"CATHY:" "Well, I was a bit fed up, you know." "There didn't seem to be much there for me." "You know how these little towns are." "One coffee bar." "It was closed on a Sunday." "Didn't even tell them I was going." "I sent them a card when I got down there." "That house over there." "Yeah, that one with the broken steps." "That's where I went for a room." "And the fellow kept touching me." "Where did I get a room in the end?" "Oh, yeah." "Down there." "Mantua Street, £3 a week." "That's where I got my first job." "Petrol pump girl." "Mad." "REG:" "They were going along in these hearses, you see, to what they call this unusual supper party." "And the bloke who was going in ahead of them, the chandelier falls down on him, you see, and he gets strangled with all these diamonds." "And then this big woman, who'd grown to about 40 foot high..." "Oh, that was through the radioactive dust, was it?" "Oh, yeah." "Yeah." "Well, she sticks her hand down through this window, you see, and she gets hold of this mean little piece that he's been doing it with" "and they've been jitterbugging away..." "Oh, it was an old film?" "Oh, yes, quite old." "But unbeknownst to this big 40-foot girl, you see, there's been a bit of swapping around and it's not her husband at all any more." "Anyway, as the bloke's jumping up, his mask slips." "It slips right down." "Who do you think it was?" "(LAUGHING) Duke of Edinburgh?" "We'll have a motor." "An E-type, eh?" "Well, help me down, then." "How about an E-type, eh, Cath?" "An E-type?" "Yeah." "Reg, they're expensive." "No." "We'll have an E-type." "I mean, why not?" "The money I'm earning." "Then what do you think we'll do, hey?" "I don't know." "Shunt it, I suppose." "No. "Shunt it." What are you talking about?" "I'm an A1 driver, I am." "No." "We'll take the brakes out." "That's what we'll do, we'll take the brakes out." "Take the brakes out?" "Yeah, this bloke, he was telling me, you know." "He's a fitter down at the loaders." "He says you just don't need brakes, you don't need 'em." "Drive it on the gears." "Gears will stop ya." "I mean, brakes, they spoil a good driver." "They spoil a good engine." "And if you haven't got brakes, you're not tempted to use them, are you?" "Well, I feel as if I've got a few drinks inside me." "You know, when you've had two or three drinks, you don't see nobody, you don't..." "Do you want to sit down?" "What, you mean you're a bit drunk?" "No." "I just don't notice anybody else when I'm out with you, that's all, Cath." "Oh." "Is that nice?" "Mmm-hmm." "How do you feel?" "I'm not telling you." "Oh, go on, I told you." "No!" "What?" "You can tell me." "I feel embarrassed." "It's only me here." "And that old fellow's asleep." "(BOTH LAUGHING)" "I think that's a horrible thing to say." "Oh, let's just go and have a drink." "I never knew you swore." "Well, it's not swearing." "It was..." "It just came out." "Nice boys don't say things like that." "Well, it was..." "I was upset." "Get your hand off me." "I was just upset, that's all." "I think I'm going home." "No, don't be silly." "(SIGHS)" "Let's go and have a drink." "I put my best suit on to come out with you tonight." "I'm sorry, I can't help it." "The least you could have done was... (INAUDIBLE)" "Oh, dear!" "Ah, that's the advantage working for a small firm like this." "Just ain't particular, you know." "I mean, don't worry about the hours or whether you get your stamps or flog yourself to death or take it easy." "They just don't care." "It's the same about lifts, you know." "I mean, if you give a bird a lift, they just ain't particular." "I've laddered my stocking!" "I'll get you a new pair next week." "It's the same with birds, just don't care, you know." "Oh, so it's not the first time you've given a lift to a bird, then?" "Oh, don't be silly." "Reg, what is this place?" "It's the firm I work for." "Is it safe?" "Course it is." "I bet you've brought other birds up here." "Look, you can see a bit already." "You can see half the town from here, nearly." "No, Reg, I don't like it." "It's shaking." "Oh, come on." "You'll get your sea legs." "No, I'm scared." "Come on." "No, I'm not coming." "Come on, come on!" "Come on." "Come on." "Whoa!" "(SCREAMS)" "Trust you." "Come on, up you get." "Careful." "Come on." "There." "CATHY:" "Trust you to bring me up to a rotten old place like this." "Now, how are we going to get down?" "REG:" "Don't worry." "Live in the present, eh, Cath?" "It is rotten, innit?" "This whole place is going to come down soon." "I was scared, Reg." "Ah, don't be silly." "No, I was, really." "I haven't got much courage." "I reckon it's just us now, innit?" "Just us." "Just you and me, eh?" "I wouldn't mind." "Have some babies, Cath?" "I'd like that, Reg." "Sod to all the rest." "Yeah." "(ALL CHATTERING)" "Along comes this sanitary man, what they call a health doodah, see." "You all right, darling?" "You don't look at all well." "Anyway. (LAUGHS) She's terrible." "And he perceives, you see, that these beetles are nested in this clapped-out tree at the back of May's caff." "Yeah, so he sprays all this disinfectant into the tree." "Some of it gets into May's dinner and kills two of the customers off." "Well, somebody's got to eat, don't they?" "What about Coming To The End Of Love?" "How does that one go?" "# Coming to the end of love... #" "I wrote that and all." "Never got no credit for that, neither." "When you lived in the country, did you like living there?" "Oh, no, it was horrible." "There was nothing there for me." "(SCREAMS) Oh, Reggie, please!" "MRS WARD:" "Here, Reg." "What have you done?" "I found one of them little beetles down her back." "WOMAN:" "And a slight history of incontinence." "MRS WARD:" "Oh, yes, there's that." "WOMAN:" "Rambling in his mind at all?" "Finding it difficult to remember the odd little thing?" "A little, aren't you, Grandad?" "I don't know, I never been..." "No, thank you." "And has to be helped with dressing?" "Yes, well, I certainly think you've got a case for having your father taken into care." "What do you feel about it, Grandad?" "Well, if you ask me, I'm not in agreement with it." "Besides, there's the fact that we need the space." "There's the two boys, see, they're coming back out of the army." "So we can't keep him." "And the council say it's overcrowding." "WOMAN:" "Yes." "Yes, of course." "And the incontinence is getting pretty bad." "Well, Grandad, you'll be in one of our larger homes." "Rivermead." "I expect you've noticed it up by the town hall." "It's, um..." "It's especially suitable for you because they have all kinds of facilities on offer that you mightn't get in a smaller place." "And as well as that, there's always plenty to do." "You'll find there's plenty to keep the time passing." "What with dances and hobby clubs of various kinds." "And there is help available for the things that might be getting a little complicated, like dressing and attention to your feet." "REG:" "Come here!" "Cathy?" "Come on, Cath." "Cathy!" "No, Reg!" "Please, Reg!" "Stay off!" "I just want to talk to ya!" "(CATHY LAUGHING)" "(REG SCREAMS)" "Now get out of there!" "I just want to talk to you, Cath!" "Hey, Reg, that's good, isn't it?" "What is it?" "It's double windows." "It keeps all the sounds of the traffic out, you see." "And it keeps heat in as well." "Oh." "You know, I was thinking..." "Hmm?" "You know that table we saw" "in the shop the other day?" "Yeah." "Don't you think it'd look good over there?" "Yeah!" "And I can get one of those rubber plants to put on it, couldn't I?" "Oh, yeah." "Cath, uh, where do you think we ought to have the telly?" "The telly?" "I don't know, really." "There." "I reckon that's a nice little picture, that, Cath." "Do you think we're overstepping it a bit, taking on this place?" "Oh, I don't know." "It's a bit late now we've got it, innit?" "Yeah, but I mean, there's no point taking on a posh place" "if we can't really afford it, is there?" "Of course we can." "I mean, well, I'm earning £25 a week." "And then there's you, what is it, £6 a week plus 3 in tips?" "That's £34, £35 a week." "Bloody millionaires, aren't we?" "We make 35 a week?" "CATHY:" "Funny, place like that even smells different." "Must be the central heating." "Felt different, too." "In your bones." "Oh, what a place." "Parquet flooring, tin openers fixed to the wall, double-glazing." "And the neighbours, talk about stylish." "INSTRUCTOR:" "All right, now we're going to try something which sounds a little complicated, but isn't really." "Now, can you put your arms at the side of you?" "Just down by the side of your body, completely relaxed." "Now, when you contract a leg, your toe turns up, you make a sort of square heel." "CATHY:" "It came as quite a surprise when I found out." "I was sick all the time and it never occurred to me why." "But the doctor, he said, "Can it be that you're pregnant?"" "And then I realised." "INSTRUCTOR:" "Now the other leg." "I got to dreaming then about what it would be like." "Now, this is a diagram to show what's happening right at the beginning, before labour really starts." "And you can see that the baby is surrounded by fluid and it's quite intact, hasn't broken at all." "And this is the neck of the uterus, here, or the cervix, as well call it." "Me and my husband are looking for a house to buy," "I wondered if you could help us?" "Well, we have a number of properties in the lower price ranges." "That's £3,500 to £5,000, if that's the sort of thing you're interested in." "On which we could probably arrange a 90% mortgage, other things being equal." "May I ask how big your deposit would be?" "Well, I'm off work now, so we haven't got quite so much at the moment." "But I reckon we could manage about..." "Oh, about £100." "Oh, £100 would barely cover the legal costs involved." "You might be lucky and find a new flat with a deposit of only 400, but... (CHUCKLES) ...you'll be very lucky." "I mean, we do have cheaper houses, but they're in such a bad condition that a building society would normally require you to spend about £700 on improvements." "And they'd withhold a proportion of the loan until the work was complete." "So, you see, really the cheapest houses are bought by the people with the money in hand to improve them." "Oh." "So really, it was a waste of my time coming here." "(TYRES SCREECHING)" "(CRASHING)" "REG:" "Well, I need compensation." "I told you about that camshaft knocking through, didn't I?" "MAN:" "Look, I would compensate you, but I'm skint." "I ain't had no insurance on me lorry." "REG:" "You're making a bomb here." "I just want a little bit of help." "MAN:" "I don't want any argument about it." "REG:" "Well, it's not argument." "I've had an accident and I'm injured, and I want some compensation." "MAN:" "Yeah, but it's not up to me." "The lorry's gone." "I've got nothing to compensate you with." "How well-off do you think we'll be?" "REG:" "Well, it's not so good, Cath." "Won't have so much now." "Never mind, though, Reg will fix it." "Look, Reg, how much will we have?" "Well, you're not earning no more and I'm down to sickness benefit." "How much is that?" "Do you know?" "No, but it's not very much." "How much we got on the HP, then?" "Nearly £5 a week." "Five." "Well, there's 10 on the flat." "Nothing else?" "No." "Oh, there's the life insurance as well." "Oh, yeah." "Still, we got savings, haven't we?" "Yeah. £30." "(SIGHS)" "I suppose we'd better find somewhere cheaper to live, then." "REG:" "I suppose so." "Oh, it doesn't matter, anyway." "We'd have had to get out of here." "They don't allow children." "Westminster?" "How about sharing?" "You fancy sharing?" "Sharing with who?" "I don't know." "Get some nice young couple to share with us." "Took me a lot of time to get used" "to sharing with you, didn't it?" "Oh, thank you." "MAN:" "There's 200,000 more families in the London area than the homes to put them." "And in addition, there's 60,000 single persons living without sinks or stoves." "In seven central London boroughs at least one in ten of all households is overcrowded." "That is to say, living more than one and a half people per room." "Oh, hello." "Is your room still to let?" "No." "Is it still in that place?" "Yes, it is." "Well, love, you know, it'll be a week tomorrow" "since I told them to take it out." "Pardon?" "A week." "It'll be a week." "Really?" "On the Thursday of last week," "I asked them to take it out because I got somebody." "MAN:" "A few years back, figures released by the LCC revealed that families of certain sizes, at the rate of building in force, would be 350 years on the housing list before they were offered a house." "Oh, it's a scourge here." "MAN:" "The present target of 500,000 set by the government is not high enough." "Even if it is reached, there's still people living in slums 10 years from now." "What's needed is a government that realises that this is a crisis, and treats it as such." "We can't stay at Mum's." "There's no room." "The council said it was overcrowded." "Yeah, but they needn't find out, need they?" "Our Mum will fix it." "Don't worry." "You're going to have better eyes than your dad, aren't you?" "Hey?" "Yeah, he's squinting a bit, though." "They all squint." "Oh." "CATHY:" "Funny how a baby makes a place quite different." "And Reggie said so, too." "Well, goodbye to freedom." "I didn't mind, though." "(PEOPLE TALKING, CHILDREN PLAYING)" "MAN:" "This is what you call the island of paradise?" "I mean, kids here, they've seen rats running around the place nearly as big as cats." "(DOG BARKING)" "WOMAN:" "And any time the children have accidents, nine out of ten times all the mothers come down and see if they can do anything to help you." "WOMAN 2:" "They're so old, the damned old places, they're so old they want pulling down!" "WOMAN 3:" "We've got plenty of company." "And I think we're reasonable people that we all get on together." "Oh, we have our ups and downs." "You can fight over the kids, but apart from that, we're lucky, I suppose, better off than some people." "WOMAN 4:" "I don't like one half of the people in it." "And what is more, there's none of them neighbourly." "They always got something to say about you, behind your back." "WOMAN 5:" "I had a friend lived next door to me." "She really would have give £1000, as she used to say, to move out of here." "But now she's gone." "She got a brand new maisonette." "She said she'd still like to come back if she could bring her flat back here." "She likes the company and the friends." "MRS WARD:" "Of course, Reggie's Uncle Mack, he was the adventurous type." "He spent a lot of time in India." "He wanted to see foreign parts." "He never married." "Then his Uncle Tommy was in the merchant navy." "Uncle Jim, well, he was the ne'er-do-well." "When he got married, I remember Grandad saying," ""Course, he's a nice fellow," ""but he'll never be no good to no woman, not never."" "(ALL SHOUTING)" "MRS WARD:" "When I first came here, we never had none of this lot." "We never had no children in here." "This was only for a married couple or one on their own." "No children." "You had ladies here then." "WOMAN:" "There was rats under the floorboard and I had the council down to take the floorboards all up and put all poison down for the rats." "And they said that definitely rats had been there, but they'd probably gone somewhere else, to annoy somebody else, like." "EILEEN:" "Hey, Reg, we've got a new girl at work." "You knew her when you went to school." "Really, who's that?" "Uh, Christine something or other." "Rowbottom or something." "Oh, I know." "Jenkins, wasn't it?" "That's it." "She's on the bra counter." "(LAUGHS)" "Well-suited to work that, I'll tell you." "(BOTH LAUGHING)" "What happ..." "Wasn't it George?" "You remember George?" "What, George that had the accident?" "REG:" "Did he have an accident?" "Didn't you know?" "He had his leg off." "REG:" "Oh, dear!" "Oh, that's terrible." "Yeah, isn't it?" "REG:" "He was very keen on sports, too, I remember." "He was a lovely little runner." "He really was." "GIRL:" "He won't be able to run any more, will he?" "REG:" "I hope he makes fun of you!" "(LAUGHING)" "WOMAN:" "I think this is the only tenement block in Islington where you can sit in your toilet with your door open and cook your breakfast at the same time." "WOMAN 2:" "We've only got one bedroom." "I mean, you've got no married life." "It's sort of, um..." "Half your questions and half your rows is over sex." "'Cause you have to see that they, you know, and of course, you're always on nerves with the children." "I don't think it's fair to a man, or if you're married and that, and you've got children I think you're entitled to have another room." "WOMAN 3:" "You can look out your door up the other one's passage." "You can't do that in any new flats, can you?" "CATHY:" "I gave Reg some of those frozen chips last week." "He didn't like them very much." "Frozen chips?" "You know what I think about them things?" "You know what Mr Ward used to say?" ""Most unhealthy."" "WOMAN:" "We all go and make one another a cup of tea." "We sit outside the doors and have a laugh." "WOMAN 2:" "Better to keep yourself to yourself." "Then you can't get into no row." "Cook your dinner now, dear." "And then I'll cook ours for Eileen and the boys." "No, Mum." "I'm just going to put the baby to bed." "He's asleep." "You know it don't work when we all have it together." "I'll clear up after him this time." "I do think it's a bit hard the council won't do nothing for you." "I mean, I've done my bit." "I've brought up five children." "WOMAN:" "Then again, if we all picked where we live none of us would live here, would we?" "Stop your fellow putting his feet all over the furniture, and picking up the baby with his filthy hands." "He's your son." "But you taught him dirty habits." "Dirty habits?" "You don't wash your hands before you touch the baby or his bottle." "Well, I was only doing it to help." "And don't put Daz in his bottle, either." "And then there's the toilet." "What about the sodding toilet?" "You know what I mean about the toilet." "I think it's disgusting." "Well, of all the meanest, horriblest things, to bring that up." "It was you got on my boy's nerves with worry, so that he ran off the road." "(BABY CRYING)" "It's about time you was going." "All right, then I'll go." "You can keep your rotten old flat." "I can't stand it anyway." "It's driving me round the bloody bend!" "(CHILDREN TALKING)" "I got you a cup of tea." "Thank you." "That's nice." "Say, "See you after dinner."" "You're not very friendly, are you?" "CATHY:" "We moved right away from the parts we'd been living in." "And Reg found quite a good job, too." "And we soon fitted in." "Then Stevie came along." "And we got quite settled, really." "These streets, they looked rough, and there were rats, but life was quite good here." "Some of the places were boarded up, with the upstairs windows empty." "Others were crammed full with people and kiddies." "Once I heard sounds coming from one of the boarded-up houses." "It sounded like, what, like a baby crying." "(BOY SQUEALS)" "MAN:" "I went to a house the other week." "Woman come out, it's not too good, I tell ya." "And she come out in her knickers and bras." "Well, that's the sort of people I meet." "MAN 2:" "The women used to scrub the pavements every morning to keep them clean." "WOMAN:" "My sister came to see me last week from Yardley." "And when she seen the street, she said, "My God, Violet!"" "She said, "Whatever possessed you to live in a street like this?"" "MAN 3:" "But you knew everybody and everybody was friendly, like." "But I mean, you don't know anybody now and, er..." "I mean, a different class altogether than what they was, like." "WOMAN 2:" "You'll make friends in here." "And they're very, very nice friends." "We can have a laugh and a joke." "I might have me funny ways, but I'm a kind-hearted old bit of sugar." "I'm harmless." "I'm just an old bag as is got nobody to turn to." "Whatever happened to Mr Alley, then?" "They've gone far enough with these here closets." "There's too much pressure." "Too many people." "Yeah." "Plaster keeps coming off the wall." "What, plaster?" "I haven't noticed that." "Ah, you could pull the chain and half the ceiling comes down on top on you." "No!" "It's a blooming old system." "Wants a new one in there." "There's a sizeable queue waiting." "One can't follow the other." "WOMAN:" "I've seen all sorts of changes, from better to worse." "Everybody had window boxes when I first moved here." "MRS ALLEY:" "Now, my dear, once I had a profession." "Can you guess what it was?" "CATHY:" "Oh, I don't know." "I was an whore, dear." "Oh, you weren't, Mrs Alley." "I don't believe you." "An whore." "(LAUGHS)" "Long time ago, but I was lovely then." "Had the fellows wild for me, I did." "Did you?" "When I was an whore." "Oh!" "I've got something I want you to do for me." "Will you read this letter for me, dear?" "Yeah." "It's one of me old favourites." "And me eyes are not so good these days." "Oh, Mrs Alley, it's all about sex!" "Fancy you getting me to read your sexy letters for you." "WOMAN:" "Well, there's a caff down the road and they have a striptease." "And every night, there's kids hanging round down there waiting to get in and see 'em." "And that's putting ideas in the kids' heads, innit?" "CATHY:" "Steven, what are you doing?" "That's dirt." "I told you not to play in the dirt." "Look at your clean jeans." "Now, put that down." "And you, Sean." "Look at you." "You're filthy." "(WHINGING)" "Come on, in you go." "CATHY:" "Now I was pregnant again." "Some would say it was wrong to have another kiddie when you're overcrowded as it is." "But I don't think so." "I think kiddies are God's gift." "You don't do right to deprive anyone of a chance of life." "Love's what's important in a child's life." "Love is more important to a child than nice surroundings." "I know. 'Cause I lived in what they call a respectable home, and I didn't have it." "WOMAN:" "The attic." "You know, we have to sleep in the attic, which is quite damp." "He wallpapered it about three weeks before I had the baby." "And the far wall, it's starting to come down already." "Help!" "Oh, Mrs Alley, are you all right?" "I fell through the bed." "Oh, thank you, ducks, thank you." "I'm very glad to you, ducks." "I'm very glad." "Oh, Mrs Alley, I can't pull any harder." "I'm with a baby." "Aren't I a silly girl?" "(GRUNTS)" "Pull me harder!" "Oh, it's the bed, see." "Oh, it's the bed, and the springs get rotted." "You may see one of these pigeons flying across, you see, 'cause I got one coming from Barcelona and he's very tired." "There's the pigeon there." "REG:" "Come on!" "I'll send that cat up after you, now, come here." "Come on!" "Come on." "Come on." "(COOING)" "Shh!" "Sean, be quiet." "CATHY:" "I felt we were honoured somehow, that pigeon coming all the way back to us." "Mrs Alley, can I have a word with you for a minute?" "MRS ALLEY:" "Give me a lift up, dear." "Oh, thank you." "Can you manage?" "Mrs Alley, I was wondering if it would be all right if we owed the rent for a few weeks." "Only you see what with the pigeons and Reg isn't earning very much now." "Owe the rent, ducks?" "Mmm." "Course you can owe the rent, but I want to be paid." "Oh, we'll pay you, of course we will." "I'll have to be paid." "You see, as old as I seem," "I don't qualify for a pension." "I look older than I really am." "WOMAN:" "The children tries to have a good time if people mind their own business and let them have it." "One's name was Sean and one's was Steven." "And they lived in a little cottage by the seaside." "And every day..." "Did they?" "Yes." "Reg!" "Reg!" "It's Mrs Alley." "(CRYING) She's dead!" "CHILD:" "She's dead." "CATHY:" "The men from the council came along, took away her odd bits and pieces." "They looked through the letters for notes of any relatives she might have, but she hadn't got none." "Only letters from her old clients, that's all." "So there was no one to pay the death grant to." "Oh, yes?" "I'm representing a nephew of the deceased," "Mrs Alley what died last week." "And the fact is that my client now needs the unpaid rent for the current week and the back period, during which he gathers from the rent book that you was in arrears." "In arrears?" "Are you sure?" "Yeah." "Well, I didn't know Mrs Alley had any relatives." "Well, she does." "Well, I'm sorry, but I can't oblige you at the moment." "You see, Mrs Alley said we could owe the rent for a few weeks," "because my Reggie's been ill." "Mmm-hmm." "Well, I mean, now he's better we'll pay you." "Course we will." "Yeah." "But just give us a few weeks, that's all." "And I mean, I'll even go out to work as well." "What Mrs Alley said and what my client wants are completely different." "So you'd better find some way to pay up." "Okay?" "CATHY:" "You couldn't talk to him." "It was like it was hopeless trying to talk to him." "What, three months in arrears?" "Well, I'll knock his block in." "I mean, who does he think he's talking to?" "How long is it since he's been round, then?" "Well, it's four weeks." "Well, four weeks?" "He says here we owe him three months." "I mean, well, who are we supposed to pay this rent to?" "I mean, he never comes round." "I mean, how does he expect to collect it?" "Have another look at the letter." "Well, he says here he's going to kick us out." "Well, they can't evict you these days." "I thought they passed a law about it." "It's nonsense." "Well, it says here he can." "Hey, look, I told you once, we'll pay you if only you'll give us time." "I know your game." "You want to get us out so you can charge someone else key money." "My client needs this place for himself and his relatives, so you'd better get out." "You may have heard that eviction is illegal these days, but in the case of a relative what wants an house, you can still be evicted." "Are you sure about that?" "And we'll get a court order to prove it." "But we're protected tenants." "I've been here every week now for a month." "You've had time to pay up." "The defendant not only persistently refused to pay his rent, but in addition to this, the landlord will be forced to put the premises right at the cost of some several hundred pounds to himself." "JUDGE:" "What have you got to say?" "Well, I say it's all a pack of lies." "I mean, listen, now, for the first thing now, Mrs Alley said that we didn't have to pay any rent 'cause I wasn't working, you see?" "And then this bloke comes round and says he wants the rent." "But when I goes round to him with the rent, he won't accept it." "I'm not satisfied in this case that the defendant is telling the truth." "In addition, he appears to have mislaid the rent book given to him by Mrs Alley." "I take the case as proved." "We'll grant an eviction order dated four weeks from now." "CATHY:" "So, we tried." "We wrote letters, wrote after places." "Never got no answer." "The next answer we got was no children." "No children accepted." "And I went through an agent and he turned round and said yes, they'd guarantee it to find us a place, providing we gave them 20% of a year's rent." "And 10% for fixtures and fittings, which I thought was unjust." "And I wrote letters, and the rent was too high." "Oh, there was one place we did go to and I thought we were going to have a chance." "They said £6." "And the next thing we heard someone had offered them eight." "So that put the cap on that." "In other letters we got £10 a week." "Because Reg couldn't afford it, not on his wages, it meant that all the week we'd be living on next to nothing." "MAN:" "In Birmingham, 39,000 families on the waiting list." "Leeds, 13,500." "Liverpool, 19,000." "Manchester, nearly 15,000." "CATHY:" "It wasn't long before I realised something." "We'd been lucky to get the old place." "There didn't seem to be anything for us any more." "MAN:" "In Liverpool, one household in nine is on the waiting list." "In Manchester, it's one in 14." "In Birmingham, there are 4,000 overcrowded houses, 12 people to a house." "Is that yours?" "Well, yes, it's just us and my husband." "Sorry, doll, no children accepted." "CATHY:" "If I had a couple of elephants they might have said," ""Fair enough, you can leave them outside in the yard. "" "But children, they'd say, "Sorry, we can't have nothing like that. "" "It was as if they thought it was a crime to have children." "MAN:" "A million families are without homes of their own." "You may have a teenage brother and sister who have to share the same bed." "Or maybe a crippled person living on the top floor who can never go out." "Perhaps they're sharing with relatives." "Or maybe even like yourselves, they've had an order of eviction." "Now, to house these 8,000 units we have 500 new dwellings every year." "People's needs are assessed on points." "One point for health risk, one point for every year they've lived in a borough and one point if they haven't got a bath." "And really, you just haven't got enough points to qualify." "Oh." "But in view of the gravity of the situation," "I will investigate and see whether it isn't possible to sort of jump you up the queue a bit." "Oh, thank you." "And also, in view of the situation," "I'll try and get you a place on the new Smithsonian Estate which is just nearing completion." "CATHY:" "We had a little girl next." "We called her Miley." "Oh, it was Reggie's choice, not mine." "She weighed eight pound five at birth." "Quite a little heavyweight." "One day we had a visit from the man from the council." "Mr Ward?" "Yeah." "Very good morning, I'm from the Public Health Department." "Oh, yeah?" "I understand that you're living in one room because the room upstairs is too damp for the kiddies to sleep in, is that right?" "Yeah." "SEAN:" "Mummy!" "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we'll have to move you out." "Well, we're going to be evicted anyway." "Are you?" "When's that, then?" "Next Tuesday." "Well, that saves me a bit of trouble." "In any case, it saves me from having to do something that I don't really believe in." "Good day to you." "What a faceless man." "Well, why doesn't he do something about it instead of just doing things he don't believe in?" "CATHY:" "It got like a mad house." "They pulled the washing down from the line." "The lights pulled out from their sockets." "We even had windows taken from their frames." "Someone turned the water off and the wires for the electric got all pulled out." "MAN:" "There is another side." "Our side." "I'm speaking, by the way, with authority... (BOARDS RATTLING) ...responsible for the property in question." "Now, I know it's quite common for the police to be brought in for an eviction." "There's nothing unusual about that." "But it does get people's backs up." "It's bad publicity for the company that owns the place." "Particularly when it is a reputable body of churchmen who, purely through the application of good business methods, have landed themselves in the unfortunate position of seeming to do an injustice." "(BANGING)" "Come along, then." "That's it, then, Cath." "Come on, Steven." "Up you get." "That's it, up you come." "Come on, Sean." "(WHIMPERS)" "It's all right." "It's all right." "All right, Cath?" "(CROWD CHATTERING)" "Hey, mister, could I have a word with you?" "Want me to store your furniture, a pound a week?" "Oh, go away, will you?" "Now, move out of the way, go on." "Leave her alone!" "Leave the kid alone, will you?" "Now, look." "I'm only doing my job." "He only wants..." "No, Reg." "Come on, don't be silly." "Come on over here." "Calm down." "REG:" "He only wants his toy." "It's nothing too much, is it?" "CATHY:" "We don't want to get in more trouble." "REG:" "It's not too much to ask, surely?" "I mean, we still own the property, don't we?" "CATHY:" "Hey, be careful with that chair." "What?" "How far?" "How much longer?" "Don't worry, Cath." "It's only about five minutes now." "Is it?" "Yeah, it's just down there somewhere." "Oh, I'm getting tired, Reg." "Hang on." "My legs." "Look, yeah, hang on." "Cath, do you want to swap over?" "Yeah." "Can you hold the pram?" "Stay here, Sean." "You didn't have to buy them these ice creams." "Look at the state they're in now." "Yeah, I know, well, I mean..." "Oh, there you are!" "Come on." "They're going to get this road done up, they told me." "In a couple of months." "It gets very bad in the winter." "It's not very nice, is it, Reg?" "What are all these cars doing here?" "Well, it's sort of a dump, you know." "The council are trying to do something about that as well." "WOMAN:" "I wouldn't go back to a house." "I never look at housing adverts now." "I never look in house agents' windows." "WOMAN 2:" "We tried council, we tried welfare." "We even tried to get tied cottages." "Everything just fell through." "A caravan was the last resort, and I hate it." "Uh..." "Up that way." "Well, which one is it, then?" "That one over there." "That way." "Which one?" "That one there." "That's it." "Oh, we're here, then." "MAN:" "I used to deal, I used to go to big fairs and buy horses and sell horses." "That was mostly the living." "I'd love to go back on the roads." "If we pull in the side of the road, same as we used to years ago, the police come along and summons you and you go to court and we don't know where to go to." "GIRL:" "Are you gonna live here, mister?" "Yeah, love." "Mind out, love." "Now, put that down, Sean." "Leave it down." "(CHILDREN CHATTERING)" "Well, what do you think of it, then, Cath?" "Could be worse." "Oh, come on, love." "It's not that bad." "Is there any light?" "Yeah." "I'll show you in a minute." "Like the wood?" "Yeah." "It's a bit dirty." "Sit down here." "I'll show you." "That's it." "Now, it's quite easy to operate, Cath." "It's not difficult." "When I'm out of the place you'll be able to do it yourself." "I'll just show you how it works." "Now, I need a box of matches." "Uh, now..." "Stick the match through there... and..." "that's it." "Uh..." "It's gone out, Reg." "Oh, uh..." "(LAUGHS)" "CATHY:" "It wasn't too bad, really." "The wind was getting up outside in the marsh." "It made it feel quite snug inside." "It felt funny to be in a caravan." "I'd only been in one once before and that was on summer holiday." "It was a relief, though, really." "I think it was 'cause of the tension we'd been living under the past few weeks." "And you've got the light, you see?" "CATHY:" "Yeah." "REG:" "It's very efficient." "It does the whole room." "And it's warm as well." "CATHY:" "Mmm." "Like it?" "(BABY CRYING)" "SEAN:" "She wants to go to sleep?" "Yeah, she's tired." "SEAN:" "Night-night." "We've got some bacon." "We'd better have that before it goes off and all." "Come on, now." "Go to sleep." "Good night." "Good night." "I don't know how we're going to fit another bed in here, Reg." "Don't worry, Cath." "I'll show you in a minute." "Here we are." "Oh, I see!" "That's very clever, isn't it?" "It's all right." "It's all right." "It's quite comfy, too." "Yeah." "(SIGHS)" "You sure we're safe here, Reg?" "I mean, they won't come and get us, will they?" "They won't move us on?" "What?" "From here?" "Yeah." "No, don't worry about it." "I mean, they won't come and look for us here, not amongst all this lot." "I mean, we may have dropped a peg, Cath, but I think we'll be a lot contenter." "CATHY:" "Later the wind got stronger." "It began to rock the place around quite a lot." "(LAUGHING)" "OLD WOMAN:" "I like a van." "You get all the air around you in a van." "You know, I'm 86." "CATHY:" "You're not!" "You're 86?" "Eighty-six!" "And I don't think a house would suit me." "CATHY:" "No." "You know, in a house you can't breathe." "And I like air." "I like fresh air." "You know, it makes..." "It's beautiful, fresh air." "WOMAN:" "There's no roadway at all." "It's just a road of mud with scrap heaps all the way up the lane, which we get fires nearly every day of the week burning." "The caravans are very close together." "We have to walk I'd say a couple of hundred yards to empty the chemical toilet." "MAN:" "In a house, it's all four walls, everything's closed in." "Just like a bird penned up in a cage." "(ALL LAUGHING)" "To get the fuel to come down to us..." "Well, it's..." "They just won't come." "With the state of that road, and the mud and... the bumps and that, there's too much." "REG:" "Another thing I can't understand, you know, it's the drivers that stop this." "It's the drivers that say, "We're not coming down there."" "And yet they're the same sort of people as we are." "MAN:" "People will look at me and say, "Oh, him." "He's just a dirty old gypsy."" "Well, we're not dirty." "We're clean." "And we keep ourselves clean." "I'll tell you why." "'Cause we wash ourselves." "Yeah." "And we don't need any of them flush baths, either." "Our way is this." "Get a bucket of water and we wash ourselves down," "down to the waist." "Yeah?" "Then when that part's done." "Roll your shirt down." "Take off your trousers and you wash yourself down." "And up." "Up and down, up to the bottom." "What?" "In the open air?" "Yeah, in the..." "Certainly." "Of course." "I'll tell you something else." "You'll never find no fleas, lice, nor louse." "'Cause we know how to thwart them." "With the devil's dung." "What's that, then?" "Devil's dung, you get it up in the chemist." "It does have a bit of a stink, I'll grant you that." "MAN:" "You can always tell a traveller, and you can always tell him by the way he walks." "And the way he acts." "The same as I can tell a policeman." "I can really smell a policeman." "WOMAN:" "We feel free because we can look at the open fields from our window." "We have our own front door." "We don't have people living all on top of us." "And, yet, people live in a decent, civilised manner." "GIRL:" "Next door there's a load of rats." "BOY:" "At night, you can hear 'em under our caravan, they all squeak." "You know, it's awfully noisy." "(ALL LAUGHING)" "I mean, once you're in a caravan you've gone as low as you can go." "You can't go no lower than that." "Unless it's on the street or in the halfway houses." "When Mr Jones came out the forces," "he tried hard trying to find places." "Hmm." "But the money he got was no good." "As the kids came along, it got worse." "He went down the mines, he went as a driver on the buses." "But each time, the rent we were asked was far too much." "Too much for his wages." "He tried to get jobs in the forestry, but each time we were turned down." "MR JONES:" "Couldn't get anything really regular, you know." "MRS JONES:" "He did the forestry when he was a prisoner of war." "CATHY:" "Reg got a job picking blackcurrants." "And when the job with the blackcurrants was over, he got more work at the airport on the new runway." "And then picking gooseberries and loganberries." "And the kids liked life here, too." "They were for always finding things that fascinated them among the trees." "I got to like it here, as well." "I don't know why." "I mean, I know it was squalid, but it was easygoing." "Only sometimes the filth got on my nerves." "I felt as if we'd sunk, somehow, out of the race." "Things didn't seem to matter down here no more." "There was no one to move us on." "Reg and me reckoned we might stay here for a while." "Well, it was a life." "We were happy." "What we are pressing for is the fencing off of the common land so that the gypsies and layabouts can no longer get on it." "Now, it is the traditional camping place of the gypsies, of course." "No one is denying that." "But these are not real gypsies." "They're just scroungers, layabouts." "MAN:" "Bloody vagabonds." "These are the words that spring to one's mind when contemplating these people." "And of course, with the new housing development, of which we are all part, the character of the area must be expected to change." "We can accept no hindrance from those who wilfully try to keep us in the past." "There is no longer room for slums on wheels." "Many of these people are not, in fact, gypsies." "They are here because, in fact, they can't find anywhere else to live." "Where would the sympathies of the association lie in the event of violence?" "I'm afraid our sympathies will be very much with ourselves." "MAN:" "The council has wasted enough time on these gypsies." "They give nothing towards the councils." "Right, mate." "I'll get you!" "MAN:" "Why should we support them?" "Young respectable couples in the borough can't get housing loans." "Who would we rather have the money?" "Cherries, apples..." "Pea picking." "That's right." "Hops." "Hey!" "Bert and I helped to make that, didn't we?" "Yeah." "Do you want another pint, mister?" "I'll get it." "No, I'll get 'em." "Potato picking." "In fact, that's how I met the missus." "REG:" "No!" "Yeah, I'd been out potato picking, had a few pints, you know, and I had to go into this ditch." "And there she was, the future Mrs Abercander." "Oh!" "She asleep, was she?" "No." "She'd had a few pints, too!" "If you've got it off someone who you know is okay, you can get his name..." "BOTH:" "Mum!" "The caravan's burning!" "(SCREAMING)" "MR JONES:" "Get her back." "Get back." "(SHOUTING AND SOBBING)" "MAN:" "Why were you living there in the first place?" "MR JONES:" "Well, we was evicted from a council house in Stoke." "MAN:" "Where were you on the night of the fire?" "MR JONES:" "We went out to buy some dolls for the kids." "And on the way back we stopped for a quick one." "MAN:" "Did you and your wife have to be out together?" "MR JONES:" "Well, Mrs Jones can't drive and anyway," "I wanted her advice about the dolls." "I mean, there are times when a husband and wife have to go out together and this was one of them." "And I would say, sir, that this was murder." "It's the kids from the new estate." "And the adults, well, they just seem to encourage them." "MAN:" "Now, you are the health inspector for this region." "You yourself have made orders for the demolition of houses a thousand times better than these caravans." "MAN 2:" "The local authority do have full sympathy for these people." "(CRYING) That's our baby in there!" "(SCREAMING) Someone go and it out." "MAN:" "Pauline Jones, were you asleep in the caravan on the night of April the 25th?" "PAULINE:" "Yes." "We was all six in the bed." "I woke up 'cause the place was full of smoke." "So, I grabbed little Gary in me arms and got out." "MAN:" "I see." "And do you remember what happened then?" "PAULINE:" "Well, all the others got burnt up." "MAN:" "They get the van and tow it over the boundary into the next district." "Do you know what they do?" "They leave it on the side of the road and then the police in that district come and nick you for being on the side of the road." "It's all on account of something about you can't cause obstructions on the public highway." "CATHY:" "Reggie's working at the airport." "But some nights when he got back, he couldn't find us, and he'd be worried about us." "So he got behind in his working." "REG:" "We can't go on like this, Cath." "We're going to have to sell the caravan." "I mean, there must be somewhere for us." "CATHY:" "Fancy you paying out money before you've even seen the place." "Well, I didn't know, Cath." "He said we could have the first floor front, up here." "MAN:" "Yeah, we used to have people living here, but now we can't allow it." "The fact is, people tend to deteriorate when they're living in a boat." "Yeah, we used to have 'em, but they turn the place into a slum." "If people want to come here with their pleasure boats and take them out occasionally, it's all right by us." "But living in them the whole time, in my opinion, it's not helping anybody." "We had to ask 'em to go." "Yeah, but what if they're homeless?" "Say they've got nowhere else to go then?" "Even so, it's not helping them." "In my opinion, we had to get rid of them." "I mean, it's not helping them to help themselves, is it?" "I don't know, you people let yourselves get so run down, no wonder they won't have you." "Well, we get run down because we ain't got no house." "We got a welfare state now, you can't come to any real harm." "Are you an inhabitant of this borough?" "Are you on the housing list?" "Yeah." "Whereabout on the list are you?" "Surely you must be pretty high." "Yeah, well, they said they're going to get us a place on the Smithson Estate when it's finished." "CATHY:" "Come on, mind the fire." "Play with the rope properly." "(CHILDREN TALKING)" "WOMAN:" "Sheila?" "Oh, there you are." "I'll tan your arse when I get hold of you." "Hold on." "Should we see if they're here?" "Come on, darling." "Is she yours?" "WOMAN:" "Yes, she is." "We live next door." "Do you live here, too?" "Yeah." "Next door." "Next door?" "How's your place?" "Is it..." "Oh, it's terrible." "It's leaking everywhere." "You got enough to eat?" "I'm just going to make myself a fire and make her something to eat now." "CATHY:" "You hungry?" "She's starving by now, I suppose." "Hasn't had any food all morning." "CATHY:" "Are there a lot like us here, then?" "WOMAN:" "There's a quite few, you'd be surprised." "CATHY:" "Can't you come round and give me a hand?" "All right." "All right, love." "I've got another one here." "Here you are." "Hold it nice and tight." "I'll put this one in here." "This is bloody ridiculous." "Are you all right?" "(SIGHS) Sean's not very well, either." "I don't know what you think, Reg, but I think we've had it." "I mean, they turned us out the caravan, didn't they?" "Then they turned us out the derelict house." "Well, they're going to find us here." "I know they will." "I think we'll have to give up soon." "Course they'll take the kiddies away, like that man said." "Yeah, well, don't worry, love." "I've got £5, haven't I?" "CATHY:" "Nice, this." "You know what you're going to do tomorrow, then, Cath?" "Mmm." "Pity about that place, that maisonette." "Yeah, but you do know what you're going to do now, don't you?" "Did you say you have an aunt living in Northumberland?" "CATHY:" "Yes, I did have." "But you don't know her address?" "No, I haven't seen her since I was seven." "She might be dead as far as I know." "Mrs Ward, have you any friends or other relatives who might help with accommodation?" "Look, if I had, I wouldn't be here, would I?" "Mrs Ward, I have to draw your attention to a fact which is not very pleasant." "But in our emergency accommodation..." "Well, it's not very nice." "Some of the people are a little rough." "Now, are you sure you want to go in?" "Look, I don't want to be cheeky, but we've already been here for six hours." "If I had any choice, do you think I would have stayed?" "All right, sit down." "Mr Ward, please?" "Have you got a bit of chocolate to keep him quiet, please, Cath?" "Mr Ward, I'd just like to check one or two facts with you, please?" "You and your wife lived at your mother's house." "Up to what date exactly?" "January '62." "'62." "And at what address would that be?" "97 Maysole Buildings, Maysole Street." "Really?" "Not Mayberry?" "No, Maysole." "Maysole." "Now, Mr Ward, your wife's mother..." "What is your wife's mother's address?" "(CRYING)" "Do you have any sisters?" "No." "Oh, I thought you said, Mr Ward..." "Oh, yeah, there's my teenage sister." "But she don't count, she hasn't got a house." "She's just courting, you see." "Grandmother or grandfather?" "Yeah, I've got a grandfather, but he's in a home." "Now, Mr Ward." "How many rooms does your mother occupy, that is, at Maysole Road?" "There's one bedroom and there's a living room, but there's three adults living there already, see." "The accommodation we have available is for wives only." "We can't accommodate husbands, I'm afraid." "Yeah, but why can't you accommodate the husbands, then?" "Oh, we used to house husbands at one time, but we had to discontinue the practice." "Men used to tear up the sheets." "(CHILDREN PLAYING)" "We have no objection to your coming to see your wife of a weekday evening, provided you are gone by 8:00." "The front entrance must not be used by you homeless." "Now, there's a very good reason for that." "It upsets the old people we accommodate here, and, of course, this accommodation really was meant for them." "No alcohol in the building." "About this we are fairly strict." "And inmates are expected to take a regular bath and get as much fresh air as possible." "Rent, we charge five shillings a night for each adult and three bob for a child, payable in advance." "Now, there are other rules, but you'll find it easier to pick them up as you go along." "Any questions?" "Well, I don't think very much of it." "Mr Ward, in many places in England, the families are not kept together." "They're broken up as soon as they become homeless and children are put in care, etcetera." "Now, if we rehoused homeless families, people would say it was an easy way to jump the queue, wouldn't they?" "So we can't do it, for obvious reasons." "And it must be strictly understood that this accommodation is only temporary." "After three months, make no mistake about it, we turn you out." "So keep searching." "All right, sit down." "(CHILD CRYING)" "Well, don't eat it then, I'll eat it." "Give it to me." "Mrs Ward?" "You'll be in room E72." "E-7-2." "Don't forget it." "Hey, go on." "Out!" "Well, I'm just taking her up to her room, see." "Well, we've only just come." "Oh, I see, you're newcomers, are you?" "Well, no men beyond the lodge." "I'm afraid you'll have to get out and say goodbye to your wife now." "Hey, not you, girl." "Oh, look, she's just arrived." "Let me just take her up, please?" "If he could stay, I'd be all right." "No, no, no." "I'm sorry, I don't make the rules." "He'll have to go." "She's got a lot to get through yet." "Now, listen, lady." "Don't be saucy with me." "Reg, don't." "Shut up." "All right, love." "MAN:" "Many social workers feel that all homeless families are problem families." "They may not be when they arrive in our hostels, but they usually are when they leave." "MAN 2:" "It was considered that if a man couldn't provide a home for his wife and children, he wasn't much good." "But that is certainly not true today." "The great majority of the homeless families we deal with are decent citizens." "And all they want is a home of their own." "Try and keep the children clean, 'cause there's disease here." "Well, why did they send us here if there's disease?" "There's disease in all these places." "We try to keep it down by swabbing them as they come in." "What you have to do, Sean, is take your panties down and then they're going to put something up your botty." "CATHY:" "Sean always was the worst at taking his pants down." "He never liked anyone to see him without them." "MAN:" "There exists, in local authorities, a kind of punitive attitude, which means that the whole problem of homeless families is the Cinderella of the Cinderellas." "MAN 2:" "So, I came out of the welfare place and I said goodbye to the missus, not knowing when I should see her again." "Some men don't seem to bother whether they're living with their wife and all that, but, I mean, I have always been one." "We've been happy together." "We've been married 18 years." "And when you get like that, it upsets you, it breaks your heart." "WOMAN:" "Bus drivers, lorry drivers, coalmen," "GPO sorters, general labourers, scaffolders." "All sorts of groups of workers have become homeless." "(WOMEN CHATTERING)" "WOMAN: (SHOUTING) Doll?" "Dolly?" "Any sugar?" "DOLLY:" "No." "I've got milk." "MAN:" "In such times, we either build houses in the areas where there is work, or redistribute the work to those areas where there are empty houses, we're bound to get homeless families." "In view of this, it often seems amazing to us in this department there aren't tens of thousands of homeless families, instead of just thousands." "I think you'll be all right in here." "(WHISPERING) Cathy?" "Cathy?" "Reg?" "What are you doing here?" "I climbed in." "I met one of the husbands outside, and he showed me a way through the wall." "I couldn't leave you alone, Cath." "Oh, I'm pleased you've come, Reg, I really am." "Come on." "(CRYING QUIETLY)" "(MOANS)" "(SOBBING)" "Shh." "Shh." "Reg!" "I'm sorry." "I am." "WOMAN:" "We were living in a rented house in Margate and it was needed by the Works Department for a road-widening scheme." "So we got an eviction order and they said they couldn't rehouse us 'cause they wasn't a welfare authority and they didn't have any houses." "Never do that again, dear." "Go and get another cup." "Why?" "What's the matter with it?" "Look, keep away from the cracked mugs." "There's sickness in them." "WOMAN:" "My first thought is, I feel I'm a refugee." "I've lived here all me life." "Now I feel like I'm a refugee." "Send us back to where?" "To where you're from." "But not before you've taken all our houses away." "You ask the warden and he will explain." "Oh, go on, you lot coming here" "with all your kids." "I'm not going back." "That's why we have to come to places like this." "You take up all our houses." "I'm not going back." "I'm not going back." "All the lot of you." "Too many there are." "Doesn't matter." "It doesn't matter." "WOMAN:" "I was in a council house, so I was." "And then me husband, he buggered off." "And they got a scheme there, that if you're an abandoned woman, they turn you out." "So then I came here." "They say it's to stop men leaving their wives, but it didn't work in my case, did it?" "MAN:" "It's largely nonsense to say that coloured people are responsible for our housing crisis." "The Millner-Holland Report showed if the immigrants didn't come, either their places would be taken by migrants from other parts of the country or a large number of essential jobs would remain unfilled." "The second point is that more people leave Britain each year than come into it." "So there you are." "Go on, Tommy." "Back to Mummy." "Go on, there's a good boy." "Quick." "WOMAN:" "Scrubbing." "Scrubbing." "That's all." "It is all day here." "We have to scrub the place out twice a day, you'll see." "WOMAN 2:" "The childrens the ones that feels it most." "They miss their toys." "The little things they've had since they were tiny kiddies." "WOMAN 3:" "It's too far to take them back to their old school, even if we could afford the fares." "And, I mean, what are we expected to do?" "Put them in a new class here without any preparation?" "How'd you get that in here?" "There's ways and means when you've been here long enough." "Come here, give us your cup." "Yeah, thanks." "Want a little drop?" "Yeah." "Now, steady, I don't want to get drunk." "WOMAN:" "They come in at night to see that your husband is gone." "And they come again at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning." "WOMAN 2:" "There's no place for family life." "That's why they have quarrels." "The women, they get so frustrated." "We used to have money once, didn't we?" "And I had a good job." "Ah, well, then I had me accident and I lost the job but..." "I mean, we had that house, didn't we?" "And then, of course, we got evicted." "Then there was the caravan." "And when we..." "Well, I got £10 for that." "And I gave it to that bloke in the pub for that number 13, that house." "But, you know, every time we just sort of seem to lose on the deal." "I just don't seem to understand it." "And here we are, you know, we're right at the bottom." "I just..." "I just don't understand." "As time goes on we just seem to sort of get lower, don't we?" "We're down now, but we'll be up again, Reg." "Oh, yeah." "We'll get up again." "I mean, there's no question about that." "No." "You know, it's funny, but now I'm on my own," "I just don't seem to tick over." "I mean, I got married, you know, and with my wife and with the children," "I got to sort of need you, you know, and the kids." "And we just seem..." "Everything seemed to be okay." "We could tick over and everything was fine." "But it's very funny, but now I'm on me own again, it's all gone wrong." "I just don't seem to be able to..." "CATHY:" "Mrs Ward, I've come to ask you a favour." "Oh, yeah?" "Well, it's about Sean." "I've come to a decision." "I've decided I can't bear to see him in that place any more." "I mean, he's pining, I can see it." "So, what I was wondering, if it's all right with you," "I'd like to leave him for a few days." "MRS WARD:" "Leave him with me?" "What do you mean?" "You can't walk out on your children just like that." "Leave Sean with me?" "You must be out of your bleeding mind." "(CRYING) You don't understand." "I don't want to leave him." "I mean, it really gets me." "(SOBBING)" "But I can't stand to see him taking it so badly." "I can't stand it." "Bye-bye, darling." "Be a good boy." "Bye-bye." "Bye." "Shut up." "I've told you before about using my bloody basin, haven't I?" "WOMAN:" "Oh, will you shut up about it!" "My kids have got to wash in there." "You don't care!" "Your bleeding kids are always walking around with their behinds hanging out!" "Sit down, Reg." "You look uneasy." "Well, sit down, then." "All right, I'm sorry." "I am uneasy, that's all." "What about me?" "I have to live in this place." "Reg, I don't like to ask you this, but Stevie needs some new shoes." "Well, Cath, I'm only getting £11 a week and I'm giving you six of it, aren't I?" "And I mean, there's 15 bob for National Insurance." "And there's a pound a week for that furniture we got in store." "But that leaves you £3.05." "Yeah, well, it's £2.10 for me lodgings, isn't it?" "Go on, Stevie." "Go and play with the kids, go on." "It's £2.10 for me lodgings, and I got 10 bob a week on travelling." "That leaves me five bob a week for clothes and food." "I mean, how am I going to clothe myself on five bob a week, eh?" "Well, what meals do you get at your lodgings?" "I only get my breakfast, don't I?" "Well, how do you manage, then?" "I don't." "I was going to ask you if you couldn't go on a bit less." "Well, Reg, that's not possible." "You know we can't." "Well, how much rent are you paying here, then?" "Well, it's five bob a day for a grownup." "Three bob a day for a child." "That's £3 a week without Sean." "What are you doing with the rest of it?" "Oh, Reg, don't be like that." "We have to get out of this place." "We spend it on food." "But you get meals here, don't you?" "Yes, but there's disease here." "I mean, I can't let 'em eat here." "One day was enough." "You're going to have to, aren't you?" "Why?" "Well, they're going to starve otherwise." "(CRYING)" "I bumped into this fellow who said he knew of a bloke who could help us." "So I went down to see this bloke." "And he was filling in all these forms and things." "And he says to me, "Where are you living?"" "So I told him this address of this new lodgings I've moved to, and he said, "Well, I'm very sorry."" "He said, "But I'm afraid I can only help" ""people that are resident in this borough."" "(SIGHS)" "(SIGHS)" "I've failed you, Cathy." "You've been here three months." "As you know, this is the maximum period we allow homeless families to remain in our temporary accommodation." "I understand all that." "This is only temporary, you know." "We do, in fact, have the power to evict you." "We can quite easily say, "That's enough of that, so much for her."" "As they still do in many towns in Britain, we could take your children into care and turn you out just like that." "Please don't do that." "But we're not going to." "We're going to give you one more chance." "But I must emphasise, this is your last chance." "You must make your own arrangements." "Now, we've arranged for you to go to what we call our Part III accommodation." "Now, this, like the place here, is one of our accommodations where husbands are not admitted." "But you're not going to like it." "The amenities are nothing like as good as in this place, but there you are, it's the best we can do." "But don't you think, the thing is, sir," "I mean, couldn't you find me a place where I could be with my husband?" "Some families here have really been trying to get back on their feet." "Well, who are they?" "And how?" "I've not met any." "I mean, it's not possible." "They can smell you're from this place!" "They can smell you a mile off." "Now, don't talk like that, Mrs Ward." "I'm sorry, but something's happening to me." "I don't know how to explain it." "But you see, all this is having a bad influence on my family life." "Somebody told me that you've got these places they call halfway house." "And I thought if I could get into one of these places," "Reg might come back to me." "You see, he's drifting away from me." "And the children, they need him." "And the other thing is that in a month's time we've got a place to go to." "MAN:" "You've got a place in a month's time?" "Yes, on the new Smithson Estate." "They're giving us a new flat there." "We're told that you lost your place on the list long ago, owing to moving." "Five hundred families have moved in already." "But we was meant to be one of those families!" "WOMAN:" "Do something!" "(MAN WHISPERING)" "Runts!" "I saw you laughing." "Wipe that smile off your face!" "(CRYING) Haven't you got a room in one of your houses?" "Haven't you got flats that are empty half the night?" "You don't care." "You only pretend to care!" "Oh, I'm sorry. (SOBBING)" "It's all right." "I didn't mean to say that." "MAN:" "It's all right." "It's all right, Mrs Ward." "That will be all." "(CONTINUES SOBBING)" "Oh!" "(SIGHS)" "Well, what's your opinion, warden?" "Well, of course, she's not an easy person by a long chalk." "She keeps the children tidy, but as you can see, she's not cooperative." "But in my opinion, the trouble rests with the other half." "But don't you think we could fit her in somewhere where she could be with her husband?" "WARDEN:" "No, there's no way at all." "We're full up as it is." "We've reached the state that if we had two other families come in tonight, we'd have to evict to make room for them." "(CHILDREN CHATTERING)" "Steven and Miley live here now." "WOMAN:" "Six years I've put up with this sort of thing." "Six years I've been here." "WOMAN 2:" "When I come here, they said, "Who told you to come here?"" "I said, "No one told me, did they?" I grew up here." "WOMAN 3:" "My old man was in the army for six years." "He was a regular." "Well, that don't seem to count." "Don't cry, love." "What's the matter?" "Aww." "WOMAN:" "We should leave her alone." "Well, what's the matter with her?" "Why is she crying?" "She got the letter." "What letter?" "The letter of eviction." "Said they'd come and take her kids away now." "WOMAN:" "Well, I went in front of the committee and they said, "Why not put your two eldest in institutions?" ""Then we can rehouse you, " they said." "Here, do you mind if I give you a tip, dear?" "Don't go taking a bath, 'cause there's tramps what get in it." "Yeah, and the toilets get blocked." "And there are cockroaches behind the plumbing." "They come out at night, and they're about an inch long." "And this little girl and little boy..." "STEVEN:" "Yeah!" "They had a lovely garden as well in their house by the seaside." "STEVEN:" "Can I have a garden?" "WOMAN:" "I was bombed out in Plymouth." "Then I was two years in a mental home." "I'm not to blame for that, am I?" "WOMAN 2:" "Somehow I didn't feel I could do that." "I couldn't say goodbye to the kiddies." "It's not..." "You know, you find you can't carry on without them." "WOMAN 3:" "Last June it was, I lost him." "A disease, it was." "He was only 10 weeks old, poor little soul." "WOMAN 4:" "They say, "Go out and get looking for houses. "" "But we know it's nonsense going out looking for houses." "They call us the cubies, because we live in cubicles." "Everybody round here thinks we're either unmarried mothers or girls from borstal doing corrective training." "But that's not so." "My children were ill, and my husband hadn't seen them." "So, he asked could he come up and see them?" "They said no." "So he tried to force his way in." "They soon called the police and shut him out." "And the police laughed at him." "WOMAN:" "But even if we did find houses, then there'd be other people here because there's not enough houses." "WOMAN 2:" "I think it's silly when a girl gets married thinking a bloke's going to stay faithful to her." "I still maintain I'm better off with Lou, being married to him than being without him." "If you love a person, what's the point in leaving him?" "WOMAN:" "Do you know we have to be back home by 8:00 and we have to be in bed by 10:00." "WOMAN 2:" "He's got a fancy girl now." "You see, men don't have it like women." "He's got his freedom, ain't he?" "REG:" "What do you do all day then, Cath?" "What do you think I do?" "There's nothing to do." "Just sit about all day." "I feel like running away." "REG:" "What about the kids, then?" "They're restless." "There's so many changes, they don't know what's going to happen next." "It's not good." "If you go out at night, you've got to be back by 9:00." "How are you getting on with the food?" "There's potatoes." "Yeah." "Kids woke me up last night." "They were crying because they were hungry." "I wish you could come more often, Reg." "Can't afford to, Cathy." "Do you know, I really long for the nights here sometimes." "Yeah, I'll bet you do." "But not like we used to." "Reg?" "Until all this happened, it was a happy marriage, wasn't it?" "Oh, yeah." "Though if it weren't for the kids, we wouldn't be here." "Still, I'm glad we had 'em." "You can't wish your kids away, can you?" "Oh, no." "But I don't know, I wish we could start all over again." "I'd choose the same." "Oh, I'd choose you, Reg." "But now, I don't know." "I just feel I want to look away." "So, I'm practising very hard and with a little bit of recognition" "I should be all right in some money, I hope." "I know me age is against me." "But I'm hoping to win." "WOMAN:" "Give us a song then, come on." "Show us your talent." "All right, then." "CATHY:" "It went through my mind to chuck the whole thing up, turn my back on the kids and go off." "You see, I felt I'd failed them." "Well, I knew they weren't fit to be in a place like that." "I thought about how I used to be before we were married, without anyone depending on me." "And I had boyfriends." "And money in my pockets." "And some good times." "Look, why don't you go, Reg?" "I mean, you need a job, love." "I've heard there's jobs up in Liverpool, too." "And then when you've got a job you can find a place." "That's what I thought, Cath." "They say it's easier up there." "You know, I mean, I'm bound to be able to get a place up there, aren't I?" "Yeah." "And then when the Smithson Estate's finished..." "Well, we'll have no more worries then." "Yeah." "I'll go up there and if I can't fix up a place, well, I should be back by the time the other place is finished." "CATHY:" "It was all so..." "Well, sort of strange, really." "'Cause kids do seem..." "Well, they do seem to sort of need their dad." "They like to look forward to being with their dad, as well as their mum." "To have a bit of a laugh with him." "That baby was in tip-top medical condition." "Yeah, if it was in tip-top medical condition" "how come it's dead now?" "Yeah." "You tell me." "The mother must have been to blame, dear." "She couldn't have looked after it properly." "She's a marvellous mother." "Don't you bloody say that about her!" "Now, listen," "I'm only stating the truth." "The way some of you women keep your children." "What do you mean?" "(WOMEN CLAMOURING)" "How much chance have we got in this dump?" "Just a minute." "Just a minute." "What about hygiene?" "What about bathing, eh?" "How often do you change your baby's nappy?" "She changes it three times a day." "Three times a day?" "You cow!" "Get out!" "You bloody cow!" "Come here, my dear." "You don't care!" "Look at you." "Accusing us!" "You'll be very sorry about this, my dear." "We're bloody clean, we are." "Clean, aren't we?" "(WOMEN AGREEING)" "Clean?" "You don't know what that means." "(BABIES CRYING)" "Look at him!" "Nice carrying on!" "Look, nice carrying on, making the babies cry." "That's all your..." "You cow!" "You're a cow, you are!" "She couldn't care about us, could she?" "Just a minute!" "Look at this bloody dump we're in." "Yes, yes, it's a dump." "And it shouldn't be such a dump." "It's all your fault." "And it..." "My fault?" "Yes, it's your bloody fault." "You were the one that brought it back, wasn't she?" "Where's my cap?" "Where's my cap?" "I don't know where your silly old cap is." "Go on, get out." "Go on, get out!" "I shall be reporting you." "Yeah, you do that!" "You do it!" "Bugger off!" "I wonder who said this?" "You see, it's about this place." "I wonder who told those lies?" "CATHY:" "It wasn't me." "Listen, young lady, I'm not as stupid as I may look." "It was a blonde, wasn't it, who told talked to the reporter?" "A blonde like you?" "I don't know who it was." "We've had other reports about you, too, I think." "About Mrs Selby?" "I was just telling her about the poor little baby that died, that's all." "(SIGHING)" "Mrs Ward," "I see here that your husband hasn't been paying the fees." "Paying the fees?" "Of course he is." "WARDEN:" "We'd know if he was or wasn't." "Didn't he tell you he hasn't been paying?" "Well, I haven't seen him." "He's been away on business." "You haven't seen him?" "CATHY:" "Not for a while." "Look, my girl, what is going on here?" "Are you married or aren't you?" "Oh, shut up, you!" "Shut up!" ""It must be clearly understood" ""that the temporary accommodation will no longer be available" ""after that date."" "What does it mean?" "I shouldn't worry about it." "Doesn't mean what it says, maybe." "WOMAN:" "These people are casualties of the welfare state, perhaps the worst casualties of all." "They're pushed around like so much human litter and nobody will help them." "MAN:" "Originally, homelessness was regarded as a passing post-war phase, but the problem now appears to be with us for the foreseeable future." "Oh, excuse me, I called about a room." "How many of you?" "Well, it's just me and the two kiddies." "Sorry, I only..." "I don't take children." "Don't be a fathead when your time comes." "Don't be like Mrs Growcott." "Let us take them away without making any fuss, huh?" "What right have you got to take my kids from me?" "Well, you can't find a place for them, can you?" "Now, look, you've had your chance." "We're not interested in you now, it's the kids we're worried about." "We can't have them sleeping out." "From the time they leave here, they'll be in need of care and protection." "CATHY:" "Come on, Stevie." "Help Mummy pack that." "They're too heavy." "That's a good boy." "You're coming out with me in a minute." "(BELL RINGING)" "CATHY:" "We had a bite to eat from the cafeteria." "Of course, the kiddies didn't know what was going to happen." "But I knew they'd catch up with us wherever we tried to bed down for the night." "You're not having my kids!" "(WAILING)" "(SCREAMING) You're not having them!" "Get away!" "Get off!" "Give me my kids!" "(CHILDREN CRYING)" "(TRAFFIC PASSING)" "(DOG BARKING)"