Little Marjorie's Life Pt. 03

It's Guy Fawkes Night in 1942 now and the evenings are getting darker. In this job I can go for days without seeing the light. We live in a world of streetlights. Even as a little girl, we celebrated Guy Fawkes Night every November 5th. It has always been a night of bonfires, fireworks and hot cocoa as we "oo'ed" and "ah'ed" at the explosions. I always thought that he'd suffered a terrible and painful death after he'd been caught with two tons of gunpowder under parliament. He admitted to being part of a conspiracy to blow up King James 1st and the whole parliament. Fawkes was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered and his head cut from his remains and displayed at the city gates on a pole. Moments before his execution he jumped from the ladder and to his death, breaking his neck.

It was soon time for a family Christmas again and Anne and May with their husbands came over to our place with their new kids. We were all pretty hopeless at cooking, but Giovanni was persuaded to come over to our house and to spend the day with us. We'd never thought he didn't have a family. He did of course. Us. He also brought dinner, cooked by the chefs in the "Pussy's" kitchen.

But the war doesn't stop for dinner and parties. To Americans and colonial troops, far away from home, we were their families too and we and London citizens took them under our wings and eased their melancholy for a while. The shows went on ("We Never Close" as the Windmill theatre famously said) and neither did the PPC. If you were lonely, hungry, thirsty and needed the soft touch of a woman, here we were in Wardour Street. Doris Blossom said to me she needed a holiday. Actually she needed a big horny man.

As 1943 rolled over, we wondered what would happen to break the deadlock this year. The Germans surrendered at Stalingrad, we beat the shit out of the krauts in Africa, Italy surrendered and opened new restaurants around the world and claimed to have invented spaghetti (which was more than they'd even done under Mussolini) and the Japs found out that a British or Indian bayonet up the jacksie wasn't exactly the outcome that Emperor Hirohito had assured them of.

So here was Little Marjorie going home after a day of dancing, sex and music, taking a short cut across Charing Cross Station to get to the bus stop. My feet were sore, dancing in stiletto heels isn't easy and as I hobbled across the concourse I saw a soldier crashed out, drunk on one of the station's benches.. He had his head on a small pack and his kitbag was propped up next to him. What was he doing here? I sat next to him and shook his shoulder. (What was I doing?)

He opened his eyes blearily and I asked him where he was going. He said he had leave but no particular place to go. I took charge and told him to get up as we were going home. I think he almost said "yes sir!" I helped him to his feet and said "let's go." He was a wreck and I wondered what the hell I was doing. I made sure that he saw how Little Marjorie moved as I led him to my bus stop. I had just met my husband.

When we got back to Lambeth, I opened the front door and pushed him in. Ma looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I told her I'd found him at the station and we were putting him up. She just nodded and made up the bed in a spare room. When she came back, my soldier was asleep again and Ma asked me who he was. I said I had no idea. She looked at me with one of her wise looks but said nothing. Doris got home a bit later and wondered where I'd found the yummy soldier. I told her I'd found him at Charing Cross Station and I didn't even know his name.

Later on, my handsome soldier woke up in a comfortable bed. He was warm, he had no idea where he was and he was sobering up rapidly. His room door opened and a slight, warm figure slipped in beside him. In his groggy state he assumed he had died and gone to heaven. But it was better than that, he'd just met his wife!

I introduced myself and he said he was pleased to meet me and his name was George. During my life I have been asked how we met and I said "in bed." Well a handsome man and a beautiful, sexy woman like Little Marjorie, naked in bed together, well, one thing leads to another, doesn't it?

When we woke up in the morning we had discovered we were sexually compatible. About five times! So I had a boyfriend for the first time in my life. George and I went for a walk together after breakfast (Doris: "You didn't waste any time Marjorie.") and over endless cups of tea, discovered who we were. George had been a bit of a lad with the women and his expertise last night demonstrated that. He had been the world roller skating champion and a professional tap dancer in Jessie Matthew's troupe. Like me, he was an entertainer!

He laughed when I said I was a professional stripper and promised to come along with me today as he's never been to a strip show! Boy, was he in for a surprise when he saw the "Divine Sisters at work! We spent the day together and it was obvious to both of us that this was a bit more than a one night stand. It was.

The day together just flashed past and in the afternoon, we walked hand in hand over to Wardour Street and introduced George to The Pink Pussycat! I introduced him to the other girls and Ma and Doris were in the PPC too. I said that Doris was the other half of the Divine Sisters and Ma ran the books. Giovanni was his usual courteous self and he looked at me wondering if his energetic love affair with the beautiful sisters was coming to an end? Not necessarily.

The tannoy in the dressing room told us the Divine Sisters were on stage in five minutes. George said that didn't leave us much time to change! Doris was in her ATS uniform and mine of the NZ navy. I reminded George we were in a strip club and out job was to take our clothes off! Ma came in to accompany George to a table with Giovanni and fixed him up with a drink. The band struck up and we were away. Every time we removed an item of clothing together the audience roared appreciatively. I couldn't see the audience for the spotlights and I wondered what George must be thinking about all this.

With a drum roll and a crash of cymbals, we threw our knickers into the audience and stood there in just our G-Strings in our showgirl poses. The applause was long and enthusiastic as it always was and we bowed and went back to the dressing room. We heard the band strike up for the next act and as we changed, Doris said, "Well Marg, that was a particularly good show and it's going to make or break you and George."

When it was time, we met George and Ma in "Pussies" for an evening meal before we went home. I had a private chat with Ma and she said the George could stay with us whenever he was on leave. If he still wanted to see me after tonight, that is. But there was nothing to worry about, George was a trouper trooper himself and was used to seeing women in a state of undress, both in show time and private time. He smiled at me shyly and asked me if he could keep these. They were my navy blue knickers I had thrown out to the audience! As it was a special occasion, we crammed into a taxi for the short ride home, had as drink and a chat and we all retired to bed, naturally George and I to the same room!

After a very passionate night together and lots of loving conversation, I was mortified to find out that George had to return to his regiment. We swore to write to each other every day and we held hands as I accompanied him back to "our" Charing Cross station and waved him off tearfully. God I was like a lovesick teenager, not a hardened professional showgirl!

I was so delighted, I received a letter from George almost every day and I hope he was receiving mine. George had the most beautiful handwriting and he was not only very interesting but affectionate and loving too. I had the feeling that my time as a single promiscuous woman (maybe married promiscuous woman) was coming to an end. So while I had the time, I'd better have any man I could get my hands on! (Thousands, Little Marjorie). Giovanni was very relieved when I fucked him next day. Dolores, our black dancer/stripper was proving to be a sensation with both black and white troops of every nation. Men could only dream of her muscular legs around their waist! Every few weeks, George came back home and it was always a special occasion to meet him as the station and walk together back to Lambeth Street. Around Christmas, he asked me to marry him and of course I said "Yes" Ma, Doris Blossom and I sobbed for hours! It was a good Christmas in 1942 and we clicked into 1943 with something new to look forward to.

More American troops were coming into town and there was certainly friction between the white and black troops and the boys had a lot of difficulty controlling things. All of us could see that we were gearing up to invade Europe. George had transferred from the Royal Welch Fusiliers to the Fifth Airborne and he was being trained in a glider with a little two man tank. I was a bit nervous about this as you can imagine. I was remembering poor Luke. And his fate to come.

George and I married in November of that year and we managed to get a brief honeymoon in Dymchurch on the coast. In later years we often returned here, staying at the same hotel. The beach was fenced off with barbed wire and at night we could hear the thunder of the anti-Aircraft guns on the channel forts as the Luftwaffe made late visits to the capital.

We were married in the Trinity Registered Office in the oddly named Colonel Talbot Road. George was very handsome in his uniform and new red beret and his shapely bride was in a tightly fitting suit with a low cleavage and a huge, wide brimmed hat. Doris Blossom was the "Matron of Honour" and Ma cried as yet another daughter was hitched. If you are thinking that nobody had snapped up the sensational Doris yet. We were all wrong. The year before, she'd married Captain Ron Prentice of the Indian Army in a rushed service before he sailed back to Calcutta, Polo and Chota Pegs! I'd never even heard of Ron and I didn't meet him until 1947 when the whole British race was basically thrown out of India.

The momentous year of 1944 roared up on us and in June The Pink Pussycat emptied of the hundreds of patrons we entertained every night. On June 6th, 156,000 allied troops stormed ashore on the beaches of Normandy, France and by the skin of their teeth hung on while reinforcements poured over from England in the days following more troops arrived making nearly a million around the 11th.

George was supposed to go over on June 6th but as he told me later, his little tank was sequestered by French journalists and he couldn't get to Europe initially. His frustration was eased when his glider was hit by AA fire and the tank and its French journalists made a guest visit forty feet under their native soil!

A few days later he got over there by Dakota, joined a Sherman Firefly as the gunner and apart from missing his Little Marjorie, was as happy as Larry.

So the months of June onwards were quieter times for us. There were still plenty of customers to flash our fannies at, but it wasn't as furious at it was earlier in the year. I found George and me a flat in Blackfriars, which wasn't far away from Lambeth and Ma and Doris. I was now the little homemaker as well as an infamous showgirl! For the first time I was living on my own and enjoying every minute of it.

The Germans must have known by now that they were beaten. The Russian had overcome the German armies and were marching westwards. The British and Americans had finished off the Afrika Korps and had invaded Italy and were fighting their way towards Germany. At sea we were sinking more submarines that they could build and we were flattening their cities in a way all of us in London were happy about. The Germans were getting it a hundred times worse than we had, despite our casualties of 50,000 or so Londoners. That was nothing compared with their own people killed

But the fucking Germans has invented the V1, maybe the first guided missile and from June 1944, fired nine and a half thousand at us during the year. These things had nearly two thousand pounds of explosive and if you saw one and the pulse jet ran out of fuel, you ran for your life! In Hamburg the RAF raided the city and overnight killed 37,000 of their people and wounded another 180,000 more. They destroyed the city.

I joined the city as an Air Raid Warden and at night, I carried my bucket and stirrup pump and wore my steel helmet. My official uniform was a set of overalls with not a feather or G-String in sight! The Germans were still bombing us with incendiaries at night and I was putting out hundreds of them. The V1's were a problem; all we could do was sound a siren and hope they found shelter when they came down.

In September, one of them hit our house in Lambeth and Ma was killed. Doris was at the PPC so avoided a similar fate, but it was a tragic day for the four daughters. This was the third time our house had been destroyed and I wondered if my own flat in Blackfriers would be spared. In the meantime, Doris moved in with me until the world sorted itself out. When George came home on his first leave I think he was looking for a bit of peace and some furious sex with his new wife.