Diary of Eva Smith Ayla Schafer.
Diary of Eva Smith Ayla Schafer
2nd November 1910
Dear Diary,
For the first time in my life things seemed to be looking on the bright side and then, just like usual, it was torn away from me by a selfish, ignorant Mr.Birling. I had been doing well at the works, had only recently been promoted as the leading officer, a head of a group of girls. I was in charge of them and got to know them well, there was Betty, Martha, Lucy, Agatha, Emma, Vicky and quite a few others. Martha's the nicest. She's an orphan, like me so I guess.
Well, during the short holiday in the summer, we got talking about our wages and how most of us were barely scraping by on the measly 22 & 6pence we got. I mean we were only just surviving and its no good just being able to survive, we wanted to live! Other people do so why cant we! So seeing as we shouldn't be treated as cheap labour, but people we decided to go to Mr.Birling himself and ask for 15 shillings instead.
But as he is mean and penny pinching he refused blankly. Said he wouldn't even consider it! After that it only gets worse. Stupid as we were we went on strike hoping that that would show him but of course how could we manage having just been on holiday. We were all even more broke then usual, so the strike having failed miserably we had no choice but to go back to the works.
But No! It wasn't as simple as that, life never is. Of course he wouldn't accept us ringleaders back and came down himself and told us to clear out! I had a lot to say to that Mr.Birling but he wouldn't even listen to a word of it! Sent us packing right on the spot. If only he would have listened to me, I'd have told him a thing or two!
God, there is so many thoughts and questions running round my head! There is so much I want to say to people, but no one will listen. There are so many others just like me out there, who struggle and suffer simply because of the conditions they work in and the measly wages they receive but no one dares do anything about it. Why shouldn't we try for higher wages? It's unjust that we should be sacked just for having a little more spirit than the others!
But who am I kidding? I'm just lower class, cheap labour, scum. I'm meant to just accept that that's the way it is. Don't try and go against it, don't ask questions, don't do any thing but just take what's given you. Maybe it is God's will for me to end up like this, just like it was for my parents.
I'm angry and frightened and don't know what to do. I have looked for almost 2 months for some kind of work but it is scarce and hard to get, I'm living in lodgings which I cannot do for much longer, I have no money saved, not one penny, no family, few friends, no home to go back to, I'm lonely and scared, stuck in a rut, unable to climb any where higher or better. No one to turn to for support or comfort apart from the 'lord' some may say. But when out of the many times I have begged him to help me had he answered my prayers? Never.
Enough of this miserable complaining. When has it done anybody any good? I guess Eva Smith is better than this (or I shall try to be). Just because some mean selfish man made me lose and job, that I hardly enjoyed any way, doesn't mean I have to throw everything away and stop living! I will try! Tomorrow I will continue looking for a job although if I shall succeed I do not know, but it is better than sitting here counting the pennies in the dark.
Eva
3rd December 1910
Dear Diary,
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This is a preview of the whole essay
Enough of this miserable complaining. When has it done anybody any good? I guess Eva Smith is better than this (or I shall try to be). Just because some mean selfish man made me lose and job, that I hardly enjoyed any way, doesn't mean I have to throw everything away and stop living! I will try! Tomorrow I will continue looking for a job although if I shall succeed I do not know, but it is better than sitting here counting the pennies in the dark.
Eva
3rd December 1910
Dear Diary,
I have never been so happy! Last week at last, my dream came true! No more cold nights, no more hungry bellies, no worrying if I'll make it till tomorrow, I am at last safe! I have eventually found a respectable, fairly well paid, secure job at one of the best, and most expensive shops around. Milwards! Every body goes there. No, not only every normal body but every rich, prosperous noble body! It's a wonderful stroke of luck, I really couldn't of asked for a better job!
It's lovely working there, I'm treated like a normal human being for once. It's an amazing change from the factory where I would be surrounded by loud machinery drilling into my head, people moaning and sweating, horrible smells, shouts and cries, no escaping from it. But now it's completely different. Everywhere I look I see beautiful, clothes hanging rail by rail and whereas before the most I could do was longingly stare into shop windows I can now actually hold these gorgeous dresses and if I'm lucky, try them on! I may even start saving up for one even though it would take a long, long time. Lovely people talk to me there and they're ever so polite and gracious. They no longer look at me as if I'm some piece of dirt but almost as if I'm one of them. I feel like I've entered a different world, a world with out suffering and pain. I see this as a good fresh start for a new life, a new road now lies ahead of me. This job is a lot better pay (I now get 95 shillings a week!) so I can now start looking to try and rent a place out for my self but the first thing I will do is go a buy my self a nice juicy steak with some of this week's wages. It's been so long since I've had a proper, tasty meal, I can feel my mouth watering just thinking about it.
Well enough about food. I have been thinking recently that it's about time I tried to find my self a husband. I look around me and everywhere I see are happy couples arm in arm. I know my parent would have wanted me to find a nice young man and now I'm working in respectable job I can hopefully find one who isn't too badly well off and quickly settle down happily. I can see myself, in a few years time, married to a work's manager of some sort. He'd be tall and dark and have beautiful blue eyes. He'd be ever so loving and caring to me and would never treat me badly. We'd have two lovely children, a girl and a boy, and we would live in the biggest, most beautiful rose covered, marigold house, along pixmore lane.
Well, dreams can come true. Whether it will or not we'll just have to wait and see.
Eva
8th February 1911
Dear Diary,
Why is it that every time something good happens to me I have to go and bugger it up some how? Every small bit of something good in my life is always torn away from me as soon I get it. Its like I'm not meant to have a chance, like I've done something wrong and don't deserve any thing good in my life. For every smile or tinge of joy I have a must be penalized with 100 tears of pain and torture. I'm always punished just for trying to survive that little bit better, just for trying to live and be happy like others do. But it seems to me that that is not allowed. I am not allowed to have a happy decent life without suffering and pain. I must continue like this until I die. Always losing everything I ever have, every person who's ever loved me, every job that's bought me something good. I feel as if every fibre of my being is slowly being selfishly pulled away until there will be nothing left apart from cold hard heart that believes in nothing and nobody. The day I become like that is the day I can no longer carry on. If death has not reached me by then, I will have to bring it to me my self. But not yet, I will know when I have reached that point but I still have my heart and my head and as long as I have that I'll be o.k.
Well, in case you haven't realized I no longer have that comforting, well-paid, long-term job. Everything was going fine there, or so I thought, I was just beginning to settle down nicely and then suddenly out of the blue I was told I'd have to go. They didn't have a reason, and the admitted that! All I know is that a customer complained and so I had to leave. Can you honestly believe that? Someone complained - so I had to go! Did they not realise what they are doing to me by doing that? No, probably not. People normally don't. They're too wrapped up in their own little world to even notice other people or how their actions might just affect somebody? But then again even if they did notice they wouldn't even care. To them I'm just a useless piece of nothing not even worth bothering about.
And yet again I find myself in the same position as I was only a few months ago. Starving, cold, without a job, lonely, scared, confused and anxious. But this time I have to try something else. First I'm going to change my name to Daisy Renton, after my mother before she was married. I know she was never too lucky in life, like me, but having a different name may find another way of living. I have stopped being Eva Smith, always looking for a job, and have become Daisy Renton, with other ideas.
I overheard a lady the other day, talking about the' Stalls Bar' at the Palace Variety Theatre in Brumley. Well, she was saying how it's a favourite haunt of women of the town and that a lot of men go there. Oh god, 'women of the town' they are the disgusting, filthy, worst looked upon girls, and here I am thinking about sinking that low and becoming one. Imagine the kind of men that go there? But what choice do I have? What other options that I haven't tried are left? There is nothing else I can do, nothing. I never thought things could ever get this bad, but they have, and now I must deal with it some way or another and the only way I can see is to become one of these women of the town.
Imagine if my parents could see me right now, or even auntie Jayne. What would they say? They'd be disappointed, ashamed, disgraced, embarrassed, that they had any thing to do with a girl of my kind. A woman of the town, who couldn't even keep a good job, who failed in every way possible.
Well, I am what I am and there is nothing I can do about. The best I can do is take each day as it comes and except it at that. Tomorrow I shall go down there and see if they will take me.
Eva
0th March 1911
Dear Diary,
At last I have found a man who cares and loves me and treats me like a wonderful being! Gerald Croft. He's a well-bred respectable man, tall and handsome and ever so generous and warm. He makes me feel the happiest I have ever been and every moment I spend with him I feel like as if I'm glowing with joy. He's like a wonderful fairy prince who's picked me up and carried me into the sunset away from all my old life, away from all the pain and struggle, into a new world that I've never visited before. Every time he holds me close everything seems to fall away and all can think about is him and me and the moment we are sharing together. I feel like I'm living in dream, where nothing and nobody can hurt me, no one can destroy my small fragile life, where I no longer have to go to bed starving and cold, wondering if I'll make it through the next day because I'm now protected by my shining night in armour.
I owe him so much for taking me away from that miserable bar with all those hard-eyed dough-faced women and the horrible, repulsive goggle-eyed men that used to reek of god knows what. He saved me and let me live in these wonderful little set of rooms and asked for nothing in return, he even gives money to me through the weeks. At first I was suspicious of why he was doing this for me as, I did meet him at the bar, and so I asked him this but he simply replied by saying he was madly in love with me and only wanted the best he could give for his little Daisy. Oh, he is the best thing I could have ever wished for, and I can't imagine how I could survive if he ever left me. It seems to good to last.
Eva
5th September 1911
Dear Diary,
How could I have ever been so stupid to expect it to last? Did I really think that I could've stayed that happy forever? No, of course not. Thinking about it now, I don't really blame him. He was sure to get bored of me sooner or later. Why would such a well-bred man like Gerald stay with a girl like me? I guess I knew quite a while ago that it as coming to an end but I didn't quite want to believe it. I tried to deny the pain that I knew was coming hoping that I could pause time and stay happy for ever but what chances of that happening do I have. Something good always comes with something bad and in my case it meant losing him forever. He's gone and so has all the happiness, trust, hope and love that he bought with him and there is no way I can ever bring that or him back.
I still look back fondly on all the great times we shared together and the things he taught and gave me. These weren't material things like money or food but things like Love and Hope. Things I hadn't really experienced before. Even though I no longer have them I still know what it was like to feel them.
I need to go away though, somewhere quite and calm, and remember 'just to make it last longer'. I don't think there will ever be anything as good for me again so I have to make it last longer. I fell in love and that will always be a part of me. Maybe the memories of how I felt when I was with him will give me the hope to carry on, but I do not know what will happen to me now.
My heart that was before life pumping, warm source of love is now an empty, lifeless, stone cold cauldron. Gerald was the world to me and now he's gone I am lost, floating in an empty dark space, lonely and confused. I have almost lost the will to live any more. Its funny how I used to be scared of death, but now it is almost comforting. I know it would take me to a place where no one can hurt me any more, no one can punish me and make me lose the things that meant most to me. I would be safe from all the suffering in the world, and would finally join the people that loved me most.
But for the mean time all I know is that I must get away. I must leave Brumley for a while and come back when I am ready. I do not know where I am going, somewhere near the seaside maybe. Somewhere where I can breathe and decide what I shall do next. I fear though, that I may have finally reached the end. I have lost my heart and soul and I always said to myself that when I reached this point I would know I have nothing left to carry on living for.
Maybe I will have to return to bar and go back to my old life I had before I met Gerald, or maybe I will die of a broken heart. I do not know.
I know he loved me, even only for a little while but those few months were the best I have ever had and I thank him for that. I hope he will flourish in the world and maybe the small part of me that I gave him will too.
Eva
