Strawberry Fields

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Authors: Katie Flynn

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BOOK: Strawberry Fields
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About the Book
Liverpool: Christmas Day 1924
When twelve-year-old Sara Cordwainer, the unloved child of rich parents, sees a ragged girl with a baby in her arms outside her church, she stops to talk to her, pressing her collection money into the girl’s icy hand. But from this generous act comes a tragedy which will haunt her for years.
When, years later, Sara meets Brogan, a young Irishman working in England, she feels she has found a friend at last. But Brogan has a secret which he dare tell no one, not even Sara.
And in a Dublin slum, Brogan’s little sister Polly is growing up. The only girl in a family of boys, she knows herself to be much loved, but it is not until Sara begins to work at the Salvation Army children’s home, Strawberry Fields, that the two girls meet – and Brogan’s secret is told at last…
About the Author
Katie Flynn has lived in the Northwest for thirty-two years. A compulsive writer, she started with short stories and articles and many of her early stories were broadcast on Radio Mersey. She decided to write a series set entirely in Liverpool after a family get-together when the older people began to reminisce about the Liverpool of their childhood.
Also by Katie Flynn
The Girl From Penny Lane
Liverpool Lass
Liverpool Taffy
The Mersey Girls
Rainbow’s End
Rose of Tralee
No Silver Spoon
Polly’s Angel
The Girl from Seaforth Sands
The Liverpool Rose
Poor Little Rich Girl
The Bad Penny
Down Daisy Street
A Kiss and a Promise
Two Penn’orth of Sky
A Long and Lonely Road
The Cuckoo Child
Darkest Before Dawn
Orphans of the Storm
Little Girl Lost
Beyond the Blue Hills
Forgotten Dreams
Sunshine and Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow
STRAWBERRY FIELDS
Katie Flynn
This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Epub ISBN: 9781446455777
Version 1.0
Arrow Books
STRAWBERRY FIELDS
First published in Great Britain 1995
by William Heinemann Ltd
Arrow Books
The Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
Copyright © Katie Flynn 1995
The author has asserted her moral rights
A CIP catalogue record for this title
is available from the British Library
ISBN
0 7493 2011 7
For Sally Mimnagh,
who gives more than she takes . . .
and for the famous Mimnagh cats!
Contents
Acknowledgements
My thanks go first to Mrs Violet McKay for telling me about her childhood spent around Stanley Road and Snowdrop Street, and then to Ruth Baker, whose family were brought up in the Walton Road area and who, as a Salvationist, was able to set my feet firmly on the right path when it came to writing about the Army.
Still in Liverpool, I am very grateful to Captain Ray Collings of the Salvation Army for all the help unstintingly given, and in particular for taking me and my husband to meet Colonel Martha Osborne, who not only has an incredibly detailed and accurate memory, invaluable to anyone writing about the past, but whose sense of fun and wonderful narrative style have given me enough material for the next book as well as this one – many, many thanks, Martha! Thanks, also, to Tom Officer for lending me books on Ireland, and to Chris Billing for the loan of computer parts when I was desperate.
And moving over to Ireland, thanks to the staff of the Gilbert Library, who took endless trouble to find the books and information I needed. Then there was Billy Doren, whose knowledge of Dublin – and the books written about it – was second to none, and last but not least, my thanks to Sally Mimnagh, who told me more about the Irish in one evening than I could have learned from books in a dozen years.
Chapter One
December 1924
It was Christmas Day, 1924, and it was snowing. What was more, the snow was lying. Sefton Park was a wonderland, the grass smoothly blanketed, the trees outlined in white. All the way down Aigburth Road Sara Cordwainer, who was twelve years old, admired the magical scene. She sat between her mother and father in their big Rolls-Royce motor car, with the chauffeur, Robson, cut off from them by a glass panel, and stared with all her might, convinced that the snow had come because she had been good – and because it was Christmas, naturally.
Already, her day was planned. Church first, which was much more exciting on Christmas Day than on any other day of the year, then round to Snowdrop Street to pick up her old nanny, and home for all the wonders of Christmas dinner – roast turkey, crackers, a plum pudding to which Cook would set light just before she brought it into the room – and at tea time, presents round the Christmas tree in the white drawing room.
There would be a present at church today, too. The Reverend Atwell had started giving the young members of his congregation a present at the Christmas morning service six years earlier, and now it was expected. They were religious presents, of course, but nonetheless welcome, because they heralded the start of Christmas proper, Sara thought. She had kept everything the Reverend Atwell had given her, had them still. The first one had been quite simple; a beautiful picture of Jesus in his long white robe with a number of small children clustered at his knee.
Suffer the little children
. . . the text beneath the picture read.
Ever since then the small, gaily wrapped parcels had been handed out at the church door as the congregation were leaving. Nanny, who had retired when Sara started school, didn’t approve. ‘You get enough presents without the church handin’ you more stuff,’ Nanny had said, that first time. ‘There’s kids down Kirkdale and Bootle who don’t get one present come Christmas, let alone half a dozen. Why don’t the Reverend Atwell think of them, eh, stead of givin’ hand-outs to folk what’ve got more than they know what to do with?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sara said, puzzled. Surely there was no such thing as a child without presents on Christmas Day? Parents, uncles, cousins, friends, they all gave Christmas presents, so surely, unless a child was positively steeped in sin, it would find something in its stocking on Christmas Day? ‘If they came to our church they’d get a present though, Nanny. Why don’t they come to our church?’
‘Because they go to their own churches, that’s what,’ Nanny said with a snap in her voice. ‘I’d like to see the reverend gentleman’s face if the Carberys or the Sullivans turned up at ’is church!’
‘Oh, well, if they go to their own churches, they’ll get their presents there,’ Sara said, very relieved. ‘And if they don’t go to church . . . but I expect they do, even the poor ones. Church is free, isn’t it, Nanny? No one pays to go to church, it isn’t like the tram.’
Nanny had explained to her that the small boys who hung on to the back of the trams did so because they had no pennies for a fare. ‘They’d sooner ride inside, specially when it’s cold an’ snowy,’ she said. ‘But they need any pennies they get for other things . . . food, coal . . .’
But now, sitting snugly between her parents as the big car sailed smoothly churchwards, Sara was thinking more about the joys of Christmas than about Nanny’s disapproval of the Reverend Atwell. At Christmas there was lovely food, nuts and chocolates on the sideboard, a big bowl of fruit which anyone could eat. Children were not usually encouraged to eat rich food, but Christmas was different. Why, this very morning schoolroom breakfast had included bacon and egg as well as the more usual groats and bread and butter. Sara was not particularly interested in food, but she was very conscious of atmosphere, and she loved the sparkle and excitement of Christmas, the fact that Nanny came to stay for two whole days, the festive air, even the groups of ragged children singing carols. The servants usually gave such singers mince pies and sometimes pennies, though Sara’s parents did not approve.
‘It encourages them to beg for money instead of working for it,’ Sara’s mother had said, and her father, equally against the practice, said that children were the responsibility of their own parents, not the parents of others.
But even so, Sara felt unusually content. She did not always enjoy school holidays, but this year she had spent a lot of time with Jane Carew, one of the maids. She and Jane had spent a happy afternoon threading peanuts on strings which they then hung outside the schoolroom window. Watching the blue tits, chaffinches and other little birds pecking contentedly at the nuts was a winter pleasure which never palled.
The car began to slow as it reached the street upon which the church was situated. There were people outside already, talking and laughing, and as the Cordwainers got out of the motor snow began to fall once more.
‘More snow! I’ll make a snowman in the park after luncheon,’ Sara said, scarcely realising she had spoken aloud until her mother rounded on her.
‘In the park, on Christmas Day? I don’t think so, Sara, that wouldn’t be at all suitable. Besides, you’ll be busy entertaining Nanny.’
‘Well, the garden, then,’ Sara said equably. ‘Nanny can watch; I’ll make one in the garden.’
Her father turned and looked down at her. It struck Sara suddenly that he looked at her as though he didn’t like her very much. So she smiled at him questioningly, though she had to tilt her head back to do so, for he was a tall, thin man. Disappointingly however, he did not smile back: he frowned. ‘Not the garden,’ he said sharply. ‘Snow is only beautiful when it’s untrodden. I won’t have you churning up the snow in the garden. Get Nanny to show you a card game . . . or you could read to her.’
The chauffeur, about to close the car door behind them, gave Sara a most peculiar look. What a day it was turning out to be for looks, Sara thought, astonished. If she had not known what a very fortunate child she was she would have thought that Robson’s was a pitying look. He cleared his throat and touched his cap deferentially, then spoke.
‘If Miss would like to construct a snowman in the back yard, sir, I’d be happy to clear up after her. I meant to brush it clear of snow this afternoon, in any case.’
‘Very well, Robson,’ Mr Cordwainer said wearily. ‘Sara, you may play in the back yard if you wish, after luncheon.’
‘But only for half an hour,’ Mrs Cordwainer broke in petulantly. ‘Nanny has a snooze after luncheon, but I don’t intend to find myself entertaining her when she awakes. Sara really must be indoors again by then.’

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