Connie Bell, newly orphaned, is just twelve when she's taken on at the laundry in Sunderland's grim workhouse. Although she's little more than a child the events of her past have forged a driving determination to rise above her beginnings. But when she applies for a job as a nurse Connie's turned...
Born during World War 1, Amy Shawe gets off to a bad start as her unmarried mother dies in the 1919 flu epidemic and Amy is only spared the workhouse because her uncle grudgingly takes her in. Her cousin torments her as she grows up and when she gets the chance to marry a rather older and apparen...
Clarence Harley-Shawe walked over to the chair where he had laid his clothes an hour previously. He pulled on his trousers before he glanced across at her. Mary was sitting up among the ruffled covers, her hair hanging in tumbled disarray about her shoulders and the dark pink of her nipples vivid...
It was one thing to view the gypsy camp through the small window in the caravan, quite another to be thrust into it. It was early, the dawn chorus hadn’t been long finished, but already it promised to be another scorching hot day. All round the camp, fires were lit and the women were preparing br...
Oliver would have liked the marriage to take place some weeks earlier but this had not proved possible, mainly because of Josie’s heavy work schedule throughout November and December. London had embraced its newest sensation with all the enthusiasm Oliver had hoped for, and when Josie had been of...
Sir Henry and Lady Isabella had been as good as their word and she had travelled with the family to Italy each summer to stay at Lady Isabella’s father’s country estate on the eastern shore of Lake Garda. The Morosini family also had magnificent townhouses in Florence and Rome, but Lady Isabella ...
Aye, lass. Bad business. They reckon the four lads who copped it in Laing’s shipyard are all goners. It’s a miracle there aren’t more dead, considering fourteen bombs fell overall, but there’re plenty injured, especially round the Royal. The Ali Baba Sauce factory is practically demolished, accor...
They were still fast asleep when she woke them in the morning. Angeline had stirred once in the middle of the night when something furry had run over her legs. Normally that would have been enough to have her jumping up and screaming, but she was so tired she had merely thought, ‘Hope it’s a mous...
to Miss Wilhelmina, Tommy.’ ‘How do you do?’ And then the child, overcome by his surroundings and more especially the grand old lady in front of him, buried his head in Daisy’s skirts. She bent down, lifting the small boy into her embrace, and when plump little arms wrapped themselves in a stra...
It was the second Thursday in January, and he had written to her two days previously informing her he had some news about Molly but that it was imperative she told no one before she had spoken to him. She watched him now as he swallowed the contents of his cup, wiped his mouth with the back of h...
The low murmur of voices was punctured by a gurgling laugh, followed by a girl’s voice saying, ‘I always feel so happy when we’re together like this, Henry. In fact I think it’s the only time I am truly happy. Do you know what I mean?’ ‘Of course I do. You know I feel the same, lass.’ ‘Then how c...
She adjusted the collar of her black coat, bought hastily the day before from one of the second-hand stalls at the Old Market in the East End. The coat she’d worn for years and years was a dark bottle green but still not funereal enough. She knew eyebrows would have been raised if she had worn th...
She was still rising at five o’clock, as she had done every day in Yorkshire, but now it was to wash and dress Joy and get herself ready, before they had a breakfast of bread toasted over their small fire with the long-handled toasting fork she had purchased, the toast spread with a scraping of b...