Working Folk
Martha Pike
Beggar of the Parish Steps
An elderly beggar of the London parish steps, half-blind in one eye, who has watched the same doors for twenty years and knows who goes in and out of them.
Martha Pike has begged from the same steps for twenty years and has seen two incumbents and five clerks come and go. She is thin, old and blind in one eye, and she sees more from her step than the parish does from its vestry.
She sleeps in a shared lodging room in Southwark and crosses the river each morning. She does not sell what she knows, but she gives it, unasked, to people who have been civil to her, and a company that has learned this does not walk past her twice.
In person
Elderly and thin, with one cloudy eye, wispy grey hair and layer upon layer of worn shawls and skirts.
