Jam and Roses: The lives and loves of 1920s factory girls - Softcover

Gibson, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1781855919 ISBN 13: 9781781855911

Verlag: Head of Zeus, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

London, 1923.
Bermondsey is the larder of London with its bustling docks, spice mill, tannery and factories.

Milly Colman knows she's lucky. Working at Southwell's jam factory all week means she can have a pay packet and a laugh with her mates come Saturday. It's a welcome escape from home, where Milly must protect her mother and sisters from her father's violent temper.

When autumn comes, hop-picking in Kent gives all the Colman women a longed-for respite. But it is there, on one golden September night, that Milly makes the mistake of her life and finds her courage and strength tested as never before.

PRAISE FOR JAM AND ROSES:

'This book is raw and powerful and a fabulous read. This is where girl power came from; women like Milly and her family, girls who did not even have the vote at this time. This book is also a history lesson, telling the story of the general strike' Mrs H, Amazon reviewer.

'Well written, with pace, engaging characters, a good narrative and some suspense. A real authentic tone, too: the central characters reminded me of the formidable spirit of my mother/grandmothers who lived through, and survived, these demanding times' Fredmart, Amazon reviewer.

'A fantastic read! I was hooked from the first paragraph, Mary Gibson is a fabulous and talented writer. A book you can't put down but, yet you want to find out the ending without wanting the book to finish. Well done and thank you. Can't wait to read the next book' Michelle Thompson, Amazon reviewer.

'If you enjoy post war stories of women's hardship, based in london, then this is the book to read. It kept me enthralled from the start. Highly recommended' Shell R, Amazon reviewer.

'So full of emotion and tragedies, but also humour, happiness, love and hate' Patsy, Amazon reviewer.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mary Gibson was born and brought up in Bermondsey, south east London, where both her grandmother and mother were factory girls. She is the author of the bestselling Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts, which was selected for World Book Night 2015, and five other novels, Jam and Roses, Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys, Bourbon Creams and Tattered Dreams, Hattie's Home and A Sister's Struggle. marygibsonauthor.co.uk @MaryGibsonBooks
Mary Gibson was born and brought up in Bermondsey, south east London, where both her grandmother and mother were factory girls. She is the author of the bestselling Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts, which was selected for World Book Night 2015, and five other novels, Jam and Roses, Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys, Bourbon Creams and Tattered Dreams, Hattie's Home and A Sister's Struggle. marygibsonauthor.co.uk @MaryGibsonBooks

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Jam & Roses

By Mary Gibson

Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright © 2014 Mary Gibson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78185-591-1

Contents

Cover, 
Welcome Page, 
Dedication, 
Chapter 1: 'We are the Bermondsey Girls!', 
Chapter 2: The Set of Jugs, 
Chapter 3: The Letter, 
Chapter 4: Home Comforts, 
Chapter 5: The Snares of Paradise, 
Chapter 6: The Hop Princess, 
Chapter 7: A Bloody Good Hiding, 
Chapter 8: The Sewing Circle, 
Chapter 9: When the Bough Breaks, 
Chapter 10: Hop Harvest, 
Chapter 11: A Home in the Country, 
Chapter 12: Goodbye to Eden, 
Chapter 13: Her Solitary Way, 
Chapter 14: Turning Tide, 
Chapter 15: Safe Haven, 
Chapter 16: 'Then Like My Dreams', 
Chapter 17: Withered and Flown, 
Chapter 18: Gardens for Everyone, 
Chapter 19: A Good Man is Hard to Find, 
Chapter 20: The Right Place, 
Chapter 21: Stonefield, 
Chapter 22: She Didn't Come for Me, 
Chapter 23: Run Outs, 
Chapter 24: The Joy Slide, 
Chapter 25: 'Turn 'em Over', 
Chapter 26: Absent Husbands, 
Chapter 27: Tuppence for the Tram, 
Chapter 28: The Slut on the Stairs, 
Chapter 29: Escape Plans, 
Chapter 30: Daughters of the Flood, 
Chapter 31: Return of the Dove, 
Chapter 32: Sweet Thames Flow Softly, 
Chapter 33: Trees of Heaven, 
Preview, 
Acknowledgements, 
About this Book, 
Reviews, 
About the Author, 
Also by this Author, 
An Invitation from the Publisher, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

'We are the Bermondsey Girls!'

June 1923

Milly Colman and her workmates linked arms as they walked, three abreast, along Tower Bridge Road. Throwing her head back with a bold grin, Milly suddenly started up a song and the others bellowed in unison: 'We are some of the Bermondsey girls, we are some of the girls! We spend our tanners, we mind our manners, we are respected wherever we go ...'

They were singing because it was Saturday afternoon and, until Monday morning, they were free of the factory. It was time to have fun. After a week at Southwell's jam factory, hulling strawberries till their fingertips bled red as soft fruit, Milly felt she deserved it, they all did. Vans and carts from Kent, crammed with strawberries, had been arriving daily for over two weeks. There was no shortage of overtime and the factory had even taken on extra hands to make the most of the brief strawberry season, when the fruit had to be sorted, hulled and boiled into jam, before it spoiled. The sweet strawberry scent of the Kent countryside now hung over the whole of Dockhead, vying with hops from the Anchor Brewery, cinnamon and ginger from the spice mill, and the less savoury aromas of the tannery. The strawberry glut meant that the girls all had extra money in their pockets, even after handing over most of their wages to their mothers that dinner time.

'When we're walking down the Old Kent Road, doors and windows open wi-i-ide. If you see a copper come, hit 'im on the 'ead and run. We are the Bermondsey girls!'

They roared the last refrain even louder, breaking ranks for no one, so that some of the shoppers thronging the pavement had to hop quickly out of their way. A few older women looked at them disapprovingly as they careered along the street, and as one respectable-looking couple crossed the road to avoid them, Milly heard the woman mutter, 'Common factory girls, what can you expect?'

'We're as good as you, any day!' Milly offered loudly, so that the woman ducked her head and hurried on. Milly felt affronted. When did it become a crime to be happy? They might be loud, but they weren't scruffy. They'd all been home to change from their work clothes and Milly was proud of the new summer dress she'd made for herself. With its scoop neck and long white pointed collar over the pretty blue print, it was actually the height of fashion, and who was to know it was made from an old dress from Bermondsey clothes market that she'd unpicked and re-used?

Yet not everyone scorned them. There were others, often the elderly, who smiled indulgently. Perhaps they knew themselves that after working ten hours a day, six and a half days a week, every little scrap of leisure time was to be savoured to the full. And in an often ugly world of close-crowded houses, packed with too many bodies for any privacy, sometimes happiness had to be found wherever it could. If that was on a crowded shopping street, so be it.

And, as usual, given any disapproval, Milly's bravado only made her all the brasher. 'Where shall we go first, girls?' she asked her friends Kitty Bunclerk and Peggy Dillon in a deliberately loud voice.

'Manzes, I'm starving!' Peggy said.

'You're always starving, we can go there later, look at the queue!' said Milly, pointing to the shuffling line of eager diners that stretched back from the pie-and-mash shop to the street corner.

'Well, I can't go round looking at stalls on an empty stomach. Come on, girls, the queue's moving.' Peggy let go of Milly's arm and headed towards the shop.

Tower Bridge Road was lined with stalls selling all manner of fruit and vegetables, household goods, and oil and paraffin, and at this end was the Bermondsey second-hand clothes market, known simply as the Old Clo'. The stallholders were calling out their wares and Milly would have preferred an hour in the fresh air, wandering from stall to stall, before surrendering to the steamy heat of the pie-and-mash shop. But this was the girls' traditional Saturday dinner-time treat and so they tagged on to the end of the queue, which was indeed moving quickly. Thankfully, the shop's front window, which stretched its entire length, had been opened up to let in some air, and the smell of parsley liquor and vinegar caught in Milly's nostrils. Oh well, perhaps she was hungry after all.

Sawdust covered the shop's tiled floor, and a white marble counter ran the length of it. From behind the counter, four equally big-bosomed women, in green-splashed white aprons, served at a frenetic pace, screaming their orders down a dumb waiter to the kitchen below. 'More pies! More liquor! More eels!' The insatiable Saturday morning crowd had the air of not having eaten for a week.

'Pie, mash and liquor, three times!' Peggy gave their order and a white-aproned woman piled their plates with deep, oval meat pies and dollops of mashed potato, before ladling over bright green parsley liquor.

They were lucky to find a marble-topped table near the back, which had just been vacated. This was never a leisurely lunch; people tended to eat fast and get on with their precious Saturdays. But Milly loved it here. The bustle and life, the thick steam from the green-encrusted liquor pots and the delicious gravy smells that wafted up from the pies, all spoke of Saturday freedom. She liberally doused her dinner with vinegar, and lifted the first delicious mouthful.

'Mmm, taste that, Kit!'

But her workmate was a fussy eater, though how she'd managed that, in a houseful of seven children, Milly couldn't fathom. Kitty was a skinny girl who seemed to live on air.

'It's all right, but I don't know why everyone raves about it,' Kitty said, putting delicate forkfuls into her mouth.

'I should think you'd be glad of a change from bread and drippin', that's all you get in your house, innit?' asked Peggy, shovelling in another mouthful.

After a few more forkfuls Kitty pushed her plate away and Peggy, who could always find room, asked, 'Don't you want the rest? I'll 'ave...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Head of Zeus
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1781855919
• ISBN 13: 9781781855911
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar