Wild Goose Chase

As most people know, the prostitutes residing in Borough, outside the walls of the city of London, during the 16th-19th century, were regarded as 'wild geese', living 'beyond the pale'.

Here in the East End we have our own fair share of vagabonds, rascals, scallywags, miscreants, vagrants, foe, pimps, prostitutes and waifs...life would be less colourful without them and let's face it, they add to the value of the property market in E1...

Last summer was a casing point. One evening, as I was walking home along Deal Street, where I live, I stumbled across a woman who was blatantly leaning on a concrete ballard at the end of our row of cottages. Fully made-up, smartly dressed with a belted khaki raincoat and a handbag over the top, hair neatly tied back, she presented the illusion of respectability.

But something didn't feel quite right about the manner of her anxious gaze which contrasted with the affected, casually relaxed pose. And why was that car sitting with its engine on across the road, with the door to the passenger seat open? and a man in a leather jacket slouched in the driving seat?

As I passed her, I couldn't resist politely asking her what she was doing there, plying her trade on a road where children went to school and people came home from work...She looked me brazenly in the eye and said,

"I'm waiting for some one."

"Aren't we all", I said. But couldn't resist a dig. "Look, I'm not happy about you inviting your customers down my road when I have to come home in the dark. So why don't you just clear off and go and work somewhere else instead?"

She looked affronted, offended but the voice was still calm.

"I'm waiting for some one."

"Well, you can't do it here. If you don't clear off in five, I'm calling the cops."

With that I went inside and shut my front door. Next thing I heard was,

"Ere, Derek, She won't let me, she won't let me do it, the bloomin' coaarrgh, the bloomin' cow..she won't let me, it's no use...we're gonna have to go."

As the car pulled up alongside her she got in. I cam out of my front door and yelled, "Go on. Clear off. You're not wanted round here."

She mouthed the words "You're dead" back at me through the glass and made a slitting motion with her hand...

I laughed in her gaze and said, "Ooh, I'm scared. Is that all you've got? There were people more scary than you at my secondary school." And immediately felt infantile for saying it.

She screamed a seamless babble of obscenities back at me through the receding car window.

Later that month, my neighbours over the road had a Bengali wedding, which meant suspending strip lights from the roof of their house, all around it's four walls. The white lights were on night and day, flashing and giving a gently reassuring aura to the street...

Interestingly, after two months of hassle, we had no more bother from prostitutes or pimps that Summer. They just mysteriously disappeared.

I'm going to propose that we all pool some money to pay the neighbour's electricity bill so that he can keep those lights on again all summer. Light as a deterrent...It's a government ASBO proposal in the making. Should be rolled out across the country.