Tosher

Adrian Winney

Description

Tosher is the tale of a baby discarded as a foundling in the sewers of Victorian London and his subsequent rescue by a Tosher by the name of Jack Tanner.
Tosher: Synopsis
Tosher is the tale of a baby discarded as a foundling in the sewers of Victorian London and his subsequent rescue by a Tosher by the name of Jack Tanner.
It follows the early part of his life living, training and surviving in the sewers with all its challenges, and the personal challenges he must overcome. Then follows the start of his quest for vengeance following the murder of Jack Tanner, the man he considers to be his father.
It deals with the skills and knowledge he acquires, and his interactions and friendships along this journey. The depths to which he will go to achieve his goals, and his drive to overcome his own disability, are a journey into parts of the human mind most people do not contemplate.

Sujets

• Tosher
• Victorian
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse UK
• Date de parution: 12 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665588973
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

TOSHER
 
 
 
 
 
 
ADRIAN WINNEY
 
 
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™ UK
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403  USA
www.authorhouse.co.uk
Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)
UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 ([phone] from outside the UK)
 
 
 
 
 
© 2021 Adrian Winney. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse  05/12/2021
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-8898-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-8897-3 (e)
 
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Dedications
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Glossary
Characters
Currency
About the Author
FOREWORD
This book was written during a difficult time for me, I had been unwell for almost a year at the time I started to write, the worldwide pandemic and lockdown caused by the Coronavirus had been in force for six months. This along with other health issues and worries about finances took me to a low point. There have been ideas for a book floating around for a long time now, but I never got started, with the need to occupy my mind and bring me back to myself my wife actively encouraged me, I could almost say demanded that I start to write, and so this is my first attempt to put my imaginations on paper.
DEDICATIONS
For my wife Maggie
Without your encouragement and support this story would have surely stayed in my imagination, and would have never been realised
For my family
Who through some difficult years, when things have seemed lost, have been the rock to which I clung.
And finally, to all of you that have faced difficulties and setbacks and, though all seemed lost, stayed the course, and survived and can look back and think to yourselves “that was truly well done” you are inspirations that should be recognised and thanked.

CHAPTER 1

J ANUARY 1833, LONDON , MY birth was inauspicious and possibly a curse, for my parents, whoever they had been, had not considered me to even be good enough for an orphanage. I had been bundled in rags and discarded in the sewers to feed the rats that roam there in packs.
And there my life may well have ended, my only recollection of that far back in my life was the cold and then my body striking a hard surface followed by the sounds of a voice.
“got you, now I wonder what we’ve got here” a bright light, then “oh my!”
The above was recounted to me later by my saviour Jack Tanner, he had fished me out of a catch basin after I had fetched up against a sluice gate, on his way to his home in the cistern below the Wash House on Little Queen Street in Holburn. This may seem a strange place to live but the water that emptied into the cistern was the waste wash water from above, the sewage was emptied up sewer from the cistern directly into the sewer, the cistern was above this level and off of the sewer, the water was clean apart from the dirt and soap used for the washing and the water in the great vats of the wash house was changed at least six times a day, the gentlefolk of Holburn were not prepared to have their clothing washed with just anyone’s clothes.
There was a large platform filling almost half the cistern, and the brick walls around the platform had been wood lined, on rescuing me and accepting the burden of my life he had created an area for me to sleep, and built a railing around the platform, to prevent me falling into the cistern when crawling around what was now my home too. I was kept fed, clean and clothed, the clothing he made from rags that were gathered from the sewers and cleaned and for a long time I was unaware of where the food and water came from, but I was happy. Whilst he worked, I was confined to my sleeping area, whilst he was at home, he kept me occupied with games and his efforts to teach me to speak, walk and eventually to read from books he had.
Jack Tanner was a Tosher, a sewer-man, roaming the sewers searching for the lost, discarded and broken items that made their way below the streets of London. Almost everything was considered as salvageable, rope, material, broken toys, clockworks, coins and even the occasional piece of jewellery or gem. You would be surprised at what is below the streets, and luckily for me I was considered worth salvaging. The items found are cleaned, repaired and sold.
As I grew, I learnt to read and write and was taught the basics of maths so that I could count the items recovered. I learnt the name of the things he recovered and kept around our home by asking questions of Jack. Some of the books I read were about families, from these I learnt that children had parents, and to me Jack was my father and so I started to call him da, he never corrected this and to this day Jack Tanner was my father or da. Whilst still young the days that bought me most joy were when da returned with toys, even though broken, I would play with until he repaired them.
After I turned five, he decided that I needed to learn some very important skills for survival in the sewers, swimming and control of my breathing, he built a sluice at the entrance to the tunnel that sloped down to the sewer, and we waited whilst the water level from the wash house water drain built up to the level of the sluice, about two and a half to three feet. While we waited for this, he started my breathing training.
“Long, slow and gentle breaths lad, so quiet that you cannot hear them, this allows you to hear everything in the sewers, from the movement of rats to water movements, such as those made by men wading through, and the rush after sluice gates have been operated, knowing what is what can save your life.”
When I satisfied him that I had mastered this, he taught me to hold my breath.
“There are areas in the sewer that as a Tosher you will need to cross and to do this whilst holding your breath, areas where the rot gas builds up and other gases that will kill you for sure if you breathe it in.”
This training was accomplished by holding me underwater so that I could hold my breath, either with my lungs full or emptied, for longer than a minute then told me I was to continue to train until I could pass two minutes, but this last was in conjunction with my swimming, at this time I asked him how I was to do this when I was broken, he looked at me,
“what do you mean by you are broken boy?”
“it’s clear I’m broken da, I’m not like you as I only have half of my left leg.”
Listen to me boy, you are only broken if that is what you think, besides broken things can be repaired, when I bring broken toys home, do I then moan that they are broken, no I let you have your fun with them, then as Toshers we repair them and then we sell them.”
“is that what I am da, a Tosher?”
“Maybe, or a Tosh anyway as you think you’re broken.”
From then he started to call me Tosh and that is how I got my name, I learnt to swim as I wanted da to know that I took his words seriously and that the brokenness I saw would not stop me. It wasn’t pretty, but by lying on my left side and stroking with my arms whilst kicking with my right leg I could swim around our cistern before tiring, this skill along with the breathing I would continue to practise for the rest of my life.
You may have realised that I was taught a determination not to be beaten and always to do my utmost to overcome any difficulty.
It was at this time that I was to start learning some skill as a Tosher, da installed a net below the water outlet of the wash house, explaining that you wouldn’t believe what some of those idiots left in the pockets of their clothes before getting them washed, and if the workers missed it, it often ended up down here. Whilst he worked, I was to continue all my training including reading, writing and maths, and when the waters were emptied, I was to search the net and the cistern floor for anything that may have come down. everything I gathered was to go into a pouch he made for me, which was then inspected when he returned, these inspections were lessons in the value of coins and identifying different metals and gems. My first weeks of gathering were poor as I missed parts of the cistern floor and sides where items gathered in gaps between the bricks, each time he would check and anything he gathered went into a bucket for cleaning and assessment at the end of each week, this time of my life was enjoyable because even though I studied and trained, and didn’t find everything that came into our cistern I was never scolded, it was always a lesson, I was taught how to search properly to find those things I missed, the most important lesson was “everything has value from a simple piece of string to a piece of jewellery such as the small ring with a red gem, my greatest find, that da said was a ruby. It is such finds that bolster the Toshers income. The gem