiercely opposed to the idea of joining them.
There were few alternatives: remaining in the countryside and finding employment as a maid on a local estate or moving to the nearest village with hope against hope I could fit in, but I knew
that was doubtful. Villages are the same everywhere and whenever I’d had to venture through our local township’s constantly muddy streets, I invariably felt the villagers looked down on
me, the country girl, the Irish lass, as if I were an inferior form of species, when I was all too well aware that the step they occupied on the evolutionary ladder above me was just an inch apart
from mine and that their disdain was totally unjustified.
I wanted more from life.
That seed of pleasure was already working away at me, hidden, insidious, an appetite begging to be fed. It was still unformed but its power had been growing since the spectacle of the crowds
dancing in the barns had opened a window into the pleasures of the world in which I loved, but did not yet participate.
When I revealed my plans to my parents, they were profoundly shocked.
This was in 1921.
It would be another seven long years before women would obtain the right to vote in Britain. By which time I was, of course, old enough to vote, make love, be dissipated, seduce, manipulate
the hearts of men, be as wicked and unrestrained as I wished.
I informed them I intended to travel to London and live there.
My mother cried, my father roared his disapproval and the arguments continued well into the night and lingered for a whole week.
A terrible fate would befall me if I ventured into such a den of iniquity, I was warned. A place that no woman alone should even consider visiting. Let alone unaccompanied. Even the
entreaties of our priest who was summoned to the farm, bemoaning how I would be wasting my life if I persisted in my decision, failed to budge my persistence. I still remember the way the light
shone on his bald head, and I couldn’t take any of his remarks seriously, knowing as I did that he had built me up to this.
I had always been a particularly obstinate sort of person, and the efforts to dissuade me from the path I had decided to take only served to reinforce my determination.
You see, I had read so much about London, and it felt like another world, one of attraction and danger, of noises and crowds and colour the like of which we country folk didn’t even
have an inkling of.
It was the hustle, bustle and heartbreak of Charles Dickens, the dark, inviting alleys of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the glamour and passions of Marie Corelli’s
popular romances. It drew me in like a moth to a flame. As if I knew already it would be more fun being a good time girl and participating fully in its excesses.
Maybe then I was just an impressionable young girl, but my feelings went beyond mere curiosity and the superficial appeal of modern cities. After the perpetual silence of the country, the big
city felt like a challenge I had to attack, come to grips with. I was aware of its dangers, and the way I look at it now, they attracted me, the ‘bad’ part of me, the wanton side that
lurked under my virginity and my dormant desires.
Neither God nor the Devil could have stopped me once I decided that London was the place for me. Or maybe the Devil was actually whispering in my ear and I was mistaking his voice for my free
will? Then again, I’ve never had any faith in religion. I put my faith in other things. In my heart, and my heart drew me relentlessly towards London.
So it was in October that I arrived in the capital.
I carried
Similar Books
