You've got to get out of this environment Cattle boats were the Great Depression era's equivalent of the

Cunard Line for impoverished artists, writers, professors, teachers, students, and those of lesser
sta  ons in life who wanted to escape to Europe. Although it was assumed one could work one's way
over, reality was different. Someone on the dock had to be bought off in order to obtain a working
passage. Leonard Brooks and Evan Greene paid ten dollars each for the privilege of tending cattle on the
Manchester Citizen on the thirteen-day trans-Atlantic crossing. During that time they did not remove
their clothes, even though they spent much of the day wading in excrement and vomit from over five
hundred head of seasick cattle, penned on two decks. They slept on straw, not unlike the cattle they fed
and watered. Food was stew and a bit of bread and marmalade. Strange hands would snatch their bread
as they ate; the looks of the men doing the pilfering did not encourage protests. When the boat reached
Manchester, Leonard and Evan discarded as much of their rancid clothing as they could afford to do
without, got onto the highway and again hitchhiked, this time the 165 miles to London. Since they had
only two dollars between them, they spent the first night in London sleeping in a park. Next day they
went to nearby Enfield to see Leonard's uncle and aunt, Frank and Daisy, arriving unannounced at 10:30
p.m. on a Saturday during the Whitsun Holiday. Frank worried there would not be enough food, since
stores were closed, but they managed to feed two hungry young men. Frank knew the pair was coming
because he was holding for Leonard a cheque for thirteen pounds, about fifty-five dollars, money sent
by his parents. "I asked Len if he would rather I kept the cash and paid it out as required and he agreed it
would be best," Frank told brother Herb in a letter. "We sure think Len is a fine chap and very earnest in
everything he says and does," Frank wrote. "Don't worry about your son and heir. I think he has it in him
to get on." Frank was not quite so sure about Greene. "Evan is a good fel  low too but does not seem
such a sticker as Len." Frank revealed that Greene had a fuzzy beard when he arrived, "but much to our
delight he shaved it off and exposed himself as quite an Adonis. "x He charmed Leonard's aunt because
someone took a picture of a laughing Daisy perched on Evan's lap. Previous page: Leonard and Evan
Greene at their studio in London's Chelsea district, 1933. A Career Is Launched 39 Daisy was not laughing
when she and Frank were later stuck with bills that Greene ran up, invoking their name. "A lot of bills
came in from local depart  ment stores of stuff that had been bought and not paid for," said cousin
Donald.2 When Daisy wrote to Nell about the unpaid bills, she replied that Leonard had done the same
thing at Eaton's. That would have been a reference to the furniture Greene had ordered and that
Eaton's tried to repossess.