Read Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys Online
Authors: Mary Gibson
Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys (62 page)
Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts
They call them custard tarts – the girls who work at Pearce Duff’s custard powder factory in Bermondsey – ‘London’s larder’ – before the First World War. Conditions are hard, pay terrible and the hours long and unforgiving, but nothing can quench the spirit of humour and friendship – or the rising tide of anger that will finally bring the girls out on strike for a better deal.
For one of them, striking spells disaster. Nellie Clark’s wages keep her young brothers and sister from starvation, while her father sinks into drunken violence after the death of their mother.
While Nellie struggles to keep her family together, two men compete for her love, and over them looms the shadow of the coming war, which will pull London’s East End together as never before – even while it tears the world apart.
Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts
is available
here
.
Southwells jam factory is where many of the girls work. And Milly Colman knows she’s lucky. At Southwells she can have a laugh with her mates. She’s quick and strong and never misses a day’s work. She needs to be. Because at home things are very different.
The Colman household is ruled by the tyrannical rages of the old man – her father. Often Milly feels she is the only thing standing between her mother, fey sister Elsie, defiant little Amy and his murderous violence. Autumn hop-picking in Kent gives all the Colman women a heavenly respite.
But it is here, on one golden September night, that Milly makes the mistake of her life and finds her courage and strength tested as never before.
Jam & Roses
is a wonderful saga about the lives and loves of working women between the wars, and especially of one brave, feisty girl, determined to do things her way – if she can.
Jam and Roses
is available
here
.
A Bermondsey factory girl joins the fight against Hitler, in the wonderful new novel from the bestselling author of
Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts
.
May Lloyd’s father calls her his homing pigeon because of her uncanny knack of navigating her way around the streets of South London – even in pitch darkness. It is a gift that will save her life when the Blitz destroys nearly everything that she holds dear.
With her home in ruins, May joins the ATS – the women’s branch of the British Army – and becomes a gunner girl, operating Ack Ack guns against the Luftwaffe. Meanwhile, her sister Peggy makes a daring bid to escape a stifling marriage and find love and freedom amid the heady chaos of war.
Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys
is available
here
.
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The story starts here.
First published as an eBook edition in the UK in 2015 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Mary Gibson, 2015
The moral right of Mary Gibson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781781855966
ISBN (XTPB) 9781781855973
ISBN (eBook) 9781781855942
Author Photo © Hugh Dickens
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