Girl with Secrets: a coming of age war story and family saga full of romance, mystery and danger in London’s East End.
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Girl with Secrets
Carol Rivers
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Dedication
Hello my dear readers! Many of you know me via social media and we have become close chums, but I rarely meet you personally, especially now Covid 19 has changed our lives (much like Daisy’s life was changed in 1940). But that’s not to say I don’t think of every one of you as you read my book, whether paper or electronic or listening with Audio. You see, I write directly to you because I know what interests you and touches your hearts, just as it does mine. I know you’ve loved and lost. I know you’ve grieved. I know that you helped someone, somewhere at a point in your lives when you needed help yourself. That’s what happened in both the World Wars; people put others before themselves and even gave their lives to enrich and sustain others. I want to tell of these people - of you - of us and our families, and add to the social history archives for the next generation to read and realise that we really did the best we could in troubled times. The wars didn’t defeat our spirits, nor will Covid. We are resilient and we have the capacity and compassion to love beyond measure.
So, with all my love, I dedicate this book to you - to us - and to our future.
Fond hugs as always, Carol XX
Epigraph
Remembering with love and eternal gratitude Patsie Duggan, his thirteen-year-old sister Maureen and the team of brave children and teenagers who saved many from the flames and carnage of the blitz over 76 terrifying nights of bombardment on London’s East End 1940. They were better known as the “Dead End Kids” and saved many lives while losing some of their own. Forever in our hearts and stories and never forgotten.
Contents
About Girl with Secrets
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Epilogue
Reviews
Also by Carol Rivers
Excerpt of Christmas Child
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Excerpt of Christmas to Come
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright
About Girl with Secrets
Nine-year-old Daisy Purbright is a country girl at heart. Together with beloved brother Bobby, they’ve enjoyed the endless freedoms of rural England. But when her entrepreneur father gambles the family’s fortunes on a speculative investment in London’s docklands, little does he realise the catastrophic mistake he is making.
The Purbrights attempt to settle to a new life in the East End but the whisperings of war grow louder. Then, one late afternoon in September 1940, Adolf Hitler conducts a paralysing bombardment on London.
Life changes dramatically and closely guarded secrets begin to threaten the Purbrights’ happiness. As war tightens its grip on the country, can Daisy stay loyal to her friends and family during one of the most fateful events of the 20th century?
Chapter 1
London, Isle of Dogs, 1938
One frost-white morning at the beginning of November, when the first scent of Christmas clung sweetly to the high ceilings of the spacious mid-Victorian villa, nine-year-old Daisy Purbright woke, as usual, long before the rest of the household.
For a few moments she listened to the sound of her brother, ten-year-old Bobby, snoring softly under the covers of the camp bed. Only a tussle of white-blond hair, the same shade as her own, showed on the pillow. Whereas Bobby had short, determined curls, Daisy’s hair was straight and silky without a bend or swerve in any direction. Pops had informed her that although there were only two surviving senior male Purbrights, himself and his brother Uncle Ed, a noteworthy characteristic of many previous Purbrights was snowy hair, arctic blue eyes and robust complexion.
Curious to discover what the new day held she crept from her bed and tiptoed to the landing. Here, a little shivery in her nightgown, she pressed her ear against the door of their older brother’s bedroom. All was silent. Daisy suspected that seventeen-year-old Matt would be lost in dreamland wooing his drippy sweetheart, Amelia Collins.
She adored her teenage brother, but was also a tiny jot jealous of Amelia who lived in Poplar, a bicycle ride away. Somehow Amelia had spun her web and Matt had fallen into it, mesmerised, just like the moths that flew too close to the Tilley lamp flame.
Daisy loved her two brothers and father Nicholas with a passion. Pops was tall and handsome though he walked with a slight limp, a Great War injury. Matt was just as handsome, a younger mirror image of their father. Consequently, Daisy was thoroughly spoiled as the only daughter of the Purbright family. Her mother, Florence Purbright, posed more of a challenge, for Daisy had not yet decided where her true loyalties lay. Mother was beautiful and elegant. However, she dished out the discipline which was a definite minus. On the plus side, she was an exceptional cook and had long ago figured out Daisy’s weak spot. Basically, her stomach.
‘To poach or steam an egg might seem simple,’ Mother had once explained. ‘But your masterpiece might turn as hard as nails with overcooking.’
And oh, how Daisy enjoyed Mother’s eggs! Her mouth would water at the soft succulence and sprinkling of pepper on the sunny crown. Mother would smile knowingly, as if sharing a secret, somewhat in line with the secrets she shared with Daisy’s father, but, Daisy suspected, of quite a different nature.
Daisy was not only blessed with exceptional inquisitiveness but a keen ear too. She was eager to be in on all the gossip and intrigues of the Purbrights. Florence Purbright
often remarked that her daughter had the look of an angel but the tactical mind of a politician. Daisy did not really understand what a politician was, but had accepted the title with good grace. And that was Daisy all over. A one off, so her Pops insisted.
‘They broke the mould when they made you, my treasure,’ Pops declared only yesterday. ‘We’ll see you in the House one day, arguing for women’s rights just like Mrs Pankhurst.’
‘Nicky, please don’t give the girl high ideas,’ scolded Mother. ‘She has enough of her own right now.’
‘My high ideas won you over, dearest,’ Nicholas Purbright teased. ‘Without them I would surely have been rejected.’
‘Nonsense,’ argued Mother, but blushing all the same.
Daisy’s father had winked behind the newspaper only to be interrupted by Matt who contributed a particularly dull comment of his own.
‘After Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain’s chaps have unveiled plans for a National Register,’ Daisy’s brother spouted. ‘Telling everyone what they should do when war starts.’
‘Just rumours, Matt,’ Mother dismissed. ‘Europe has had its fair share of conflict. Our leaders have more sense now than to rise to Hitler’s baiting.’
‘Not rumours, Mother,’ Matt objected heartily. ‘Haven’t you heard, the dockyards are riveting the ships for action already? Why, some lads I know are joining up.’
‘Well, you are not,’ Mother returned.
‘Pops was seventeen when he enlisted!’ Matt protested.
’The matter is settled,’ Mother decided. ‘As soon as you leave school, you’ll follow your father into the family business.’
Daisy’s complaint however, was not with this supposed “war” in Europe with which her brother was so enamoured, but something much closer to home. Why must it be Matt who was to follow Pops into business? Why not her or Bobby? Matt might be the oldest Purbright offspring but he hadn’t the least bit interest in electrical engineering. Whereas Bobby actually knew who Isambard Kingdom Brunel was - the most famous engineer in the land. As for Matt, likely he wouldn’t have a clue!
Daisy emerged from her thoughts and returned to the bright, crisp morning. Bobby’s proper bed was next door in Matt’s room, or it had been until the appearance of Amelia Collins. After which, Matt had begun to insist on privacy and Bobby transferred to the put-u-up in Daisy’s room, with a promise of the box room next week.
Not that Daisy minded sharing, for there were definite advantages. Tidiness, cleanliness and Godliness - Mother’s mantra - had all gone to pot the minute Bobby had decamped, bringing all his clutter with him.
So Daisy had escaped housework, which suited her fine. And besides, she quite enjoyed their nightly discussions concerning the day’s observations. Bobby was one year up at school, but for a boy he was quite a card.
She was closer to Bobby in looks and nature than anyone else in the family. Bobby was her ally. She could always count on him for support. Whereas Matt teased her unmercifully, unaware how silly he himself sounded when he drooled over Amelia!
Quietly, Daisy left the figure of her slumbering brother and went to the window. Here, a shaft of light spilled in through the curtain just as it had in their old house in Wattcombe village, south of London. Until two years ago, the Purbrights had existed serenely, though in Daisy’s mind, rather boringly, amongst the fields and fauna of the countryside.
Sweet smells had meandered off the fields. Bats skittered against the lattice windows. Every floorboard creaked. Mice enjoyed a carefree existence in the barn. The thick walls of their home had kept out winter’s bite. But when Pops accepted a partnership with his brother in the dockland’s electrical engineering factory, everything had changed.
Yes, everything! Even now Daisy was disappointed to realise that she was forgetting the look of those fields and the delicate little mice and the fragile black wings that stroked the lattice at night.
She was forgetting - and somehow it felt wrong. For hadn’t she lived such a happy - if undisturbed life - in Wattcombe? Where there had been no talk of war or of fighting or of terrible things that happened in other countries and might soon happen in Britain.
Drawing the curtains wide, Daisy undid the catch softly and sniffed the sweet air of the new day. Craning her neck, she could glimpse the city where there was not one thatched roof in sight. Instead, there were energetic hordes of people, unlike Wattcombe with its drab, mumbling farmers and stuffy village shopkeepers.
London was energetic and vibrant. Foreign visitors of every shape and size wandered the streets. Bowler hatted gents walked briskly to their offices. Ladies in furs hailed taxis. Theatres abounded, huge glass-fronted shops like Hamleys displayed their delights. Then of course there was the river, Daisy’s most breathtaking discovery. For here in the house in which they now lived, a home tucked neatly away from the busy thoroughfares of the East End, she could view the unbroken line of the snaking grey waters.
Should she peer westward, over the roof tops of Poplar Park Row, the river sparkled in the dawn’s light, bright as a diamond. A rowboat’s ride directly across the swirling pools, lay Greenwich Observatory. This view was breathtaking to Daisy. Sir Christopher Wren - like Isambard Brunel - was another of her heroes. His magnificent old Royal Naval College was a stone’s throw from the famous Queen’s House. She had learned at school that this historic building had been designed by Inigo Jones, a famous architect of the 1600’s. But never would she have imagined when living in Wattcombe that one day she might view this spectacle from her window.
Dawn broke as Daisy made her way downstairs; above the front door a milky hue stole through the skylight. Here she paused; at this hour of the morning talk of “the war” was thankfully absent. So too were the whispers of bombing and deadly weapons dropped from the sky to destroy London below. Daisy thought this event quite impossible and sided with Mother on the topic. Yet even as she and Bobby walked home from school, there were groups of raucous men rallied on street corners cursing this enemy called Hitler. Worse still were the awful, ugly gas masks and drills for emergency action should a warning siren sound. Some children at school had helped their parents to dig holes for the proposed air raid shelters that were arriving in the New Year.
Mother had once asked Pops if he would have to go away again to fight this war.
‘Ye gods,’ he’d replied in a startled manner. ‘No chance of that! Service in seventeen was my lifetime’s contribution.’
‘War is easier to make than peace, Nicky,’ Mother returned on a sigh. ‘People still clamour for it. To our own son war appears heroic and dashing. But we know the truth of it, don’t we?’
Daisy, observing carefully, had watched Mother smile. Yet underneath the wing of her light brown hair swept back from her pensive face, the frown had deepened.
As it often seemed to these days.
Chapter 2
Daisy blinked, putting aside these distracting thoughts as the peaceful moment resumed. If she was to be asked, which wasn’t often, since it was usually Daisy who was doing the questioning, what she thought of her new home she would have said that gradually, she and her new home had become friends. At first they had both been unwilling to grasp a new future. An elderly headmistress, Miss Ayling, its previous occupant, had left an air of order and obedience about the place. Quite the opposite, Daisy reflected, to the dusty, creaky rooms of the old Wattcombe house, where everyone came and went without bothering to wipe their boots. But here - well, this was another kettle of fish altogether!
‘Living in London is the chance of a lifetime,’ her father had encouraged on the day they’d moved in. ‘We have a new home to enjoy. The city to explore and the river, the greatest in the world, bringing trade from all nations, right to our doorstep!’
‘But all our savings have gone, Nicky. We have nothing behind us.’ This from Mother who was not at all enthusiastic about the expense of leaving Wattcombe.
‘I’m an engineer, Flo. I put things together. M
ake them work. The factory is where I should be.’
‘You did very well as Wattcombe’s estate manager. We enjoyed a comfortable living.’
’Is that how you saw us existing for the rest of our lives?’ her father had argued. ‘Tenants of the landed gentry, under the thumb until we grew old?’
‘What is so wrong with that?’
‘Come on Flo,’ he’d urged, ‘you know I was hopeless in the country. This damn gammy leg had me stuck behind a desk all day - ’
’I know,’ her mother had interrupted, ‘that you are supremely talented and just aching to make the world’s next unrivalled discovery with your electrical valves. But we have a growing family. Expenses to be met. Bills to be paid.’