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Trapper - Street children - Chimney-sweeps - Maid in service - Wealthy family

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Exploring the lives of young children living rough on the streets of Victorian London and making Billingsgate Market their home.

1. Maddy's story: finding the 'pure'

Synopsis:

Maddy used to work with her father, a pick-pocket. One day they are at a public execution when Maddy’s father picks a pocket too many and is caught. Maddy escapes from the scene and goes to find her grandfather.

Maddy’s grandfather explains that her father will probably be transported to Australia. If Maddy wants to stay with him she will have to earn her keep, helping him to ‘find the pure’. ‘Pure-finding’ was a popular Victorian occupation and involved collecting dog faeces to sell to the tanneries that used it in the process of making leather.

Maddy has no choice other than to do as her grandfather urges. However, when he dies suddenly she is left homeless and goes to join the other children on the street.

for a transcript of the episode (pdf).

2. Jacko's story: dogs and rats

Synopsis:

Jacko recounts how he used to work with a rat-catcher called Vic keeping the granaries in the London dockyards free from vermin.

Jacko’s job is to attract the rats out of their hiding places a steer them to Vic, who places them in a large basket. Jacko describes how Vic was very particular about catching the rats alive and not harming them…because the rats will later be taken to a pub in Soho where they will be slaughtered in a dog pit - and the best rats achieve the best prices.

One day Jacko finds Vic convulsing. Jacko decides to continue with the Soho trade, but when he is paid off with a fraction of the usual price he decides to pick a punter’s pocket. He is nearly caught and now, without any occupation, arrives at Billingsgate to join the homeless children.

for a transcript of the episode (pdf).

3. Gyp's story: mudlarking

Synopsis:

Eliza doesn't know how old she is, but reckons she must be about 12. She recalls how she used to work with her Uncle Dick ‘mudlarking’ on the shore of the River Thames, that is picking up any items they could find to sell - usually just pieces of coal. It's dirty, smelly work. But it gets even dirtier…

One day Dick tells Eliza that he’s met a man called ‘Tosher’ who works in the filthy sewers underneath the city and that they’re going to do the same. Tosher shows them how to prod in the filth to find anything valuable that has been washed into the sewers.

Unfortunately one day they stray up one of the side tunnels washed out by the opening of the sluice gates: Tosher and Dick perish in the flood, but Maddy is somehow miraculously carried back to the bank of the Thames.

for a transcript of the episode (pdf).

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