They asked me how many customers I’d met through the agency and, correctly thinking that the agency hadn’t declared all the money it was earning, I said, ‘Just a handful, my husband’s ill and can’t get out much so I get to go to a few free parties every year.’ The older officer seemed to be friendly with me and I took to him but the younger female officer had an attitude with me right from the start. She told me that she thought I was on the game and they would get back to me after they did a few enquiries. They never came back or contacted me but a few times when I left the house I caught sight of a car following me. Maybe it was just my imagination but I had a gut feeling I was being watched. I talked to Stewart from the agency and he said I did the right thing to say I had only met a handful of men through the agency.
When my husband died, in 2002, there didn’t seem any point in it. We had put money away and paid off every major bill we had. He also had life insurance which covered most of the mortgage. I only become a prostitute to pay the bills and when I had no more bills I gave it up. My kids have everything they need and we have a happy life. Of course we all miss their father but with his heart condition I knew we would have to face it sooner or later.
I’d advise anyone thinking of becoming a prostitute not to do it. I was one of the lucky ones. I have heard some terrible stories over the years. I sometimes work voluntary at a women’s refuge and I talk to the prostitutes that use them. I’ve seen women with their faces, arms, hands slashed because they wouldn’t hand over the cash to their pimp or drug dealer. There are many cases the police don’t hear about where prostitutes are raped. People think because they are prostitutes then rape is all part of their job. One girl went to her drug dealer’s house and four men raped her; she never went to the police. They beat the shit out of her then took turns. Two days later she’s back on the street earning money for her crack cocaine.
A nineteen-year-old girl came in one night with her face slashed open because she hadn’t handed enough money over to her heroin addict boyfriend. She has a terrible scar down one side of her face but after a few days in the refuge she’s back with him. She was just as hooked on heroin as he was and it’s slowly killing her. There’s a sudden rise in child prostitutes from immigrant families these days, young girls of fourteen put out on the streets to sell sex by their own mothers and fathers. I feel like crying every time I see one, they’re only a few years younger than my youngest daughter.
If there’s anyone who is thinking of following the same route as me, then please think again. Just go on the Internet and take a look at all the terrible things that are happening to prostitutes. If you’re in debt then try and work out your finances. If you’re being pressurised into it by a family member, dealer or boyfriend then seek professional help, e,g, a doctor, probation officer, ChildLine, drug awareness, social worker or even your parents. It’s not glamorous and you could end up killed, very easily.
Chapter 17
Mary
Age: 64
Cardiff
MY EARLIEST MEMORY would be when I was about three years old. We lived in a small house in Butetown, about five minutes away from Tiger Bay. There was my dad, mam, sister and me in this little two-bedroomed house. I remember my grandmother turned up out of the blue with a present each for my sister and me. She gave us a doll each, my sister’s was bigger than mine because she was two years older but the small plastic doll I was given was my prize possession for many years after. I’d take it everywhere with me and was always talking to it. One of the local shopkeepers would always mention that I was ‘joined at the hip’ to my doll as we were never apart.
My sister and I played with the kids in our street. In those days the whole area was full of all different races and cultures all getting on together. It was lovely. One day we could be playing with West Indian children, the next they could be from a country I had never even heard of. It was one big cultural melting pot and we loved it. When I was about seven we would venture down to the shop for my mother and sneak off down to Tiger Bay to look at the ships coming and going. It seemed like there were pubs on every street corner and you would hear music coming from various places like the reggae clubs. We would sometimes get paid a penny or two for pointing out the best clubs to the black American sailors who in those days weren’t allowed to dance with white girls. They would love Tiger Bay with its multicultural music and black women who would dance all night. Some of the women even married the black sailors and soldiers and moved off to the States. I don’t know if it’s because I’m old but whenever I think back to those days I imagine everywhere I went there would be different music playing. You could hear reggae, jazz, cha cha, calypso or even mambo. At night people would come out and play guitars, it was wonderful.
In Butetown when I was small we never ever heard of racism, it just didn’t exist; we even had little black girls wearing Welsh outfits on St David’s Day. We all just got along with each other, maybe it was the music or just that we all loved living there. The only racism I witnessed was when we went to the centre of Cardiff to get a new suit for my dad, who saved up forever to pay for it. I heard some children shouting at a Chinese man and running away. That seemed so very alien to me at the time but these days you hear it every day of the week.
By the time I was eleven my sister and I would always be on the lookout for ways to make money. We would run errands, help someone carry their shopping or clean windows. On certain street corners there would be prostitutes standing there, waiting for a gentleman to whisk them away. Of course we were told not to talk to these ‘loose women’, as my dad would call them, but they always seemed friendly to us. We would run to the chip shop for them and pick up what ever they needed. Other children would do the same so we had to be fast to get around all the women. Prostitutes would come from miles around to stand on those street corners. When one girl went off with her client another would take their place. This meant we could earn a nice few bob running back and forth to the chip shop for them. You’d hear stories about how the prostitutes were mean, nasty women but they looked out for us children. Whenever it got dark they would tell us to hurry off home and don’t talk to strangers and that. Some would even follow on after us to check we got home OK. Sometimes I wonder what happened to those women. Where did their lives take them? They must be pushing on seventy-five to eighty-five years old now and I often wonder if any of them are still alive and have grandchildren around them. I’d like to think so.
Anyway, over the years people move on with their lives and things change. My dad died when I was about sixteen of heart failure and later my mother moved to Cowbridge to look after my grandmother who was on her last legs. My sister married an American sailor and moved to Blue Rapids in Kansas, where she still lives. At one time she asked me to move over there with her but I guess my roots are here in Cardiff, I’d have missed all my friends.
There I was, a twenty-two-year old Cardiff girl who worked in the Windsor Hotel as a waitress and cleaner. I still lived in my family’s little house but advertised in a shop window for a female lodger to share the bills with me. A young woman the same age as me came to see it and we hit it off pretty well. Her name was Chrissy and she had come down from Scotland looking for work. Everything was working out well until we started going out drinking and meeting men. Chrissy started bringing men back to her room but it didn’t really bother me because after a while I started doing the same. We would visit a pub called Custom House and the place would be full of prostitutes and we’d have a great time drinking and listening to their stories. On the way home we would stop at the Indian restaurant and stuff our faces with whatever we could afford.
Before long I lost my job as I was starting to turn up late or even not at all. Chrissy was finding it hard to keep a regular job for the same reasons. I found out from Chrissy that she had convictions for prostitution up in Scotland and that’s why she’d moved down to Wales. Her family was causing her trouble and when another prostitute mentioned Butetown and Tiger Bay to her,
she jumped on a train and came down too. Chrissy had got to know other Scottish prostitutes in Butetown so it wasn’t long before she turned back to her old ways. She would bring men back to her room every hour or so and I’d get a small cut of her earnings. That money and her rent helped pay some of the bills. Before long I was letting other girls use my room through the afternoon and night and their customers would pay to ‘rent’ the room for an hour, even though most of the time they were only in there ten minutes. I would sleep downstairs in an armchair while the girls used my room, as long as they kept it tidy.
I managed to put some money away and decided to move a few streets away to a house that was a little bigger. It was right opposite where most of the girls walked up and down waiting for someone to proposition them. The house had another small room that I could put a bed in so the girls wouldn’t need to use my room. One day I got to thinking that instead of just letting the other girls rent my spare room maybe I could earn a decent wage if I started working the street as well. I wouldn’t have to look for a job as I could be my own boss. I was living around prostitution so it seemed natural at the time to become one. I had no family in the area to hassle me and I no longer cared what people thought. I had been getting loads of black looks off neighbours over the last year or so when they found out my house was turning into a knocking shop. I thought, stuff the neighbours, the average wage back then was just under £17 a week so earning between £3 to £7 for each customer made whatever shame I had disappear.
Late one night I stood with Chrissy on one of the street corners near my home. I can remember the exact clothes I had on: a tight red and white dress, brown, rabbit-fur long coat and red and white plastic patchwork boots. All that topped up with a beehive haircut. I thought I was the bee’s knees! Within minutes a dock worker walked straight towards me.
‘How much, love?’ he asked.
‘Three pounds for a hand job and five for sex,’ I informed him.
From taking him to my house, sleeping with him, getting paid and making my way back to where Chrissy was only took about twenty-five minutes. I had just earned £5 for something that I did every week with strangers for nothing. I thought to myself, why the hell didn’t I get into this years ago?
Soon I was earning good money and my lifestyle was changing. The more money I was earning the more I was spending on drink, clothing and whatever I fancied. In the daytime we would go to the local pubs for a drink or play dominoes with some of the West Indian men. Most of the time, I would send a runner down to a back street bookmaker and get money on a horse. The runner was usually a young boy who went around the pubs who we paid to take our bets to the bookie. The bookie didn’t like too many people coming to his home so the runner would place your bet for you and earn a few pennies from you and the bookie. Sometimes you’d get a bookie hanging around the pubs but you’d have to watch him because if he was due to lose a lot he’d disappear and you could kiss goodbye to your money. I’ve known some to pack up their belongings and run off to start afresh in another area. You’d go to their home and there would be no sign of them.
You had to watch out for the police as some could be a right pain if they got to know your face. Having a house nearby helped because if they stopped to ask what I was doing in the area, the answer would be ‘Just walking home, officer.’ A few of the other girls got pulled for soliciting and usually ended up with a fine the first time, usually about £10. Now and again you’d get some guy wanting to make money on you and would try to take some of your earnings by threats. I’d usually mention that I was working for a boyfriend and they could speak to him. Most would bugger off when their threats weren’t working but some tried the hard man approach. Once or twice a few West Indian men tried threatening me but I raised my voice up and made a scene in the street till they walked away. A few girls had taken terrible hidings off boyfriends and pimps. They would turn up with bruises all up and down their backs or around the ribs. They were clever not to hit the faces in case it put the punters off and they’d lose money.
One girl called Jill had been beaten so badly by her boyfriend that she could hardly stand up but still turned up for work. I took her to my house and made her tea and sent out for some fish and chips, as she was half starved. She was only a tiny little thing but the bastard had beaten her black and blue. I let her stay in my house for three days, hiding from him until she managed to contact her brother, who came to my house in a coal lorry and took her away. About two months later she turned up again working the street corners so I gave up trying to help her.
We had this big black girl working with us some nights and she was loud and quite funny. She would play hell with the guys when they walked past her to pick up another girl. One day she showed me that under her coat she was wearing a bandage over her arm. She undid the bandage to show me a long, fresh knife wound running up her arm. Her boyfriend had sliced her open for not going out and earning. She had stitched the arm up herself and it was all swollen and weeping pus. Not only that but it smelt bad as well. If it was me I’d be in so much pain from it, but she wasn’t bothered. ‘All part of the job,’ she said.
Sometimes the girls would work down by the dock and earn good money from the Norwegian sailors as they came ashore. Other times they would go down there and someone would rough them up and take their money. That never happened to me but it did go on, it was the risk you took. I had my house burgled while I was out once and some money was stolen. A passerby saw a woman in a long black plastic coat leaving my house in a hurry but I’ve never been able to find out who she was. I think that she was a prostitute who knew I was out of the house and chanced her luck.
After a few years of being one of the lucky ones who didn’t get caught by the police, my luck ran out. A small van pulled up alongside me one night as I stood on the street corner. A young man was driving the van and he gave me the impression that he was a mechanic, as he wore blue dirty overalls. He asked me if I was working and how much was sex. I told him and before I could ask him to follow me home the doors at the back opened and two other coppers jumped out and did me for soliciting for sex. They also did two other girls that night and we all met up down the police station when we got charged. The sergeant made us tea and chatted to us for ages. Seems people had been complaining so much that the police had to show authority and every so often pull some street walkers in. The sergeant said that he had better things to do but must of course follow orders. In the end I had to pay a fine of about £12 but both the other girls went to prison as they were regular offenders. The thought of prison scared me a little so I started having thoughts of giving it up and finding a different profession. The whole scene was changing with prostitutes getting beaten up and arrested more frequently and I started to get a little more nervous going out to work each night.
One night I was taking a customer back to my place as Chrissy was leaving with a man she had picked up earlier. They were walking towards me and I thought that I recognised the young man she was with. Sure enough, I did: it was the young man who was driving the van with the police in the back. He of course was a copper, the cheeky monkey had just been upstairs in my house and had sex with my mate. I winked at Chrissy as she walked past and said, ‘Goodnight officer,’ to the young off-duty copper. He didn’t know where to put his face and walked past quickly.
It can’t have been much later when Chrissy packed up and went home to Scotland with the money she had managed to save. We both stood there crying our eyes out when she left on the bus home. She asked me to come with her and I refused as I loved Cardiff so much. I did say that when she had settled back in I would visit and she could find me a nice Scottish boyfriend. I lost contact with her that day and have no idea what happened to her. Maybe she found someone to look after her and didn’t need to be reminded of her past life. On the way home I stopped to look in a shop window which had mannequins with beautiful dresses on them. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and I had all black mascara running down my face. I lo
oked a right sight and hurried home to clean up.
One morning I got up and found a letter downstairs from my mother. We visited each other a few times a year but she never knew what I was up to. The letter stated that since my grandmother had died a year or so ago my mother was lonely in Cowbridge. Her health was bad and her arthritis in her legs made it hard for her to get to the shops for food. Turns out she was asking me to come and live with her and basically look after her the way she looked after my grandmother. I felt really taken aback by the letter. I was so busy with my own life I realised I had neglected her a little over the years. A week or two later I had sold all my furniture to a man who had a secondhand shop and packed my bags. I paid a friend to drive me to Cowbridge and turned my back on Butetown, Tiger Bay and prostitution for ever.
I looked after my mother right up until she died four years later, aged seventy-eight. I never married but over the years I’ve had regular boyfriends and loved each one of them. I go to a social club on the weekends and have good friends living near me. We play cards and talk about gardening and everyday things. Next year I’m off to America to see my sister and her family. I haven’t seen her since our mother’s funeral so it would be nice to catch up on things.
If some young girl was thinking of doing what I did then I’d advise them to think again. I’ve made some mistakes and I can’t go back and change them. Don’t sell yourself short, don’t do something that you’ll one day regret. When I was about fifteen and was going out playing with my friends my mother would laugh and say, ‘Remember to keep your hands on your tuppence.’ I know she was only joking but I wish I had now.
Hookers: Their Lives in Their Words Page 15