My Fair Eliza

By John Davies

* Having picked up the sword of the Crusader in my last novel A PINT-SIZED WHISPERER exposing the scandalous pressure applied to pregnant women to terminate their foetus after being told their unborn babies were likely to be suffering with the dreaded Downs Syndrome, I now lighten up.

Although A PINT-SIZED WHISPERER was commercially received successfully and questions raised in the House of Commons which rebuked certain sections of the NHS, I now return to my genre of easy-reading fiction.

* MY FAIR ELIZA is a light-hearted parody of Alan Jay Werners book and George Bernard Shaws evergreen musical show My Fair Lady.

* It is more than that. It is a heartfelt tribute to those dedicated people, they used to call crimpers, who couple their dexterity with brush, comb and scissors with a friendliness that keep us amused and entertained while we are sat shrouded by a voluminous sheet in their salon chairs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781466982765

John Davies

John Davies is an electronics engineer specialising in telecommunication. He is the CEO and owner and now Chairman of Global Telecom (Pty) Ltd, South Africa. His first book was published in 1995 by Robert Hale and sold over 3,000 copies.

Book preview

1

E liza was born on a Christmas Day, the same day of the week that world-famous Hollywood star, Charlie Chaplin died—both were cockneys.

Although both were born in poverty the similarity, more or less, ends there. Chaplin went on to find fame and fortune in the USA culled from the theme of his films that reflected his childhood experiences of pauperism, hunger and loneliness. While Eliza, the eleventh child of an East End dustman—seven boys, four girls—managing to claw herself out of the gutters of Bethnal Green, struggled early in her lifetime to keep her head above water. Life could never be a bowl of cherries for a Cockney brat born in a Brick Lane tenement in the seventies. With her father, Alfie Peers on short time at the local Council, what fragmented wages he managed to pocket were left every Friday night behind the bar of the renowned Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club in Pollard’s Row. Her mother was the early morning charlady at the historic Carpenter’s Arms in Cheshire Street distastefully tasked, amongst other duties, to empty the copper spittoons in the sawdust bar reputedly the scene of more than one murder by the notorious Kray twins who once owned the pub. Her weekly pittance of £4 three shillings did not go far to solve the mind-bending problem of feeding a 16 stone drunken lout of a husband, eleven famished kids, and her scrawny self.

From the time she came out of her swaddling clothes Eliza Peers was forced to share a bed, covered only by a grubby moth-eaten ex-army blanket, with her three elder sisters. Guess who woke up shivering in the middle of the night with not a thread over her?

As the primitive row of toilets were situated in the yard two flights of stairs down, a couple of large discarded jam cans were salvaged from the dustbins to standby duty as piss pots for the four kids in their bug-riddled bed. The smell was not wholesome.

There was little wonder that such a deprived environment would lead so many East End kids to petty crime. It was a sign of his perverse, alcohol raddled nature that Alfie Peers remembered trying to stave off a hangover on a bitterly cold Christmas Day afternoon by spending sixpence to sit in the back row of the Regal Cinema to watch the Hollywood classic My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfred Hyde-White and the stately Gladys Cooper.

Having stayed awake throughout the 70 minutes of the movie, Alfie Peers slumped back in the plush cinema seat for a sound sleep during the next hour. He then staggered out into the freezing night to spend his last couple of bob at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club where he regaled all the boozers with an off-key rendering of;

"Now here’s a little story

To tell it is a must

About an unsung hero

That moves away your dust

"Some people make a fortune

Others earn a mint

My old man don’t earn much

In fact he’s flipping skint

"Oh, my old man’s a dustman,

He wears a dustman’s hat

He wears cor-blimey trousers

He looks a proper nana

In his great big hobnail boots

He’s got such a job to pull them up

That he calls ’em daisy roots."

Wobbly Alfie was not given a chance to sing the second verse of this poignantly comical ditty for the Club Steward put his arm around him and escorted him to the front door with the tart retort: ‘. . . and don’t come back to the Club until you have sobered up Mr. Peers!’

When he reached his home at the tatty three-roomed tenement he was greeted by an angry midwife clad in a blood-stained apron who said sarcastically: ‘Oh it is so good of you to bloody turn-up, your trouble and strife (wife in rhyming Cockney slang) gave birth to a basin of gravy (baby in Cockney slang) it’s a girl so tiny she’s not likely to last the gypsies’ warning (Cockney for morning). So you’d better give her a name so that the priest can baptise her just in case she’s brown bread (cockney for dead) by the morning.’

The sharpness of the midwife’s rebuke sobered Alfie Peers for a moment and pulling his fuddled mind together he recalled the film he had seen at the Regal Cinema earlier that evening and managed to stutter: ‘Call the little darlin’ Eliza—not Eliza Doolittle but Eliza Peers!

2

F ortunately tiny Eliza Peers was made of sterner stuff for not only did she survive the night but bravely consolidated her place in a troubled world and by the time she was five and ready to go to school was a sturdy lass who could land a right hand slap on any boy or girl who tried to put a finger on her.

Bottom in the pecking order of an eleven strong string of siblings Eliza had to be tough and before she was seven had picked up the street know-how of a Cockney urchin. How to half-inch (pinch in Cockney slang) oranges and apples from the costermonger’s barrows in the crowded East End street markets and worse.

One day when she was eight years of age and was playing hookey from school the local bobby caught her when she had nicked a couple of lead pencils and a tiny small sharpener from the counter of Woolworth’s Bethnall Green branch—one of 807 stores that were closed down in 2009 putting a workforce of 27,000 people on the dole.

But this was 1985 and with an 18 stone Police Constable Plod trudging down Bethnal Green Road with his size 11 ½ daisy roots (Cockney Slang for boots) making a machine-gun staccato along the pavement.

Quick as a mouse, crafty as an urban fox, the ebullient Eliza slipped round a corner, popped the stolen pencils and sharpener into a waste bin, out of sight from the puffing PC Plod, and slowed down to allow the out-of-breath representative of law and order to catch up with her.

‘Nah, then young Missy what ’ave you bin up to?’ said the panting policeman.

The eight-year-old Eliza opened her brown eyes, paradoxically a colour match of Hollywood princess Audrey Hepburn who had inspired her alcoholic father on the day she was born, and looked up at the man in the blue helmet.

‘Oh nothing Officer,’ she trilled those brown orbs shining with an innocence that could have been performed by Oscar winning Ms.Hepburn. ‘I’m just off to do some shopping for me mother . . .’

Which prompted the probing query from the man-in-blue: ‘What have you got in them pockets? Let’s have a look—turn ’em out.’

Unfazed, in the knowledge that she had jettisoned the evidence, Eliza emptied her sky rockets (Cockney slang for pockets). Out from the cavernous calico of her brightly coloured coat tumbled, a ball of string, a foil wrapped piece of unwrapped Wrigley’s chewing gum, a rusty bottle opener and two hair clips.

PC. Plod was furious and yelled: ‘Now then missy, you’re in trouble, you were seen nicking pencils from Woolworth’s—where have you put them . . . ?

Eliza focussed those Hepburn-esque mince pies (Cockney for eyes) up into Police Constable Sam Walpole—27 years service in The Met—and, with mocking innocence, before she set off on a hazardous run through cobbled back streets, said coyly: ‘I ’ave stuck ’em up my arse!’

During the next six years, until she left the grimy Brick Street tenement to fly the nest and venture into the wide world Eliza never again bumped into PC.Walpole who, in his impending retirement, probably filed her into his memories of unsolved crimes, along with the notorious Jack the Ripper, after 30 years service with the Metropolitan Police.

3

L ife changed for 15 - year - old Eliza Peers , as she reached puberty with her first menstruation a few days after her 13 th birthday .

The urge to play rough tom-boyish games began to leave her, the uniform of rough jeans garish tee shirts and bovver boots, worn by her contemporary teenagers. no longer pleased her. Ear, eye or nose piercing was no longer in her vogue. She began to study boys and was pleasantly surprised when they were attracted to her when she started wearing dresses, and occasional off-the shoulder blouses. Girly gear and stylish make-up became her thing which earned her a cuff across the ear when her drunken father saw her with the rough rebuke: You look like a tart—wipe that fucking paint of your face!

She knew that very soon the time was coming to leave the family home to make her own way in the world. Eliza was also aware that she needed to get a job and earn some money if she was going to buy smart teenage clothes.

Strolling down Kingsland Road, only a week after leaving school when she reached 15 years of age, Eliza spotted a notice in the window of Beth’s Hair Salon that would change the shape of her life.

WASHER REQUIRED SUITABLE FOR

TEENAGER PROFESSIONAL—

TRAINING INCLUDED

The owner, Beth Steele, was a 35-year-old local woman who had returned to Bethnal Green after spending 20 years in some of the top West End salons where she had earned a reputation as a stylist. But she returned to her old stamping grounds in the East End to care for her ailing 85-year-old mother who was in the early throes of dementia.

‘I am pleased to meet you Eliza,’ said the buxom Beth. ‘From what you have told me this will be your first job after leaving school. Are you interested in hairdressing?’

Eliza thought carefully before replying, but she had already formed an opinion that she could really like Beth with the deep blue eyes and immaculate blonde coiffure.

‘Well yes I am Ma’am,’ she replied nervously. ‘But I have never been in a hairdressing salon before—my dad works as a dustman for the local council, my mother is a charlady at the Carpenter’s Arms, Cheshire Street, and I am the youngest of 11 kids, seven boys and four girls. So I have never had the money to visit a hairdressing salon . . .’

Beth Steele’s maternal instincts came to the fore as she listened to Eliza’s direct dissertation. Having devoted her life, after business hours, to the care of her ailing mother over the years she had turned away several offers of marriage and the chance to start a family of her own.

‘Well, look young Eliza just sit you down in that chair and we’ll see what we can do with that unkempt barnet (Barnet Fair—Cockney slang for hair),’ said the comely crimper. Within seconds Eliza was bent over one of the three washbasins fitted in the salon while Beth vigorously rubbed shampoo into her scalp.

‘When you wash a client’s barnet take your time,’ she advised. ‘Two or three applications of shampoo and two or three rinses in warm water—depending how greasy the hair is. It is important to make the client enjoy and luxuriate in the experience of having a hair-do!’

Beth then cut and blow-dried Eliza’s hair and gave her a new upswept style that totally changed her look.

‘What do you think Eliza?’ quizzed Beth. ‘Do you like it?’

There was no doubt that, as they say down the Mile End Road, Eliza was gob smacked and could only mutter: ‘It’s fabulous Ma’am—absolutely fab- . . . .’

Beth was delighted with the reaction and said: ‘Look Eliza if you are going to work for me you can call me Beth when we talk face to face. But when there are customers in the salon always address me as Madam—it shows respect. The clients should also be addressed as Madam—it shows the salon has style.’

Eliza was delighted to be given the job at the learner’s rate of three pounds an hour which gave her a weekly salary of about £25 a week while she was training. This would be dramatically increased when she had been brought up to a standard where she could cut hair, and even more as she learned the skills of blow-drying and styling. Beth told her to report for work at 8 am the next morning when she would be kitted out with a uniform in the salon’s magenta and green colours.

Eliza had taken the first career-step on a journey that would fly her on a magic carpet for the rest of her life.

4

B eth Steele instinctively knew that Eliza was a natural-that her 15-year old fellow Cockney assistant could go a long way as a career crimper if she applied herself to the trade.

Pert and cute with her new hair style, shapely as a rose bud, and as bright as a Pearly King’s buttons, the salon clients loved her. Laughed at Eliza’s sassy jokes while appreciating the conscientious way she shampooed and cosseted them. At the end of the week she was amazed when Beth handed her a fiver—her tips from the customer’s over the week.

‘Liza I know you have to help out at home and you have to hand some of your wages over to your Mum but don’t say anything about the tips,’ said Beth as they sipped coffee in the little Italian café next door after closing the salon at 7-30pm on the Friday evening. ‘But go down and buy yourself something really teenage and slick down the Kings Road, Chelsea tomorrow—if it costs more than a fiver I’ll give you a sub on next week’s tips. Dressing smart is a great advertisement in the hairdressing trade. If customer’s see you looking nice they immediately feel confident that you are the one who can make them look more beautiful.

‘I have made my mind up to send you one afternoon a week to Southwark College for a 36 week course in practical and theoretical know how to cut hair using basic techniques. You will practise on dummy heads at first and then on to models, or clients,. when the time comes to assess you for your City and Guild’s Certificate. This salon will pay for your tuition fees because at the end of the course you will be a more useful asset to the business. Naturally you will have to put in some homework time to keep up with the paperwork on the course, but that is the price we all have to pay to carve out a career in this wonderful business. If I didn’t think you could do it, Eliza, I would not have put your name forward, let alone waste good money on your training. I believe you are a natural and could reach the top echelons of the trade.

‘Don’t worry that you are a Cockney girl, just like me, with only an elementary education but it is the skills with scissors, styling comb, and blow-dryer, coupled with your own inventiveness on how to devise an elegant coiffure for your clients that will be the measure of your success.

‘Good luck Eliza Peers, the wonderful world of hairdressing could be your oyster.’

Using the two pounds she was left with from her wages, after paying her mother, plus her tips from her first couple of week’s work at the salon Eliza bought a smartly shaped suit from Matalan for seven pounds, noting by the torn label that it had been a Marks and Spencer garment second. She examined the blue garment and could not find anything wrong and decided it was just the right outfit to wear at Southwark with a snow white shirt inside the jacket.

As she progressed deeper into her teens it was perfectly normal for Eliza to take more than a passing interest in boys of her own age. But she was a shrewd, ambitious, lassie and not over impressed with the Cockney lads that lived in her area who seemed to be only interested in how much lager they could quaff every evening, the result of The Hammers last game and how to survive on Unemployment Benefit. Those East End teenagers who were employed definitely turned her off with their smelly ill-paid porter’s jobs at Smithfield meat market and the new Covent Garden fruit and veg’ market.

There was one other prerequisite that some of these Cockney louts demanded of a bird from the first date onwards—and there was no way the down-to-earth Eliza was going to surrender her virginity that easy! Not that she was a prude. If a lad wanted a bit of the other he was going to cough up for a wedding ring or more. It was an astonishing example of perspicacity from the young Brick Lane brunette.

However she did meet a better class of young men at Southwark College. Lads who had stuck at their educational chores with a view to reach the top at the career of their choice.

Richard Lewis was such a young person enrolled at Southwark College for a Level 2 certificate in Accounting. Dressing smartly, as would be expected of a future qualified accountant. A studious lad who knew where he was aiming.

They first met in the crowded college restaurant where Eliza was drinking a cup of coffee in a break between lectures. She admired the courteous way he asked if he might sit at one of the three empty chairs at her table. She, rather coyly, agreed and responded when he introduced himself as Richard Lewis and gave him her name.

‘I live in Edgware with my family,’ said Richard referring to a more upmarket area in northwest London. ‘But I am indentured to a firm of accountants in Aldgate which is owned by my uncle. My aim is to be a fully fledged chartered accountant in three years time with the prospect of a partnership in my uncle’s company eventually. What about you Eliza?’

Eliza had immediately warmed to the candid approach of this young man who was smartly suited with a plain navy blue tie to go with a snowy white shirt below his blue pinstripe jacket.

‘Well I am working for a hairdresser in Bethnal Green where I live,’ she explained. ‘The lady who owns the salon where I work is also from Bethnal Green and she is paying for my course in hairdressing here at this College. I am really excited because I really love hairdressing and I have decided I want to progress as far as I can in the trade and even dream of perhaps having my own salon one day—although that is, of course, a long time away.’

Richard Lewis, knowingly nodded in agreement, and said: ‘My uncle says the only way to the top in any profession is to dedicate yourself to it. Work hard and the money you earn will take care of itself as you progress. Perhaps, one evening, Eliza we could have a bite to eat and take in a movie. I could stay over after work in Central London one evening and catch the late night Northern Line underground train to Edgware. Have you got a phone number Eliza?’

Eliza shook her head negatively but then thinking positively came back with a solution: ‘To tell you the truth I intend to buy a mobile phone with the next lot of tips I get from the salon. But I am sure that Beth Steele, the owner of the salon where I work wouldn’t mind if you rang me on the salon phone as long as you were quick and didn’t hold me up from work for too long.’

Richard Lewis seemed satisfied with that answer and confirmed: ‘That’s fine Eliza, pencil in Wednesday next week. I will call you on Tuesday to confirm the arrangement and where we can meet.’

5

B eth Steele was highly amused when she shared a pot of coffee from the salon percolator with her assistant Eliza Peers as they waited for the first client of the day to arrive at 8-30am the following morning.

Eliza was so excitable as she told her new boss about the handsome boy she had met at Southwark College the previous day and about the proposed date the following week.

‘No, Eliza, I wont mind at all if he phones you here at the salon, as long as he doesn’t keep you away from the customers too long,’ said the benevolent Beth. ‘But we must get you a mobile phone like other girls of your age. As a matter of fact I’ve got an old mobile phone at home you can have and all you will have to buy to get it going will be a Sim card from the local computer shop. It will only cost a few bob. But use the mobile phone carefully Eliza because phone calls cost a lot of money.

‘I am glad this boy has asked you out. He sounds like he is a nice sensible lad. But it is up to you to be just as sensible and don’t throw yourself at the first boy that casts his eye at you. There could be a good career ahead of you in hairdressing and that could lead to you meeting a lot of attractive men. You are too young to think of dropping your knickers to the first lad that comes along. On the other hand it will be good for you to see a bit of life

‘Ah! Eliza here come Mrs Sanders—our first customer of the day—so get the washbasin and hot water ready for her shampoo!’

* * *

Eliza was at her best and, as she rubbed in the shampoo, said: ‘How are you Mrs. Sanders? Has your daughter had her baby yet? You told me she was expecting any time when you came in last week?’

Gertie Sanders was quite bucked that Beth Steele’s new assistant should have remembered, and replied: ‘It’s kind of you to ask Eliza—my Lilly had a baby boy weighing seven pounds ten ounces at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, yesterday. I am glad to say that, despite the fears of the midwife that there might be problems, both mother and baby are doing fine . . .’

Eliza clapped her hands and interrupted enthusiastically: ‘Has the baby been given a name yet?’

Gertie Sanders smiled as she explained: ‘Oh yes Eliza my Lilly and her husband Sam, have decided the young-un will be called Albert, Henry, the first names of his two grandfathers. So we are happy about that!’

As she wrapped a dry towel around Mrs.Sanders damp skull and escorted her to the chair where Beth Steele was waiting Eliza commented warmly: ‘Well that is wonderful may the little lad have a long, happy and healthy life—I can’t wish him better than that.’

It was now 9am and a steady trickle of customers who had made an appointment with Beth Steele had started to arrive and immediately regaled by Eliza with a cup of coffee from the salon percolator accompanied with two Garibaldi Biscuits. The next in line was long-time customer Mrs.Alte Hyman and was one of Eliza’s favourites, not only for her tips but for her kindly gestures.

‘Good morning, Mrs.Hyman, how are you today?’ Eliza asked as she tested the temperature of the water pouring from the washbasin faucet.

The response from Alte Hyman was warm she handed Eliza a small package: ‘I promised you a jar of my homemade horseradish and beetroot relish last week and here it is! Careful not too much on the life (fork and knife in Cockney slang) it’s a bit strong mind you. It’s an old Kosher recipe and goes well with steak, fish or salad.’

Eliza laughed heartily and retorted: ‘Well we don’t get too much steak in our house but I do eat a lot of salad—it’s good for the figure they say! You are all dressed up today Mrs.Hyman are you going somewhere nice?’

There was pride in Alte Hyman’s voice as she replied: ‘As a matter of fact my 13-year-old son, Daniel, is having his bar mitzvah today and will, for the first time, in the schul (Yiddish for synagogue) recite a blessing from the Torah . . . .’

The overly-curious Eliza queried: ‘Bar whatza? I don’t know what that is Mrs Hyman?’

Alte Hyman, all 18stone of her, laughed heartily and she explained: ‘Oh I’m sorry I forgot you are a goy (Yiddish slang for someone not of the Jewish faith). Bar Mitzvah is a ceremony when a Jewish boy comes of age under religious law and becomes obligated to