Fair game

9:30am Saturday 5th August 2006

Former prostitute Charlie Daniels tells Maxine Gordon about life on the streets of Yorkshire and how she gave it all up for love.

WHEN she was 18, Charlie Daniels saw prostitution as easy money. As a single mother living on benefits she went on the game to help pay for nappies. Suddenly, instead of struggling to make ends meet from £30 a week, she had hundreds of pounds in her purse.

Twelve months on and Charlie had opened the first escort agency in Sheffield. Fast forward a few more years and she was running her own brothels and earned a reputation as one of the most successful madams in Yorkshire as well as a buoyant bank balance.

But it all came at a price - the details of which Charlie gives in her warts 'n' all memoir, Priceless: My Journey Through A Life Of Vice (Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99).

Now residing in Leeds, we arrange to meet in York for our interview. Normally, I like to chat over a cappuccino at a local coffee house, but Charlie has her own ideas. "I always find hotels are a good place to meet. You can always find a quiet spot there."

So we meet at the Hilton in York and settle down on some squidgy sofas with a couple of fruit juices.

Her shiny auburn hair is straight and rests on her shoulders; her make-up is natural, emphasising the honey shades in her hair. She is wearing a turquoise vest top with shoestring straps and rolled up jeans and is almost unrecognisable from the no-nonsense, crossed-arms, power dresser on the front of the book.

She is friendly without being bubbly and you sense she is weighing you up as much as you are taking the measure of her.

I ask her what it was like the first time she swapped sex for cash.

"It didn't seem like a massive step to me," she replies in a throaty South Yorkshire accent. "Yes, I was terrified, but I'd been extremely promiscuous as a teenager. My whole body comes alive with male attention.

"The first time a client asked if he could give me some money for a grope I just thought of how many times I'd done it before but not received any pleasure in return. It just seemed really easy money. I didn't know then there would be a price to pay."

Charlie quit the game almost ten years ago and sold her last brothel in 2002. She now works as a writer and broadcaster on issues close to her heart such as prostitution and teenage motherhood. And finally, she has been able to offer a home to her daughter, now 18, who was raised by Charlie's foster mum.

"We're more like sisters," Charlie says. "She doesn't love me like a mum, but that's the price you have to pay and I have to accept that."

Often she is asked for advice by women considering prostitution. She always gives the same advice: "Don't do it, not under any circumstances."

During her years in the sex trade she endured robberies, beatings, sexual assaults - even a spell in jail - yet still continued as a working girl.

She said: "I felt it was chipping away at my soul, a bit at a time. I see part of my journey now as reclaiming my soul."

One of the most graphic chapters in the book is when Charlie gets embroiled in a fight with a gang of women and lashes out at one with a screwdriver, stabbing her in the eye. It landed her in jail for a year, during which she spent 12 months at Askham Grange near York.

This week, the Howard League for Penal Reform called on the government to close women's prisons to all but the most dangerous of female criminals - something Charlie vehemently disagrees with.

"I think that's a load of b******s. What message are we sending out if we do that? I think what we do should apply to men too and we need to tackle crime related to heroin addiction. We need to get more people into detox and get doctors not to keep giving out methodone."

Charlie admits she was gripped by panic attacks when she first went to jail and was terrified by some of the inmates, but on the whole sees her time inside as a positive experience.

"I did some rehab in prison. That is when I started writing and found some mentors; people who believed in me," recalls Charlie.

While at Askham Grange, Charlie was allowed out to work and found a job as a tour bus guide. "On my first day I confessed that I didn't know anything about York - they just gave me a book and said start reading'."

She remembers a man who brought a group of Americans on board and told her if she did a good job there would be a tip in it for her.

"I pointed to a statue of George Hudson and told them how he was the railway king who got into a bit of bother. At the end, I got a 20 quid tip from the man who passed me his business card. He was one of George Hudson's descendants."

While inside, Charlie's writing won two awards and when she came out she was determined to start a new life. "But I had nowhere to live and no food. I had nothing. What was I supposed to do?"

So she returned to prostitution and eventually built up an empire of working girls across the north east, many of whom worked from home or as high-class escorts.

Once again, Charlie was lured by the money and the adoration of her clients, many of whom lavished her with presents and took her out to the best restaurants in the region, including several in York.

But in the end there was still something missing; Charlie knew it was time for her to be a mother to her daughter.

During her years as a prostitute, Charlie would visit her daughter at weekends. They have now lived together for five years and she is proud of the way she has turned out. "She's totally different from me," she says. "She is in a long-term relationship and is going to university. She had the breaks I never had and I wanted to make sure she never followed in my footsteps."