For years, the myths around the real-life crime syndicate, The Forty Elephants—infamously known as "The Forties"—kept surfacing in my mind. I think I’d first stumbled across a small piece in a true crime book about them as a teenager. Over the years I’ve bumped into them in much the same capacity – little and often. Maybe it was getting the wrong side of forty myself that tripped something in the back of my brain, and I finally became outraged. How come such an audacious story about the biggest and most successful female run crime syndicate in the history of the UK is barely known? Where are the blockbusting books and TV shows?
It started to really grind my gears. I’d only ever heard of them in light passing and yet here came another book, biography, movie, you name it – about Al Capone or The Krays, Pablo Escobar, etc…
A women-only gang of professional thieves! Headed up by a towering woman only in her twenties called ‘Queen’ Alice Diamond!!! What a character! How come the spotlight always missed her? Where were the endless studies on the inner psyche of a woman who survived poverty in the Southwark stews and grew up to wear diamonds on every finger? It’s clearly an intriguing crime story, so why in the annals of our cultural crime history is it so quiet?
When I started writing Poor Girls, it felt natural to root the story in the social bonds these ballsy women must have shared. My story and characters are fictional, and I tried to explore what might lead an ordinary, working-class girl to be sucked into the criminal underworld. But as the story progressed it seemed inevitable that it would evolve to be more than a crime caper. It’s a story about what drives people, especially young women, to defy the paths set for them when no one will listen, and how so many of these real life rebels are devalued and erased from our social history.
Selfishly, I wanted to write an adventure - an escape. The lockdown years left us all bruised, financially, physically, and emotionally. Emerging from that collective grief, I wanted to write something that resonated with our shared weariness, while celebrating resilience. Studying The Forty Elephants and their heyday in the 1920s was almost eerie—a century later, the UK felt as if it had come full circle. Then, as now, society was scarred by wars, food shortages, inflation, and growing wealth inequality. Women who had stepped up in wartime factories were suddenly displaced in the name of normalcy, as jobs reverted to men. Many of those men returned from the Great War damaged and often cast aside, leaving families—and the same women now jobless—to pick up the pieces. How could a generation not explode with rage? Part of that rebellion was the defiance to laugh, to dance, to enjoy romantic affairs and sod the morality. To dare to live by your own rules under a state sponsored diet of miserly disappointment and crucifying social expectations. Today, technology and social norms may have changed, but deep down, the injustices and frustrations are familiar. A poor young woman with ambition and potential, stifled and undervalued, finds herself brimming with energy. With so few paths forward, some of that energy inevitably turns crooked. This, in essence, is at the heart of Poor Girls.
In writing this, I longed for adventure too. The monotony of staying indoors for so long echoed that old feeling of "waiting for life to start," an all-too-common sentiment shared by the young women of my book. They remind us that vibrant women, full of life and strength, should never be caged.
I’ve been intrigued by true crime stories all my life but for so long, it seemed like these dark pursuits were only ever perpetrated by men, with women as reluctant accomplices – victims. But it’s simply not true. In terms of organised crime, the real Forty Elephants shattered that notion. These women chose their own path, fully aware of their lack of choice. Poor Girls is for all those who boldly take control, shaking with fear in their hands and dare to make their own destiny in the face of sneering ridicule and contempt. To be tarred unnatural and debased as sexually deviant – degenerates.
When I wrote the dialogue between the women often it felt as if I were in a séance, with the characters running up to me, talking over each other, desperate to be heard! As I would hurriedly type as fast as I could trying to get their voices down. I’m aware that sounds crazy, but it is true. Rightly or wrongly, the moral handing ringing will continue long after we have all gone, but for now, let Poor Girls be a fantastical voyage for the willingly wicked!!
