Thanks to Johnny Pepper she had her first job at the bakery in Digbeth where he was employed as a delivery boy. ‘Well there you are,’ Elsie smiled. She was fixing up her escaping coils of rusty hair. ‘You’re a worker. You’ll get on, you will.’ ‘’Course you got it,’ Susan beamed. ‘I said you would, didn’ I?’ ‘I might be in with a chance of the odd loaf or bag of stale cakes, you never know!’ Mercy was laughing partly with relief as she went to stand behind Susan. It had been her first shot at getting a job and she’d been nervous. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘That’s beautiful, that is!’ Over Susan’s shoulder she could see the neat job she was doing mending the astrakhan collar on an overcoat. She was good at it – and not just hand sewing either. Just after Christmas which had been drab and bleak, a miracle had happened. Mrs White, the miserable, reclusive woman in the cottage across the yard, had dropped dead, aged fifty-seven. Mr White put it all down to nerves.
