by John Ledbury

Created on: January 23, 2011

Charlies Dime.

A couple of years ago, I was going through some old books and magazines I’d bought cheap. Grabbing a handful from the box, a magazine slipped and fell to the floor. The magazine was a 1930’s Film Star magazine.
Besides the magazine was a sheet of paper that had fallen out from it’s pages. I read it and it looked as if someone had started to write their life story.

It was headed:  London 1919.
At last that war is over and things are beginning to get back to normal. For me things are better now than they were before the war. I suppose that’s how it goes, some people win and some loose.
What I have now reminds me that ten years ago I had nothing.

Edwardian London was a far different place to the one now.
For young men like me, there were three ways to get food, buy it, steal it or beg it. My father had thrown me out when I was sixteen, two years earlier.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hold on to a job for long.
I’d soon been reduced to accepting whatever clothes were given to me and whatever food I could beg. I was living rough.

After the music halls close for the night, I’d go and have a look around to see if any of the people leaving the halls had dropped coins. Sometimes they did, especially as they waited for a Hackney cab.

One night I was walking past the Shoreditch Empire, a music hall at about midnight. Some of the cast were coming out of the stage door and stood chatting in the street before going home.

When your looking for cigarette tabs and money dropped onto the street, you don’t make it look obvious. A man needs some dignity!
As I made my way along the street, I noticed a young man from the music hall was walking up behind me. Looking back, I noticed he was studiously watching me.

I suppose I did look a bit strange in a derby hat and wearing trousers that were too big for me. But as they rightly say, beggars cannot be choosers. When I a saw a penny on the ground, I’d flick it to my shoe with my cane, then tie my shoe laces up, and put the penny in my pocket.

Suddenly I spotted a strange looking coin lying on the street.
There were more people walking towards me so I had to do a few musical manoeuvres, as we say, to get the coin to my shoe and into my pocket.
It was a strange shiny coin, I certainly didn’t know what it was.
A little later and the music hall man got level with me.
He nodded politely as he walked past.
    “Excuse me sir” I said to him
He was

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