The Girls of Shepherd Market

There is an Antique Yarn concerning the racy, fascinating and very naughty section of London known as Shepherd Market, an area which leads its gaudy life within a stone's throw of Piccadilly, a London street familiar to hundreds of thousands of GI's as the profitable hunting ground of the "Piccadilly Commandoes," or girls who, for a fee, would make themselves totally available to girl-less soldiers.

The story tells of an American tourist who approached one of the girls who was slouched against a wall in the raincoat that in Shepherd Market is almost the badge of her trade. The girl smiled invitingly at the American, who looked her over appreciatively.

"Sister," he said, "I've just got to spend the night with you. I'll give you $10,000."

The sum was staggering, but the girl had enough presence of mind to reply.

"Oh, yes," she said, numbly.

"Sister," the American said, "I've changed my mind. I'll give you $2."

The girl gave him a look of frozen disdain. "How dare you!" she cried an-grily. "What do you think I am? A prostitute?"

A generally accepted definition of a prostitute is a person – generally a woman – who sells herself for money. The unique aspect of the girls of Shepherd Market is that they airily decline to accept this definition. The girls parading the Champs Élysées in Paris, being realists, maintain no illusions as to their calling. (Not so long ago it was printed on their identity cards.) And girls in San Diego or New Orleans or Chicago display little coyness as to their means of livelihood.

But the girls in Shepherd Market are spectacularly different. They reflect the general British reticence of manner, the tendency of conservatism, the mild compulsion to call a spade a lot of things – a shovel, perhaps, or a hoe – but hardly ever a spade.

The peculiar status of the Shepherd Market girls springs, in part, out of the just noted British temperament, but it also springs out of several startling oddities of the British system in its relation to prostitution. Unlike the statutes of other countries. British law does not consider prostitution a crime nor a prostitute a criminal. The British, as every schoolboy knows, have what amounts to a wild passion for civil liberties and personal freedom. Regarding prostitution, British law – and British public opinion – maintains that it is difficult to establish what a prostitute is. In the United States, for instance, a plain-clothes cop goes to a girl's room, gives her some dough, she reaches for her brastrap and Mr. Badge lays the heavy hand on her.

The British believe that this system is an eight-lane super highway to corruption and that municipal corruption, virtually unknown in England, generally begins with, and is maintained by, police liaison with prostitutes, or the men who control them. A cop can easily railroad a girl into jail, since his word, though unsupported, will be taken and hers will not. The crooked cop doesn't want the girl in jail. Far from it. He wants her working, paying him off, not resting in a nice, quiet, manless cell. But he can use the threat of jail to squeeze money out of her, and it is this that the British find bad.

It is not that the British police do not know which girls are business girls. They do, but they cannot arrest them. If they did, the girls would say, very simply: "What this man says is true. I met him in a bar and I liked him. He was perfectly charming, judge. I did go to bed with him and, as he says, he did give me some money. He said he found me charming, too, judge. He told me to buy myself a box of candy." End of discussion. The girl swirls her raincoat around her and is back on the job in 15 minutes.

One top official in London's police force who, with characteristic British modesty refused to be quoted by name, was asked to comment on the subject.

"What is prostitution?" he said, in an accent so British it sounded as if it were coming from a super-market deepfreeze. "Suppose, old boy, you take a girl out to dinner tonight. You then go to a theatre, perhaps have a dance or two at some night spot and then go to her apartment where the two of you polish off a bottle of champagne. You find yourself, perhaps not to your complete astonishment, in bed with this delightful girl, and before you leave, you give her – she says 'borrow' – some money because she has announced, in her delightful way, that she needs it to pay the milkman in the morning. Should we march in and arrest her? Yet she has fulfilled the function of a prostitute, hasn't she, and even taken the money, which some believe is the crux of the situation.

"Others have a different notion. They believe that a girl who doesn't take men to her bed often is not a prostitute. But this won't work, either, because how often is 'often'? Seven men a week? Or fourteen, counting afternoons?" The British policeman smiled.

British law does not regard the whole of prostitution quite so casually, however. Though there are probably more street walkers in London than in any other city in the world, there isn't a brothel in the entire town.

This anomaly results from the curious fact that though prostitution is not a crime, it is a crime to use an apartment – or a house, or any premises – for what British law calls "immoral purposes," but only if more than two girls are involved. Two sisters can set up shop and will be perfectly free from arrest, but once they invite their younger sister – or any other girl – to share the fun, the British police can crack down. And they will, which accounts for the lack of organized houses in London.

Thus, in Shepherd Market, the customer often finds two girls sharing a flat, often a luxurious one, but he will never find three girls doing so, and if he wants three girls simultaneously, he had better call on his amateur friends to oblige him. An interesting sidelight on this point is the case of twin sisters, two very pretty Shepherd Market girls named Daphne and Pamela, named about as English as roast beef, fog or warm beer. The twins, who regard money with the same naïveté as, say, J. P. Morgan, Sr., charge five dollars each. But if a client with either a somewhat bizarre whim or a somewhat formidable appetite wants both girls at once, the price is not, as one might suppose, a mere $10. It is $12.50. The girls know that a man devoted to having two girls at once will gladly pay extra. The girls are identical twins, so it might be assumed that when they get their clothes off a customer might be confused as to which girl was which, but Daphne and Pamela have solved that one, too. It was quite simple. They needed only one aid: a razor. Either way, they are very pretty and highly successful.

Despite various shrill cries to the contrary, England is still a highly class-conscious nation as compared to, say, the United States or France. A Duke is still a Duke and a coal miner is still a coal miner. And this class consciousness has extended into the sinful purlieus of Shepherd Market, which is surprising, since one might assume that a certain easy democracy would obtain amongst a group of business women who have basically the same commodity to sell. Nevertheless, Shepherd Market is as rigidly caste-bound as the Duchess of What's Her Name's annual ball. The caste system is based partly on money, but partly on tenure, just as it is in other, less flamboyant, societies.

Girls drift into Shepherd Market from all over England, just as girls drift into prostitution in New York or Chicago from all over America. There is, as in the United States, very little prostitution in rural areas in England. The big city is the playground of the naughty girl, and Shepherd Market is London's naughtiest playground, so a girl bent on using what she has to earn what she wants would naturally head her high heels straight for there.

Let us consider one, a girl called Cynthia Williams, a dark, pretty 19-year-old who comes from Manchester, in Britain's industrial North, and as we see how she starts, we can understand how the girls' social system works.

Cynthia – or any girl like her – first tries to get an apartment in Shepherd Market, which is difficult because the area – less than half a square mile – is full to the eaves with tenants. Perhaps Cynthia can share an apartment with a girl friend who possibly has written her to quit her office job, where everybody from the boss to the elevator man has been making passes at her, for free, and settle down to earn some money for her old age.

The new kid is, in the beginning, at the very bottom of the Shepherd Market social scheme. She has youth, an asset which should be helpful in her new calling. But she has several liabilities, too. She hasn't any customers and she hasn't much proficiency in getting them. The other girls, despite the myth to the contrary, do not spit at her (as they do in Paris) or hit her with their umbrellas. Cynthia has a right to try to make her way. The established girls will try to steal her customers, but this is a hard world, dearie, and business is business. If the new girl manages to steal a customer from an old-timer, she is unlikely to get a dozen roses from her competitor, but by and large Shepherd Market is not a jungle. If it were, it might be unable to survive.

If the new girl proves she has something that men want, she is gradually accepted into the strange social life – which is quite apart from the professional life – of the Market, and after a while she can look down on the next new Cynthia, the pretty little 18- or 19-year-old from Derbyshire or Liverpool or Glasgow.

If the girls in Shepherd Market were organized by men, as they are in other cities, the new girl's comparative innocence could understandably call for a higher fee. The boss would call up a customer and proudly announce his latest acquisition. And at a special price. But it doesn't work this way in Shepherd Market. Unless the novice has very special beauty or heretofore hidden bedroom talents, she will get at the start only about $3. It is a characteristic of the British male not to like anything new. An American likes a new car; an Englishman likes an old one. He likes things he knows about, and until a girl is known about, she will be comparatively idle. She will probably have two customers an evening, because she has yet to establish a roster of satisfied – and thus repeating – customers. This works out to about $45 a week, which is a fortune, since the average wage for a secretary in England is only $18, and that for a shop girl about $14. And she is only starting.

Of this $45, she will pay about $15 a week in rent, sharing an apartment. Food is cheap in England, so she won't spend more than $15 on that. Since she is not a fashionable cocotte – or at least not yet – she will spend little on clothes, and since her favorite entertainment, the movies (which she calls "the flicks"), cost her only 35¢ a go, she still has what, by her standards, is a lot left over.

Furthermore – and this is most important – all of the Shepherd Market girl's earnings are her own. Income tax in England, even for wage earners in the lower brackets, is so heavy as to be almost crippling. But not to the Shepherd Market girls. Some unknown genius amongst them cunningly devised a way to beat it.

British law may be somewhat lax in its attitude toward prostitution, but it is not at all lax about income tax violators. It is a serious offense in England to falsify an income tax return, or to try to avoid paying a tax. They don't kid about that.

One day somebody in the income tax office had a bright idea. He decided to crack down on the pleasure girls in Shepherd Market, feeling they were a fine, untapped source of tax dough. Assessors swooped down on several of them, the most visibly prosperous ones. The tax men pointed out that the girls' apartments were sumptuous, even blatantly so. They counted the 40 pairs of shoes in the closet and the 60 dresses and the 20 nighties and they observed the high rent, which was always paid, and they asked the obvious question: where does this income originate, and why isn't a tax being paid on it?

At first the girls made vague claims, declaring it came from mysterious sources, such as nameless rich old men, or from poker games at which the girls seemed invariably to win. But the investigators weren't satisfied. It was income, and in the simple cosmos of an income tax collector, income must pay a tax. Never mind the morals involved; get it up, girls. The battle seemed lost. Part of their treasured freedom seemed to be about to be wrenched away from the ladies.

But one girl started using her brain, rather than her body, and when the tax collector demanded that she fill out a return she agreed with disarming amiability. She wrote her name in the space provided and she wrote her address in the space provided. When she came to the space marked "Occupation" she stopped dead in its tracks the entire tax collecting mechanism of the British Isles by writing one word there. She wrote "prostitute." She may have gone against the Shepherd Market code by admitting she was a prostitute, but a crisis was at hand and this girl resolved it with what can only be described as brilliance.

By writing the word "prostitute" in the space which the tax people had so kindly provided, she presented the British government with a problem it simply could not solve. A high moral issue was at stake. If the British government collected a tax on the wages of admitted sin, on the earnings of an admitted prostitute, wouldn't it inescapably be sharing in the profits of vice? It would be like putting a head tax on opium smokers, or charging a convicted murderer a fee, and then letting him go. But it would be even worse, since the cry would be raised across the country – a country which has always edged itself, whether accurately or not, in a white valentine of lacy moral virtue – that the government was in part supporting itself on the libidinous labors of vicious girls in notorious Shepherd Market. Obscure bishops would raise their sonorous Oxonian accents in horror and the Stoke-On-Trent Ladies Benevolent Society, which regards Shepherd Market much as other people regard double pneumonia, would thunder out alarms warning the British middle class not to move an inch from normality, lest evil take over the land. The British middle class would indeed not move an inch, since it is an almost immovable mass of human beings, but the scandal would be catastrophic.

The fact is that no income tax blank marked "prostitute" has yet been collected, nor even accepted, by the British government and not one voice has been heard in the House of Commons even inquiring about the matter. Needless to say, not even a whisper has issued from the House of Lords, whose members still spend their time complaining that modern highways sometimes interfere with fox hunting, that the way to rid England of an overpopulation of rabbits is to make rabbits stew popular, or that pin-ups of girls should be banned from the barracks occupied by British soldiers, and kindred vivacious subjects.

So there the issue rests. All the girls now use the new trick and the Shepherd Market girl is again triumphant. Her position is unassailable. For police purposes she is not a prostitute; for tax purposes she is.

So little Cynthia, as she progresses up the Shepherd Market social ladder, can keep her entire income. If she can work up some steady clients, she can get a better apartment and, perhaps, a maid. She can buy better clothes and go to better beauty shops for redder fingernails and blonder hair. She can associate with girls of her own standing and she begins to snub the naive little girl from the country who is just starting in.

She will have the traditional British tea with girls of her own level and will give little luncheon parties in her apartment, if it is elegant enough. If not, she will take her girl friends to some chi-chi restaurant, where she will be treated with every courtesy money can buy. If any of her customers recognize her, they will be far too discreet to greet her, and she of course would never speak to them. This is part of the code, too.

Cynthia's social life is rather restricted because of her hours. She starts work about four in the afternoon; by midnight her day is over. But by now, she is making about $100 a week so if she wishes she can take a night off every now and then. Her price has gone up a little bit, to $4 or $5.

Like most British street walkers, our new girl will have strong Lesbian tendencies, so her emotional outlet will tend toward women rather than toward men. She will have frequent "crushes" on the other girls and will, in general, display a rather cynical attitude toward men. She will have a man or two around, merely to take her to parties or to the theatre, where a girl without a man would appear conspicuous, but unlike her sister in Paris, she will certainly not have a procurer, nor a man whom she loves and to whom she gives money. The Shepherd Market girl does (continued on page 74) Shepherd Market(continued from page 24) her own procuring and she keeps her own money.

She saves it, for like most middle or lower class Europeans, she wants to buy a business. This will, she is sure, support her when slipping off her panties won't. She typically wants to buy a small store, perhaps back in her home town, or she might want to buy a bar and grill. But these are expensive – at least to her – and she will never make it on $100 a week.

The highest earning girls in Shepherd Market are the girls who, instead of sleeping with men, do not sleep with them. They cater to rich gentlemen who enjoy the sexual antics most people associate with Paris. These gentlemen often like to watch, so the top level girls are happy to oblige, either with other girls or with hired men. This costs about $30, but it can run much higher. Some gentlemen like to watch pornographic movies, in the company of Shepherd Market girls, and this can be easily arranged. This costs about $50, but often more than one man will share expenses.

The reigning queen of these bizarre frolics is a woman of about 45 known simply as Billie. She lives with a girl friend in the most expensive dwelling in Shepherd Market. The house has a massive iron gate, a fireplace straight out of the era of Henry the Eighth, and a bed which is exactly three times as wide as a standard double bed. (A customer of Billie's, a textile manufacturer from Leeds, has his factory weave the sheets especially for her: they are black.)

Billie is a ribald, amusing, Rabelaisian character who took to Shepherd Market, according to the time-honored tradition, when a love affair she had with a boy friend some 20-odd years before left her pregnant but not married. She has supported herself – and her daughter – ever since, and she runs her Shepherd Market home as a princess might run a castle. It is the very essence of purring luxury.

Billie's secret is simple. Rich gentlemen like to do odd things with her and Billie doesn't mind. One man apparently gets a kick out of wrapping Billie up in a huge rubber bag. That's all. Billie charges him $150 for this refinement of the elixir of love. Another likes to drive Billie into the country, and have fun and games in the front seat of his open sports car, and this is $150, too. There is hardly an imaginable thing Billie won't do, for a price, and a good price. But this is not the whole point. Lots of the Shepherd Market girls will do anything, but they don't do it with Billie's flair. She tells jokes, she laughs, and she is endlessly gay. There are other girls who are almost on a level with Billie – but not quite.

And thus it is appropriate that Billie is the hostess at the one glittering night in the Shepherd Market year: Billie's Christmas Eve party.

In certain circles in London it is considered a distinct social privilege to be invited to Billie's on Christmas Eve. Not everyone can come; merely being a customer doesn't help at all. Billie chooses her guests with extreme precision. And of course for one of the girls to be invited means she has made the grade.

These parties take place on an almost phantasmagoric level. The 1955-1956 party was reportedly one of the best, partly because Billie's daughter, Joan, was back from school for the Christmas holidays and for the first time was allowed to attend.

Guests could hardly squeeze in the door because of the cases of champagne piled outside. All the gentlemen wore dinner jackets and the ladies gleamed in their new Paris dresses. Waiters passed around caviar, of course, and in a corner a string trio sawed decorously away at Mozart.

As long as Joan remained at the party, it was as mild as an old maid's dream, since all the guests and all the girls knew that Billie, for all these years, has somehow managed to shield Joan – principally by keeping her away at school – from the knowledge of how her mother earns a living. Voices were hushed, people toasted each other murmurously and not a wicked joke was told.

Promptly at nine-thirty, Joan put on a coat, bade everyone goodnight, got into her car and drove off. Then, according to reports, the lid blew off. The murmurs ceased and the yells began. The string trio went home, the phonograph was turned on and everyone proceeded to get just as plastered as possible just as immediately as possible. Dinner jackets – and some Paris gowns – hit the floor. The party lasted until noon the next day, arrangements having been made for Joan to remain with a girl friend, and it seems sad that it had to end even then. But human stamina, presumably, can take just so much.

For the Shepherd Market girls who got invited, it was the pinnacle of the year and when they got back to standing on the street corners in their rain coats, or prowling the short, narrow streets of their bailiwick, they must have felt proud.

So there they stand now, Cynthia among them. They are a lot of things, the Shepherd Market girls, but if there's one thing they're not, it's prostitutes.

Ask them.

Cynthia Williams, aged 19 and until recently a respectable lass in her native Manchester, is picked up by Sam Boal, author of this article. He knew she was a professional, or at least a semi-pro, because of the locale where she was loitering and because of her raincoat, almost a uniform in fair weather or foul for the girls of Shepherd Market. After the usual preliminary conversation, pictured here, he escorted her to her flat where they could enjoy greater privacy and where she entertains the men who provide her livelihood. Cynthia was not aware that the pictures on this page were being taken. Later, she was persuaded to let the photographer join her and the author in her room where she posed for the picture on the facing page. Cynthia was unembarrassed and much intrigued by being in an American magazine.

Cynthia Williams, aged 19 and until recently a respectable lass in her native Manchester, is picked up by Sam Boal, author of this article. He knew she was a professional, or at least a semi-pro, because of the locale where she was loitering and because of her raincoat, almost a uniform in fair weather or foul for the girls of Shepherd Market. After the usual preliminary conversation, pictured here, he escorted her to her flat where they could enjoy greater privacy and where she entertains the men who provide her livelihood. Cynthia was not aware that the pictures on this page were being taken. Later, she was persuaded to let the photographer join her and the author in her room where she posed for the picture on the facing page. Cynthia was unembarrassed and much intrigued by being in an American magazine.

Cynthia Williams, aged 19 and until recently a respectable lass in her native Manchester, is picked up by Sam Boal, author of this article. He knew she was a professional, or at least a semi-pro, because of the locale where she was loitering and because of her raincoat, almost a uniform in fair weather or foul for the girls of Shepherd Market. After the usual preliminary conversation, pictured here, he escorted her to her flat where they could enjoy greater privacy and where she entertains the men who provide her livelihood. Cynthia was not aware that the pictures on this page were being taken. Later, she was persuaded to let the photographer join her and the author in her room where she posed for the picture on the facing page. Cynthia was unembarrassed and much intrigued by being in an American magazine.

Cynthia Williams, aged 19 and until recently a respectable lass in her native Manchester, is picked up by Sam Boal, author of this article. He knew she was a professional, or at least a semi-pro, because of the locale where she was loitering and because of her raincoat, almost a uniform in fair weather or foul for the girls of Shepherd Market. After the usual preliminary conversation, pictured here, he escorted her to her flat where they could enjoy greater privacy and where she entertains the men who provide her livelihood. Cynthia was not aware that the pictures on this page were being taken. Later, she was persuaded to let the photographer join her and the author in her room where she posed for the picture on the facing page. Cynthia was unembarrassed and much intrigued by being in an American magazine.