Letters from Alice: Part 3 of 3: A tale of hardship and hope. A search for the truth.

Almoners like Alice spent much of their time among people who lived in the most difficult of circumstances. ‘My world is naturally centred in small streets; the huge tenements and the sordid houses,’ the St Thomas’s Hospital almoner, Cherry Morris, was to report in 1936. ‘I wish I could take you to one of our centres … an old public house at the corner of two streets, one inhabited mainly by very low class people (near Waterloo station) and the other a street of small cottages that ought not to exist in civilised society. There is a large London County Council school near, and the noise of the children, barrel organs [and] street brawls lasting into the night is appalling … a district odour of fried fish pervades.’

In 1895, C. S. Loch suggested to almoners that applications for relief could be categorised into three distinct classes: ‘thrifty and careful men’ to whom relief should always be given; ‘men of different grades of respectability, with a decent home’ whom, Loch suggested, should be judged on a case-by-case basis; and, finally, ‘the idle, loafing class, or those brought low by drink or vice’, for whom relief would only ‘maintain them in their evil habits’.

Attitudes had begun to soften with the arrival of the new century, but the almoners still clung to the fundamental principle that every man was ultimately responsible for his own welfare, and that charity should only be given to those willing to stand on their own feet at the earliest opportunity.

Ted and Hetty Woods’ lodgings lay close to the Royal Victoria Dock, the decrepit three-storey building sandwiched between a coal merchant’s and an abandoned soap factory. It was close to two o’clock when Alice went through the scarred outer door, the distant toot of a ship’s horn a reminder of the goods and trade passing over the waters of the Thames.

There was mould on the walls of the Woods’ apartment block, and an overpowering stench of ammonia in the air, overlaid with a faint sooty tang. Two doors led off the hall to the right, the staircase on the left leading to the first floor.

Alice stepped over a small pile of rubble that had been neatly swept to one side and knocked on the wooden door at the end of the hall. Ted answered, his eyes cloudy. After a moment they cleared and he gave her a bright smile of recognition. ‘It’s Miss Alice, love,’ he said over his shoulder, then shuffled back and gestured the almoner in.

The room was small and damp, the air dusty with soot and smoke. There was rush matting on the floor and a table and two chairs against the far wall. There were several broken panes in the window above the table, the holes plugged up with balls of newspaper. Hetty was sitting in the middle of a worn sofa on the left-hand side of the room, her feet resting on a brick that had likely been warmed in the nearby hearth. There was a bed covered with a lumpy mattress and threadbare sheet against the opposite wall. A battered but freshly polished chest of drawers stood next to it, a small pile of neatly folded clothes on top.

Hetty tried to get up when Alice came in. She shuffled to the edge of the sofa, her pale face creasing with the effort. The almoner waved her back. ‘Don’t get up on my account, Hetty,’ she said, removing her cape and crossing the small space.

Hetty leaned back with a chesty wheeze and patted the cushion next to her. ‘Can I get you a drink, Miss Alice?’ Ted asked as the almoner sat beside his wife. The stench of rotting skin no longer hung over Hetty, but there was a faint clinical smell in the air muffled with rose water.

‘Oh no, Ted, thank you. I have come with news, as a matter of fact,’ she added, in response to their curious glances.

‘Is it Tilda?’ Hetty asked, smiling. ‘We went to see her the other day. Beautiful that place is, absolutely beautiful. She’s doing ever so well. We don’t know how to thank you, duck.’

‘That’s wonderful to hear.’ Alice said warmly, then her gaze dropped to her lap. When she looked up again, she rolled her lips in on themselves and reached for Hetty’s hand. She glanced at Ted before she spoke, who seemed to have sensed the gravity of the impending conversation. Forehead crumpled, he shuffled forwards and sat silently on his wife’s other side. ‘I don’t have any further news about Tilda, Hetty,’ Alice said, ‘but I do have some news from your doctor.’

A shadow passed across Hetty’s face. She glanced briefly at her husband then took a deep breath and focussed her eyes back on Alice. ‘Bad then, is it, duck?’ she asked, though there remained a hopeful glint in her eyes.

There was a short pause, and then Alice said softly: ‘Yes. I am afraid so, yes.’

‘But there’s still stuff they can do, I expect, Miss,’ Ted offered. ‘Those doctors work wonders these days, don’t they? Marvellous they were with Hetty when she was in for her operation. Absolutely marvellous, weren’t they, love?’

Hetty nodded, her lower lip beginning to tremble. ‘They were, duck, absolutely marvellous.’

Perhaps moved by the hope in their voices, Alice began to answer but then faltered. She cleared her throat, and then said: ‘We can manage your pain, Hetty, but nothing more can be done to treat the disease. I’m very sorry.’

The couple stared at her in silence. After a few seconds Hetty’s right hand found Ted’s left, and then she closed her eyes. Her husband reached around with his free hand and touched her cheek with the pad of an arthritic thumb. A moment later, they leaned into one another, foreheads touching. Alice stood up and crossed the room; a deliberate kindness. After a few minutes, when they’d pulled apart, she returned. ‘There is plenty we can do to make things a bit easier for you both,’ she said, adopting a business-like tone. She knelt on the rush matting in front of them and produced a notepad from her bag. ‘Firstly, I shall apply for a crisis loan on your behalf. That way we can improve things around here and make them a bit more comfortable for you.’