B. Johnson - House Mother Normal

drunk last night, this won’t do, where’s the money

coming from? It doesn’t get him anywhere.

I must cut down on the food, supporters and suspenders,

it won’t do, I won’t have his drinking though

I’ll have his drink been, no twat you'll be ,

What matters most is what we’ll be

The joys of life continue strong

Throughout old age, however long .

… MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO

IS STAY ALIVE AND SEE IT THROUGH

NO MATTER IF THE FUTURE’S DIM

JUST KEEP STRAIGHT ON AND TRUST IN HIM

FOR HE KNOWS BEST AND BRINGS GOOD BEER

OH LUCKY US THAT WE ARE HERE!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO

IS STAY ALIVE AND SEE IT THROUGH!

Now she ought to be

pleased with me, no twitcher, no one can sing louder

than I can, not even that fat slob Ivy, cow.

Work! The people must

work if they are to earn their daily bread! Life

is not all butter, someone has to earn the guns as

well, ha ha!

What’s she

giving them two to do? I could do it, whatever it is.

Here! Twitcher! The twitcher!

It’s not only that, there are tripes and lazy

breeders for supper, summer in a sauce made of milk

and parsley.

I think, I think!

Careful,

I’m always careful, never let them stick it up me

without a rubber on, very careful all my life,

never had no kids, never! Very careful,

very clever, that’s me.

I can do that easy,

that crinkly paper’s not very good for it though,

not very good at it. Nasty work,

only fit for the Ivys. Nothing, nothing, nothing .

Nothing! Not my box, hate this

work, nothing here, who makes me?

Don’t want this work. Don’t want this work! Or

this Ivy, cow she is, slummocky old cow.

Slummocky old shit cow! That annoyed

her, that’ll teach her to order me about, I’m

not here to be ordered about! Except

by the twitcher, that’s all that keeps me quiet,

the only thing.

I’ll just sit here, that’s what I’ll do, just sit

here, and only work if I feel like it. Start one,

roll the paper round the roller, here, this isn’t

as easy, roller roller penny a paint, painy a

pent, old cow, I’ll roller, red paper, red paint,

red roller roller roller.

And just leave it like that. Then anyone who

sees me will think I’ve just broken off for a

moment. Oh, I’m clever, you know, I

know all the dodges, I learned them, all the

dodgers, when I was working, you learn all the

dodgers to work as little as

This way I won’t have to touch

the horrible glue, no, not even to touch it.

The twitcher’s

gone up the stage with her, the twitcher has, bye

bye the twitcher, good riddance twitcher! If

I just sit here and keep quiet and do nothing

then she won’t come down here again with the

twitcher for me, the twitcher for me, If

ye’re no a garlic, the twitcher’s for me.

If possible keep on going where they

are all like Mind you, if I was her I

would not put up with any of it, any of it, myself

It pays to keep up with your payments. Sometimes

we wouldn’t. They were all away. The girls had

it away. No one played at home, then.

She’s going to team up with those two! Now they

won’t talk to me. It’s not fair. Yesterday she

did it, too. She deliberately doesn’t ask me. I’m

sure of that. I can do this as well as anyone,

round the roller, the glue. I could be part of the

team. It hurts.

Where are they all gone? I had them here, all of

them. And now they’re not here. It may

be my true love, my one true love. His hair was

golden, his eyes were blue, he stood six feet two

in his bare socks, the first one. My one true.

One two, dozens since then. He bumped into me

coming out of the four ale bar into the corridor,

there I was scrubbing near the milk stout. I was

a young girl then. He was my first. Swept me

off my feet. Swept my chimney, he called it, my

black chimney. What could I say? It was a

frosty morning. Frost clears away the flu and does

good for England. Everything’s in a mess

That time they let me play. Let the piccaninny join

in! that Bobbie yelled. I enjoyed it more than my

tapioca.

What would you say if I

took off my arm and gave it to you in a stew?

Got you there, got you there!

Why not?

It was the milkman and his wife who ruined it.

What made him marry a mad woman? The cream

curdled all, she would and all.

So instead of

doing nothing, you would rather do nothing! I

spit at you. That Ivy is a slummocky swine.

Her tits hang down. In really, you can’t see

her tits, she just has a bulge. She’s got no

tits, a long streak of gravy. What that Ivy

has done to me! How many times have I had

hot dinners than hot times? Where do they all

come from? She pinched my last piece of meat,

the piece I had been saving, she did, that Ivy.

But jesus will come for my end. He will lift

Me up into his heavenly boudoir and I will sing

with the angels all the night long. The stars

will shine down on Me when he comes, his Milky

Stout, and the sun will come out and beam upon

the starry firmament. And we shall all live

happily ever after ever until the end amen.

Aah, isn’t that nice. Except for Ivy,

she’ll not have an end, she’ll go on with her

gravy tits and sticky fingers all her life

until she dies and

Well well well! They can talk!

And what about the price of candles! A girl can’t

go on and on burning her wick at both ends, can

she? When

will we be allowed to see what really goes on?

Yesterday they won the war, all the Tommies came

home raving for it. Their only pride was between

their legs, like a dog’s tail. We worked over-

time. No fear of that, I said, when he came, I’ve

been a good girl, after my way, always fashionable,

I was, wore a hooped crinoline sort of dress,

starched sleeves, bare arse. Oh, we were proudish

then!

Now when I try to brush up my brushing, it hurts

under my armpit, hurts. I should go to the doctor.

He’ll help me, the doctor in Margery Street. Walk

up through Exmouth Market, buy some priest shoulder

at a stall, then up past that place in Amwell

Street that always smells of flux, opposite the

other church, and down into Margery Street, rest

my feet. Good doctor, he is, he’ll heal my armpit,

nasty nagging pain and then it comes sharply, ouch!

Or some smoked salmon scraps, not shoulder, only

a tanner a quarter, bits off the edges,

bones, scraps, one of my fondest favourites,

smoked salmon scraps from Exmouth Market, chew

them, get the bits out, just as good as they

pay earth for, lots more.

Hungry again, nothing

more till breakfast, there’s worst to come.

My one true, love. His hair was ravenblack, his

eyes were green, he stood four foot three in

his bare, the first one. My one two. One true,

several since then. He jostled me in the public

bar when I was a scrubber. I must have been

forty by then, a mere. The milk stout I remember

coming out of quart bottles. No one must know.

How many beans since then? There must have been,

one after one after one after one after one after

one, no No!

These things make us all. Try for the sky. Jesus