{{Short description|British lavatory attendant and author}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} thumb|Victoria Hughes '''Victoria Hughes''' (née Rogers, 22 June 1897 – 30 August 1978) was a British lavatory attendant, and the first of her profession to have an entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', having published her memoirs ''Ladies' Mile'' (1977) at the age of 80, which some found shocking but which have since become a valuable local history resource. thumb|Ladies Mile, Durdham Down thumb|The public toilets in Stoke Road, Bristol, where Hughes worked.
==Early life== Victoria Hughes was born Victoria Rogers on 22 June 1897 at Woodbury Lane, off Blackboy Hill, Bristol. She was the fifth of ten children of Alfred William Rogers, a scaffolder, and his wife, Ellen Rogers.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|author=Shirley Brown and Dawn Dyer |title=Hughes [née Rogers], Victoria |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-92322 |date=2004 |publisher=OUP |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/92322 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |access-date=28 November 2017}}</ref> thumb|A 1955 map of Durdham Down showing the Ladies Mile diagonally, centre, running south from Stoke Road. Hughes' workplace indicated by arrow. On 16 July 1916, she married Richard Hughes (1896–1965), an apprentice ironmonger, who the same day left to fight in France as a member of the Royal Berkshire Regiment during the First World War. He was present at the Battle of the Somme.<ref name="ODNB"/> They had two daughters together, Margaret (born 1920) and Barbara (born 1931).<ref name="ODNB"/><ref name="Telegraph"/>
==Career== Hughes' husband returned from the war with "trench foot, a limp, and failing eyesight". She became the family's main breadwinner.<ref name="ODNB"/><ref name="Telegraph"/>
From 1929, until her retirement in May 1962, Hughes worked as what she described as a "loo lady" at a public toilet in Stoke Road on Bristol's Durdham Down.<ref name="ODNB"/> She soon discovered that many of her customers were prostitutes working the nearby Ladies Mile, and although thoroughly respectable herself, she did not judge, instead providing tea, sympathy and advice.<ref name="ODNB"/> She also kept notebooks about her working life.<ref name="Telegraph"/>
In 1977, aged 80, Hughes published her memoirs as ''Ladies' Mile''.<ref name=hugh>Hughes, Victoria. Edited by David Foot. (1977) ''Ladies' Mile''. Bristol: Abson Books. {{ISBN|0902920316}}</ref> The book "shocked some at the time, but since has become a valued source of local history".<ref name="Telegraph"/>
==Later life== From 1958, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes lived in a terraced house at 255 Gloucester Road, Bishopston, Bristol, where she died on 30 August 1978, from cancer.<ref name="ODNB"/> In 2003, a blue plaque was unveiled by David Foot who had written the book for her on the public conveniences where she worked,<ref name="BBC News">{{cite news|title=Prostitutes' friend honoured|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/3129568.stm|access-date=28 November 2017|work=BBC News|date=22 September 2003}}</ref> and in 2006 she became the first of her profession to be given an entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.<ref name="Telegraph">{{cite news|last1=Howse|first1=Christopher|title=Fame at last for prostitutes' friend from the ladies loo|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1530806/Fame-at-last-for-prostitutes-friend-from-the-ladies-loo.html|access-date=28 November 2017|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=7 October 2006}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
*The book ''Ladies' Mile'' by Victoria Hughes was reprinted in 2023 by BristolRead Books. {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Victoria}} Category:1897 births Category:1978 deaths Category:20th-century English memoirists Category:20th-century English women writers Category:Writers from Bristol Category:Deaths from cancer in England Category:British women memoirists Category:Restroom attendants