Workhouse of Horrors ; Thrashed to Within an Inch of Their Lives. Stripped of All Dignity. Forced to Wear Sack Cloth. Life for Children in the Workhouse Was Medieval. Yet One Girl's Shocking Story Reveals They Still Existed Within Living Memory...

Summary

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JANE was the prettiest girl in the workhouse. Taller than the other seven-year-olds, with clear blue eyes and dark curly hair, she was a bright little thing, full of mischief, who liked playing practical jokes on the other children.

She was punished, of course, in those early years of the 20th century, and sometimes cried herself to sleep, but in the morning, irrepressible, she was laughing again. Who was it who climbed the drainpipe in the playground, or tied Officer Sharp's shoelaces together as she sat darning socks? If it wasn't Jane, it might as well have been, so she got the punishment. The master of the workhouse vowed to break the 'saucy little madam'.

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Extract

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Workhouse of Horrors ; Thrashed to Within an Inch of Their Lives. Stripped of All Dignity. Forced to Wear Sack Cloth. Life for Children in the Workhouse Was Medieval. Yet One Girl's Shocking Story Reveals They Still Existed Within Living Memory...

When Jane owned up to making a sketch of him with a square head, small eyes and an exaggerated stomach, she was taken to the discipline room, a small cell with no windows and no furniture except for a stool. The master daddy would one day come for her. took down one of several canes and beat the little girl so severely that she could not sit down for several days. But if they had expected to break her spirit, they were mistaken. Jane had a secret. She had lived in the workhouse since birth, after her mother, a servant girl, had been discovered in bed with her employer.

The mother had been allowed to breas...

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