Synopsis
Seth Marchwood, an Essex horse trader and drover, marries Mary Nolan, a Whitechapel orphan, raised by prostitutes in London’s Whitechapel rookeries. Together they form an opportunistic partnership.
As rural life declines, they relocate to Limehouse taking lodgings in a brothel. Within this environment, they fraternise with fraudsters, horse thieves, gambling den proprietors, jewel thieves and become involved in the vice trade.
As Jack the Ripper carries out his murderous killings, Mary is imprisoned for larceny and Seth offers safe night-time travel in horse drawn cabs through the dark alleyways of Whitechapel.
By the turn of the century their sons, moulded in criminality, help run the family’s cab business, Coffee House and Penny Gaff and engage in international villainy.
During WW1 Seth supplies the military with horses and fodder. His sons enlist. Life changes for them all.
While Seth takes a young mistress, the pragmatic and resilient Mary reaches her old age fulfilled in ways she never could have imagined.
The ethereal presence of the whispering souls is always there, watching over, and affirming, the retelling of their earthly lives.