Jenkins Takes up the Narrative I was born 2 years before the old King died in 1760. I have no idea who my parents were for my first knowledge is of life in a poor house over which the Beadle, Mr Crabtree, and his wife held sway. They were cruel, miserly people and treated the deserted children under their care with hideous lack of concern. From the age of 4 I was required to undertake domestic duties and oft felt the sting of Mrs Crabtree’s rough, large hand for any misdemeanor I might have, or might not have committed. It is true I was a fractious child, prone to hiding, to laziness, to argument. I was given the name Jess Jenkins by the said Mrs Crabtree. She said she had so named me because her uncle had a dog called Jess which liked to bite and a teacher called Jenkins whose great pleasure was to weald a heavy leather strap. At the age of 6 I ran away from that awful place and fell among other children of the street. Of my time there I will not reveal all, save to confess to having thieved for my sustenance and, when I had grown to a semblance of womanhood, to selling my body. I was by no means alone. For a lone girl with no protection her only source of bahis şirketleri income was, had she been blessed with a countenance devoid of a hideous cast or fortunate enough to have avoided the myriad of diseases to which such folk were prone, was her own body. It was her only asset. It may be understood that this life gave me an abiding loathing of men. They treated me poorly and sometimes roughly. In drink they would first be lascivious and as time and drink worked their effects, limiting their ability to enjoy that for which they had paid, they would become abusive. Some became violent. Many was the time I would attend the gin palace with a black eye or a missing tooth as a consequence of some such encounter. Gin was the sole panacea that one such as I could afford. I shared a room above the gin house with three other women in similar circumstances and one of these, Olive, whose surname was not known even to herself. It was she who introduced me to what she called tipping the velvet. Many a night we would share our flea infested cot and forget the deprivations and unhappiness of our lives in each others’ arms or finding that pleasure which our bodies bahis firmaları gave to us. It was in 1777 that my fortune changed. I was in the unfamiliar territory of Holborn having been taken there by two men the previous night and thrown back on the street at 6 of the morning with a bruised cheek and sixpence for my trouble. I was satisfied; sixpence was King’s ransom to me then. As I walked down the street having eaten the best breakfast I had had for many a year and still having five pence in my handkerchief I saw a lady descend from a coach and, as she did so, twist her ankle and fall with a cry. Her purse tumbled from her grasp and its contents of coins spilled across the street. As the coachman helped her up I gathered up the coins, replaced them in the purse and handed them to her. I cannot explain why my reaction was not to gather them and run as would have been normal. The woman was Mistress Perkins. The coachman made to send me away but she stayed his hand and opened her purse to give a shilling. ‘Thank you, my dear.’ ‘God bless you, Ma’am,’ said I, shocked at her generosity. She enquired as to my lodgings and engaged me in conversation. I recognised kaçak bahis siteleri that her interest in me was not merely resultant upon my having returned her money. She had a look that I had seen oft before. She looked at my poor clothes and, to my great surprise, touched my face, dirty though it was and bruised. To the coachman’s horror, she told me to enter the coach and return with her to her house. She had, she said, some clothes which might be of use and she would ensure her cook fed me well. Indeed, she said, I needed feeding and she was right. I was a poor specimen and no mistake. As we drove through the busy London streets she asked of my background and, quite candidly, I told her much as I have revealed here. That woman was a saint. True to her word she had me bathed, fed and clothed. I had never in my life felt warm water on my skin before. Neither my body nor my hair had in all my life been washed with more than cold water. It is hard now to recall how luxurious felt clean clothes upon my poor body. Over the following days and weeks, during which I was given menial tasks and responsibilities, my condition improved and when I saw myself in one of the fine mirrors of her household I saw a new woman. I never left her employ after that. Mistress Pickles’ house was, I was to discover, a salon for ladies who, like me and Mrs Pickles herself, favoured the sexual intimacy of other women.