....in the beginning. I came to England directly from China where I'd been Lecturing for 7 years. A chap who contacted me while I was there & said he was doing so because he was a friend of a friend of mine at the British Council,, suggested we work together: he had the premises for a school in Eton and I would bring over a couple of teachers & contacts from China to help teach at the school. It was all lined up & I saw this as a kind of Wonder-Job: I couldn't wait to get started. (And the plate glass windowed flat high up at tree level was all blonde wood & brushed-steel kitchen appliances.) The fourth day of being in England my putative "partner" declared bankruptcy. And I also discovered that the person whom he'd cited as a mutual friend at the British Council had never heard of him.Thus the whole reason for me being where I was, at that time, suddenly disappeared. And now I had no accommodation,
Mrs. Simpson's Regency Journal. September 20, 1831. The Vile Slum in Brighton After I had writ in my journal the last time, it did strike me, of a sudden, that whosoever doth read these pages after me, might not be abiding in Brighton and may not know of our Dark Heart. For such it be: a-pulsing away right in the middle of our town and not even suspicioned by most gentlefolk. Or not considered to be a suitable subject of conversation by those who do know of it. ‘Tis the area known as Pimlico. Though it was already a blot and a shame upon this town by the time we moved here from Tunbridge Wells, folk say it came quickly about, once people had to leave tied cottages; and could no longer rely on being able to eat all year round. Because the same folk as had tended the land for generations, were being turned away for cheaper, convict labourers. Well of course they drifted in to the town wh