Friday, 12th June, 1889
It has been a while since I practiced reading and writing and even longer since I first learnt how to, so I hope this works fine.
I usually go see the football games or sit around chatting with my mates after the long, demanding nine hour workday at the glass factory making fancy glass-things for people who put butter upon bacon everyday.
But I did not feel like going out today. Today was a pretty bad day. The factory manager wound the clocks forward half-hour and then fined us workers for being half-hour late! Honestly!
But I reckon I will feel better tomorrow. I have just got the morbs.
I remember by older sister telling me that writing down whatever you were thinking helped get rid of the morbs.
I remember how I was schooled- huddled in a corner against the gray dusty walls, the tiny room filled with stench from the filthy London streets (a smell you soon get used to because it is everywhere) and my sister excitedly whispering about everything I needed to know. These private study sessions happened in secret. Mother and Father thought studying was a waste of time. "You should be down at the factory or up a chimney with a wire brush in your hand bringing in some money." They used to say.
But my sister always found a way to attend the only school in our area of London- a tiny, dilapidated building that looked like it would fall over even in a slight breeze. School cost a penny a day and to us humble workers who could barely afford a few bags o' mystery, that was lots of money. It did get her in trouble several times but she never stopped going. She was going to be a teacher.
Well, she would have become a teacher earning 60 pounds a year- which is more money than I will ever make in a decade- had an unknown illness not killed her.
She was 10. I had just turned 5. She was Mary and I was still seventh child (death had taken all of my siblings and so technically I was not seventh child, because I was the only one, but that did not seem to bother mother and father at all).
The chances of a child living to see their fifth birthday is about fifty percent. Good names are hard to think of and a pity if they are wasted, so most parents do not bother naming their children.
When I told father I was now five years old and wanted a proper name, he grunted, "Jack'll do", handed me a pair of bleak gas pipes and marched me down to the glass factory on the banks of the River Thames.
Aged 5, I began as a mold boy, sitting at the feet of the gaffer opening and closing the hinged blow mold. In the heat, dirt and potentially dangerous environment, I grew up.
Now eighteen year old Jack (that's me, in case you forgot) works at the same factory overlooking the River Thames as a crack-off boy, removing a piece of hot glassware from the end of the gaffer by cracking it off.
In the blazing heat of the furnace, I can understand what cakes feel like when put in the oven to bake. But the irony, I do not know what cake tastes like. I would be lucky if I ran across a piece of bread in the evening and had enough dosh to pay for it.
I have been earning money since I was five but I have quite literally been living a day at a time, sometimes half a day at a time.
Musn't grumble, though. Musn't grumble. Us glassworkers have it better than most people. We get better hours and wages than most other labourers. I earn enough to rent a tiny room to sleep in and house all my belongings- which I do not have a lot of.
I often wonder- and it is always a fifteen puzzle when I do- why some people can have large houses with gardens for sitting and eating cake in and never have to work a single day in their life and why others have to live in tiny holes, do all the work and still barely have enough to buy a loaf of bread.
I think society is like one of those machines that you see everywhere nowadays. There are big parts and small parts and all of them do something to keep the machine running.
I don't know. I believe that's just how things are supposed to work. It's not quite nice, though.
Anyways, my daddles are tired now. First the factory work and now all this writing. But it did make me feel better.
Got to go. I have to reach the factory by five thirty in the morning tomorrow just in case they try pulling the clocks trick again. I'm more afternoonified than they think.
Jack
What on Earth do you mean? (Victorian slang edition)- In order of appearance
I usually go see the football games or sit around chatting with my mates after the long, demanding nine hour workday at the glass factory making fancy glass-things for people who put butter upon bacon everyday.
But I did not feel like going out today. Today was a pretty bad day. The factory manager wound the clocks forward half-hour and then fined us workers for being half-hour late! Honestly!
But I reckon I will feel better tomorrow. I have just got the morbs.
I remember by older sister telling me that writing down whatever you were thinking helped get rid of the morbs.
I remember how I was schooled- huddled in a corner against the gray dusty walls, the tiny room filled with stench from the filthy London streets (a smell you soon get used to because it is everywhere) and my sister excitedly whispering about everything I needed to know. These private study sessions happened in secret. Mother and Father thought studying was a waste of time. "You should be down at the factory or up a chimney with a wire brush in your hand bringing in some money." They used to say.
But my sister always found a way to attend the only school in our area of London- a tiny, dilapidated building that looked like it would fall over even in a slight breeze. School cost a penny a day and to us humble workers who could barely afford a few bags o' mystery, that was lots of money. It did get her in trouble several times but she never stopped going. She was going to be a teacher.
Well, she would have become a teacher earning 60 pounds a year- which is more money than I will ever make in a decade- had an unknown illness not killed her.
She was 10. I had just turned 5. She was Mary and I was still seventh child (death had taken all of my siblings and so technically I was not seventh child, because I was the only one, but that did not seem to bother mother and father at all).
The chances of a child living to see their fifth birthday is about fifty percent. Good names are hard to think of and a pity if they are wasted, so most parents do not bother naming their children.
When I told father I was now five years old and wanted a proper name, he grunted, "Jack'll do", handed me a pair of bleak gas pipes and marched me down to the glass factory on the banks of the River Thames.
Aged 5, I began as a mold boy, sitting at the feet of the gaffer opening and closing the hinged blow mold. In the heat, dirt and potentially dangerous environment, I grew up.
Now eighteen year old Jack (that's me, in case you forgot) works at the same factory overlooking the River Thames as a crack-off boy, removing a piece of hot glassware from the end of the gaffer by cracking it off.
In the blazing heat of the furnace, I can understand what cakes feel like when put in the oven to bake. But the irony, I do not know what cake tastes like. I would be lucky if I ran across a piece of bread in the evening and had enough dosh to pay for it.
I have been earning money since I was five but I have quite literally been living a day at a time, sometimes half a day at a time.
Musn't grumble, though. Musn't grumble. Us glassworkers have it better than most people. We get better hours and wages than most other labourers. I earn enough to rent a tiny room to sleep in and house all my belongings- which I do not have a lot of.
I often wonder- and it is always a fifteen puzzle when I do- why some people can have large houses with gardens for sitting and eating cake in and never have to work a single day in their life and why others have to live in tiny holes, do all the work and still barely have enough to buy a loaf of bread.
I think society is like one of those machines that you see everywhere nowadays. There are big parts and small parts and all of them do something to keep the machine running.
I don't know. I believe that's just how things are supposed to work. It's not quite nice, though.
Anyways, my daddles are tired now. First the factory work and now all this writing. But it did make me feel better.
Got to go. I have to reach the factory by five thirty in the morning tomorrow just in case they try pulling the clocks trick again. I'm more afternoonified than they think.
Jack
What on Earth do you mean? (Victorian slang edition)- In order of appearance
1. Put butter upon bacon: live in extravagance
2. Got the morbs: a temporary feeling of melancholy
3. Bags o' Mystery: sausages (called that because nobody knew what was in them)
4. Gas pipes: extremely tight pants
5. Fifteen puzzle: absolute confusion
6. Daddles: a delightful way to refer to your rather boring hands
7. Afternoonified: smart
All of these phrases are genuine Victorian slang. I have tried to use them as correctly as I could. Please overlook any mistake in the usage of Victorian slang (and if you find something wrong about my description of Victorian England lemme know).
Some/most of this is based loosely on a sketch from Horrible Histories (S02, E10; I think?). If you find striking similarities, that's why.
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