A Girl Comes to London Special Enquiry

BBC Four Collections -

archive programmes chosen by experts.

For this collection, Simon Jenkins has selected

programmes celebrating the people and places of London.

More programmes on this theme, and other BBC Four Collections,

are available on BBC iPlayer.

During the past week,

500 girls have come to London,

either to take up jobs or to look for work.

And they're arriving at that rate every week of the year.

Now, what really brings them to London?

And, more important still, what happens to them when they get here?

How do they live? What sort of digs do they find?

And what sort of people are they meeting and palling up with?

Now, I know that questions like this worry thousands of parents

of young girls who've come to live and work in London.

And when you pick up some of the Sunday papers

and see flaring headlines about what has happened occasionally

to some youngsters, I don't blame parents from worrying.

But to what extent IS there a problem here?

And if there is a problem, what's being done about it, if anything?

Well, that's what we are going to investigate tonight.

They come...why?

To exchange the drab environment of an industrial city...

..for the grace and elegance of London?

To get away from village life with its limited social amenities

to London with its dance halls and famous bands?

SWING MUSIC PLAYS

To the lights, which stay on in London,

which surely must be gayer

than the main street of a provincial town.

But do they count the cost of living in London?

The wear and tear of travelling about

in the most populated city in the world?

The struggle for existence?

Or are they drawn by the lure of the big city

and the drama of great occasions?

Are they seeking fame and fortune?

Are they the victims of a steady stream of enticement

poured out by press, radio and television?

HUBBUB OF STREET CONVERSATION AND TRAFFIC

MAN: Stop!

But no-one stops the traffic for Jean Holman. She's 22.

JEAN: I come from Newbury and I work in a hairdressing salon.

And several of my customers have told me that I'm very photogenic.

And I would like to be a model.

I'm the right height and measurements,

so I came to London, as there's bigger scope there

for the job I would like to do.

ROBERT REID: Every day, Jean, like scores of other girls,

calls on the agents.

There are no less than 419 theatrical and model agencies

in London,

and before Jean can get a job, she must be taken on their books.

Three or four times a day,

she joins a different queue outside a different agency,

but the girls who wait are the same -

young and pretty girls who are confident

that they can make a success of a glamorous profession.

But how many of them realise what this means?

A well-known agent, who interviews about 30 new girls each week,

gave us her views.

When they get to London, they meet with tremendous competition.

The model profession is a very hard one.

The advertising agents are shrewd businessmen.

The high-fashion photographers are absolutely aware,

immediately a girl comes into their studio, of what they need

and what they have got and whether they are going to be suitable.

Any girl coming from the provinces will go into an agent's office

and she may be told that she has no hope at all

of ever making any go in the model profession.

It is heartbreaking for them,

and many bitter disappointments may occur afterwards.

Of a thousand, shall we say,

ten may make a lot of money.

20 may make anything between £10 and £12 a week.

Out of that, they have to pay for their flat, they have to buy clothes.

They have to mix with certain types of people,

always be presentable.

I think the tragedy of this profession

is that too much is written about it, far too much.

And not every girl can get to the top and become a top model.

And not every girl can marry a millionaire.

ROBERT REID: If the glamour of being a model quickly wears off

in the agents' offices, what are the chances of the many girls who come

to London hoping for an overnight success in the West End?

One of these girls is Anna Sharkey. She's in her early 20s.

Her home is in Leicester. Both her parents are dead.

Six months ago, she came to London.

All she had was £5 in her pocket

and determination.

Well, I'm one the lucky ones. I came to London six months ago.

I got digs and a job fairly soon,

where they paid me £5 10/- a week. It wasn't bad.

But out of that, I had to pay £2 10/- for digs,

two guineas for dancing lessons,

as I had to keep up the standard of work.

There was very little money left over - two shillings, in fact.

No money for clothes. A cup of coffee was even a major decision.

I wouldn't like to have to go over it again.

One felt so... completely frustrated.

I was doing a job that I didn't particularly want to do.

The prospects of work in the theatre seemed

to be going further and further away.

Friends of mine have been doing work like this for years.

But I've now got a job in the theatre and,

well, I'm one of the very lucky ones.

Figures given by Equity, the union for actors and actresses,

show that, at any given time,

a third of all their women members are not working.

Without regular work on the stage, how do these girls make out?

Perhaps one answer is to be found every Wednesday morning

at the Marlborough Street Employment Exchange.

Here, each week, they draw £2 unemployment benefit

and are offered the chance of work but outside the theatre.

Well, what about a demonstrator at Olympia?

They're very interesting jobs.

The wage is good.

No, well, I'd rather not do any temporary job at the moment,

because I've got an audition tomorrow at two o'clock

and also I've got an interview on Saturday,

and I don't think employers like giving us time off

to go to the various auditions.

No, well, I understand that you want to get back into your own profession,

but if there's much delay, do come along and see me again, won't you?

- Yes. - Good morning, Miss Brown.

Good morning.

There is no need for any young woman to be unemployed in London.

We have a large number of vacancies,

something like 36,000 in the Metropolitan area alone.

And these are in a large number of industries.

For example, we have jobs in factories, warehouses, hotels,

restaurants, hospitals, shops,

and can find work for secretaries and typists, clerks, shop assistants,

skilled clothing trades operators,

hairdressers and a large number of jobs...occupations besides.

But, despite this, it would be very unwise for any young woman

to come to London without first having obtained some kind of advice.

But in many cases, the job a girl finds in London

is the same as the one she left at home.

Perhaps there is more money to be made in London,

but is this the main reason why they come?

We put that question to a number of girls.

The first one we asked works in a big shop in Kensington.

Her name is Eileen Nixon.

Ever since I left school, I wanted to leave home in Birmingham,

and I thought that London would be a bigger and happier place,

full of entertainment

and a bigger variety of life

and more amusement.

I've been here since I was 15 and, well, I'm very happy.

My home life was upset,

so I went to live with my auntie and uncle

in a very remote part of the country.

Well, it was absolutely dead out there,

and there just wasn't anything to do.

And I got fed up with it

and I decided I would come to London and find myself a job.

Well, I came and I found myself a good job and a good salary,

and I'm very glad that I did come to London.

In the town where I come from, it is very small

and not much enjoyment for a young girl,

so I got tired of the same routine day in and day out

and of my mother and father watching me all the time,

so I decided I would like to leave home.

I got the opportunity of coming to London and I took it.

And I like being here very much.

And I've got all the enjoyment I've always wanted.

Those three girls, like many others we interviewed,

just wanted to get away from home and came to London

simply for what London had to offer.

But Janet Carter had a more definite reason.

My ambition was to be a court dressmaker.

And in Gosport, where I lived, unfortunately,

there wasn't anything like that.

So I could either go to Winchester or to London.

Winchester offered me, for two years,

no training, but after that, I could start.

And it's a very dull place, so I decided to come to London,

where there are better facilities and better training.

In many cases, only London can offer the facilities

and provide the specialised training required by young people

who have a purpose

and are not attracted to London just because it IS London.

A London University degree is recognised all over the world.

And a nurse who's been trained

at one of the great teaching hospitals in London

can get a job anywhere.

Art colleges and academies are full of young people

who are equipping themselves for the future,

and to do so, they must live in London.

Just to find somewhere to live is THE big problem,

and for a girl alone in London with a limited income,

it makes for real hardship.

An attractive flat let at £2 10/- a week

may turn out to be just a dirty back room at the top of the house

with no proper cooking facilities and a bath shared with eight others.

Some firms meet this problem by providing hostels.

In this one run by a large store in Kensington,

the girls pay 30 shillings a week.

They sleep in bedrooms which are shared by two or three girls,

and they get four meals a day, but this is exceptional.

Most hostels charge about £3 a week

and provide only partial board.

And in some cases, girls have to sleep as many as eight in a room.

Some girls object to this lack of privacy,

but nearly all agree that, for a girl arriving alone in London,

a hostel is a wonderful place for making friends,

and if you have friends, as one girl said,

you soon lose the feeling of homesickness.

But some girls resent the restrictions of hostel life,

having to be in by a fixed time at night.

They complain that this stops them going to dances and theatres,

and even in hostels where boyfriends are allowed,

it's hard, they say,

to return their hospitality in a communal atmosphere.

Nevertheless, hostels are very popular.

Despite their limitations, the girls feel

that they are by far the best places to find one's feet in London.

But are there enough of them?

Apart from private hostels,

the London County Council,

together with church and voluntary organisations,

list about 100 hostels

with accommodation for 4,000 girls,

and most of these hostels have waiting lists.

A young girl will often find it impossible to get into a hostel.

She may be only too thankful to find a small back room,

like Stella Guilfoyle from Durham.

When I took my last job, I tried to get into a hostel,

but they were all full up,

so I tramped the streets and I finally found this place.

It's at the top of 61 stairs, and for it, I pay £2 5/- a week.

For that, I have a divan bed, which is quite comfortable.

I have an electric fire, which I've got to cook on.

And, of course, you can't cook much on an electric fire.

I usually have beans or spaghetti or something like that.

And it would be too expensive to go out and have a meal.

I also do my washing in the room.

And I've got to air it.

I air it on this...thing here.

I share a bath with six other people.

We're supposed to have hot water, but it's not very frequent.

The only...water I'm really sure of is when it rains

and it comes in through the roof there.

But on the whole, I'm quite happy living here,

although it can be a bit lonely,

when you come home from work in the evenings and you close the door,

it's like closing the door on the rest of the world.

For a London already struggling to house its workers,

the problem of accommodation is getting worse.

As business booms, many residential areas are being torn down

to make room for huge new blocks of offices.

New factories are being built, and to get the labour

so desperately needed, firms are bringing more and more workers,

many of them young girls, into London.

Here, a group of girls from Ireland

are being met at Euston Station by Mr Dunelli,

the personnel officer of the firm which recruited them.

They come because there is little work for them at home

and because they've heard from friends that in London

you can have a good time.

On their way to their digs,

Mr Dunelli points out some of London's famous buildings.

But for the girls, the first questions they want answered are,

how far is it to the West End, to Piccadilly?

Where are all the bright lights and where are the famous dance halls

we've heard so much about?

Because they lack any real purpose,

these girls are more easily tempted by the idea of having a good time.

But the landlady of this house, where some of the girls will live,

had this to say.

For a considerable time now, I've been taking girls from Ireland

and the provinces.

I find these girls on the whole just like all the other girls.

Naturally they like a good time, some go to evening classes,

others go to ballroom classes to learn dancing in the proper manner

and we have quite a happy atmosphere.

Of course like every other girls when we have quite a few,

we have our little problems which we sort out amongst ourselves

and, on the whole, we have quite a happy house

and we're all very contented and happy.

But her experience is not shared by all landladies,

others feel differently.

I find when these girls come to London,

their one idea is to get up to the West End and have a good time.

Then they don't come home until the early hours of the morning

and stay up talking and laughing, keeping the others awake.

They go to bed with all their make-up on and make the bedclothes filthy.

They're not satisfied with that

but their hygiene also is very deplorable.

They've...

And then they go out, have a good time,

find a chap, and then you see no more of them.

They've completely disappeared and you've no idea where they've gone?

All right. Well, thank you very much for letting me know.

I'll do all I possibly can to find them.

'But as an employer, Mr Dunelli had this to say.'

Well, our problem as employers

is that there is a considerable shortage of labour in London

and we have to go out into the provinces and to Ireland to recruit.

This is a considerably expensive business

and causes a lot of trouble and time.

Having brought the girls over here,

we have to find them accommodation

and here again we have difficulties

because many landladies refuse to take girls

because of troubles they've had in the past.

But having fixed them up with accommodation

and brought them over here and settled them down,

we find that another difficulty, from our point of view,

is that they disappear after a very short space of time.

In fact between 25% and 30% of the girls that we bring over

have disappeared within the first month.

Having disappeared, we are left with the problem

of having to inform their parents

and this is a very heartbreaking task.

We tell their parents that they have been brought over by us

and settled in a job and now we've no idea where they are -

they've completely disappeared into London

and that's all we can hear of them.

And where do they disappear to?

There's no doubt at all that some girls who come to London

just for a good time, end up by earning their living on the streets.

And what of the good-time girls from the provinces,

the amateur prostitutes who ride the lorries up to town?

Large numbers of these girls, earning several pounds a trip,

arrive each week in London, sometimes to stay,

sometimes just to have a gay weekend.

Police are on the lookout for these girls,

particularly the younger ones who may have run away from home

and who may be wandering about the streets with no money -

easy prey for the professional layabout

or the contact man for a vice ring.

Mary Jenkins who was patrolling her beat told us...

We meet them in lots of ways.

It isn't difficult to pick out the girls who've run away from home

or who are drifting because they often look dirty or unkempt.

They're loitering about, they don't know what to do with themselves

and they do tend to go to places

where there are bright lights and plenty of people

and where they think they'll find the glamour

and bright lights they'd been hoping for.

If they are under 17, the law gives us more power to help them.

And, unfortunately, girls who come or leave home to come to London

hoping they're going to find a better job and a better life,

and when they come here they don't know what to do or where to go.

Well, these are the girls we keep our eyes open for

and who are very often in danger.

When we find them, we try, if possible,

for the parents to fetch them or we send them home.

That is of course if the home is all right.

If the home's a broken or bad one,

and if the parents won't or can't look after them properly,

we take charge of them and bring them before a juvenile court

as being in need of care or protection.

638 juveniles, many of them young girls,

were brought before the London juvenile courts last year.

Here at Scotland Yard,

a central index is maintained of all girls who've come to

the notice of women police, or who have been reported missing from home.

Police all over the country supply information and descriptions

and, where possible, photographs of the missing girls,

which are kept in these files.

And constant vigilance by policewomen on normal patrol duty,

helped by this information,

often leads to a girl being found after she's disappeared from home.

But if the girl is 17 or over and wants to stay in London,

there is little that police can do beyond urging her

to get in touch with her parents and, where necessary, they advise her

to contact welfare authorities,

or direct her to a suitable hostel or reception centre

if she's in need of somewhere to sleep.

This reception centre is run by the London County Council in Southwark.

It was once a casual ward catering for tramps.

Its doors open at five o'clock in the evening and they remain open

all night to receive both old women and young women.

But the young girl who comes to London looking for glamour

and bright lights won't find them here.

In fact, very few young girls do come here if they can help it.

The matron of the centre, Mrs Johnson,

who first came here 30 years ago, said...

We have 74 beds but they're not very often full.

We take about five new daily girls in.

They come from all parts of the country.

Some are brought in by the police, or sent by the police

and others find their own way here.

I think Tuesdays and Wednesdays

are about our busiest nights as they come in at all hours.

They seem to have come to London for the weekend

and by about Tuesday or Wednesday they have no money

and they're sadly delusioned and are glad of a bed and help.

They are given a bath, and a meal and a bed.

And in the morning,

are sent to register at the local employment exchange.

We allow them to stay for a night or two

and if they have any money they can pay a small fee,

otherwise they do some work round the building.

The girls are all interviewed by a welfare officer who will try,

especially in the case of the younger ones, to send them home.

Or if that is not possible, to put them on their feet again in London.

About 5% of those admitted are young girls who come to London

from Scotland, Ireland and the provinces

in search of more congenial work and occupations.

Many of them are social misfits, the products of broken homes,

some have been before the court as being beyond parental control.

It is an interesting thing to note that these girls

withhold very little of their history, whether good or bad.

They're really remarkably truthful.

A few of the girls are pregnant

and these are, um, transferred to more suitable establishments -

antenatal units et cetera -

and they are advised where they can get, um, help of all kinds.

The girls that present the most serious problem

are those of poor mental calibre and with aggressive personalities -

these return many times.

There is no need for any girls who come to London

to live on their wits.

There's ample work and opportunity if they will avail themselves.

That was the dark side of the picture,

the good-time girl who drifts into sordid ways of life,

into the lower depths of the big city.

But for every girl who gets into trouble, there are thousands

of normal, healthy youngsters living and working happily in London.

They are forming new friendships, sharing new experiences

and enjoying all the excitement that London offers -

the feeling of being in the swim.

For them, London has everything,

for in London they have a chance of making a success,

a chance which they might not have had at home.

All the same, this report does raise some obvious questions.

First of all, is there a case

for discouraging young girls from coming to live in London?

Well, I think it depends on a number of things -

the way they've been brought up at home,

whether or not they've got a job to come to,

or, at any rate, a clear idea of what they intend to try and do,

and, very important of course, whether they've got anywhere to live

when they arrive here.

On the whole, however, I'm against anything

which tends to discourage young people

from launching out on their own

because you can't keep them wrapped up in cotton wool all their lives.

All the same there is a problem here

but it isn't a problem of girls going wrong.

I don't suppose the proportion of girls who get into trouble in London

is higher than it is anywhere else.

And remember this,

it's always the bad cases which get all the publicity.

But for heaven's sake don't let's close our eyes to the fact

that for a young girl who leaves the circle of her family

and friends and comes to live and work in London there are dangers.

But it isn't just a question of the moral wellbeing of these youngsters.

Thousands of them, both girls and boys,

are living in what I'd describe as near slum conditions,

rarely getting the attention and the good substantial meals they need.

And this is the real nub of the problem - bad living conditions.

Insufficient hostel accommodation,

poor lodgings with landladies who very often

are only interested in the rents they can get

and not in the wellbeing of their young tenants.

And these youngsters, I feel, often miss the friendly help

and guidance they ought to be having from older folk.

All the more credit then to the common sense

of the vast majority of these youngsters,

that they do manage to weather these difficulties

and settle down in London.

But we don't give them a fair start.

Now, I know that the Ministry of Labour,

the churches and voluntary organisations do all they can to help

but, at the best, they can only scratch the surface of this problem.

And I think it's high time that some ministry or the LCC

got together with the social welfare workers,

the churches, employers,

the representatives of London University and so on,

and made a realistic survey of what is required,

first of all in the way of hostel accommodation,

and then launch a combined effort

to make sure that these youngsters are properly looked after

because these are the new Londoners,

the fresh blood in the life of the capital.

Are we going to give them a real chance to make good?