The Factory Girls of Lark Lane: A heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel of loss and love

by Howes, Pam

  Contents

  Also by Pam Howes

  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

  The Lost Daughter of Liverpool

  Hear more from Pam

  Also by Pam Howes

  A Letter from Pam

  The Forgotten Family of Liverpool

  The Liverpool Girls

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Pam Howes

  The Mersey Trilogy

  1. The Lost Daughter of Liverpool

  2. The Forgotten Family of Liverpool

  3. The Liverpool Girls

  The Lark Lane Trilogy

  1. The Factory Girls of Lark Lane

  Rock ’n’ Roll Romance Series

  Three Steps to Heaven

  ’Til I Kissed You

  Always on My Mind

  Not Fade Away

  That’ll Be the Day

  Fast Movin’ Train

  Hungry Eyes

  It’s Only Words

  The Factory Girls of Lark Lane

  A heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel of loss and love

  Pam Howes

  Dedicated to the memory of my big-boy cousin Brian Walton, 1943–2014, who left the UK for the wilds of the USA many decades past, and who we traced a few years ago, only to lose him a short time later. But we never forgot you, Brian, and now your delightful family are a big part of ours. xxx

  1

  Aigburth, Liverpool: December, 1940

  Alice Turner rubbed at the steamed-up window with the corner of her hanky and peered out at the dark and gloomy night.

  ‘Nearly there,’ she said to her best pal and workmate, Millie Markham, who was sitting beside her on the crowded works’ bus. ‘Stand up now and ring the bell or he’ll go whizzing past like he did last night.’

  She gathered up several brown paper packages, her handbag and gas mask box. Millie did likewise and jumped to her feet.

  ‘See youse two on Monday,’ a large woman called out as they struggled down the aisle with their arms full. ‘Enjoy your wedding day tomorrer, gel, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ she added, winking slyly at Alice as they passed her.

  Several passengers also shouted out congratulations.

  ‘Thank you, Marlene,’ Alice muttered through gritted teeth, her cheeks blushing bright pink as the bus lurched to a halt and she and Millie said goodbye to the driver and jumped down from the platform onto Aigburth Road. Trust Marlene to make a holy show of her in front of everyone. It was impossible to keep a secret at Rootes Munitions factory, where the occupants of the bus all worked. Nearly everyone knew everybody else’s business, except Alice, who tried to keep herself to herself most of the time – but today had been a bit special as the canteen had put on sarnies and buns along with pots of steaming tea for her team of colleagues, to help celebrate her forthcoming wedding day.

  ‘Right, I’ll come with you to yours and help you carry this lot,’ Millie said, stamping her feet. ‘Christ, it’s freezing again tonight. Just what we need when I’ve only got a flimsy frock to wear for the wedding.’ She sighed. ‘Still, you’ve done well for pressies, Alice.’ She indicated the brown-paper-wrapped packages. ‘Lucky you. Some really nice stuff to put in your bottom drawer here for when you and Terry get your own place. Wish my fella would buck his ideas up and propose to me.’ Millie rolled her eyes. ‘Can’t see that happening for years though, knowing him.’

  Alice smiled as they hurried up the road and onto Lark Lane. ‘Your turn will come, Millie. Alan will surprise you one of these days.’

  They passed the bombed-out and boarded-up remains of the Princess Steam Laundry, where Alice’s mam had worked for a while. She linked arms with her friend as they crossed over and made their way to a terraced house on Lucerne Street, home of Alice’s family. Except there was hardly any family left there, apart from eighteen-year-old Alice and her mother who, now she was no longer employed, often took to her bed with a variety of nerve-related ailments. Her dad had passed away three years earlier following a heart attack while working down at the docks; he’d been gassed in the trenches during the First World War and had not been a strong man since. Her brother, Rodney, older than Alice by two years, was away with his regiment, currently stationed in France, as far as they knew. In spite of his promise to write each week, his letters home were infrequent and he wasn’t allowed to say exactly where his placement was. They had to reply to him care of a BFPO address. Her younger brother Brian, who was just nine years old, had been evacuated late last year to North Wales and his letters indicated that he was really enjoying himself as he got a lot more to eat than he had at home and his new ‘Auntie Jean’ made smashing chocolate cakes. Alice had grinned as he’d ended his last letter with the afterthought, ‘But I really am missing you and me mam, our Alice.’ That one’s stomach always came first, before anything else. Brian would be happy as Larry in his temporary home as long as he was being well fed.

  Alice took a key from her coat pocket as they stood beside the shabby front door. The black paint was peeling and the doorknocker and letterbox looked dull and pitted and in need of a good rub with Brasso. Mam had lost heart in anything to do with the house since Dad had passed away and the war started in earnest. The step hadn’t seen a donkey-stone in ages and neither had the windowsill. Alice felt a bit embarrassed. In spite of the windows being criss-crossed with tape to prevent any injuries from shards of flying glass in the event of an explosion, most houses on the street still had a well-cared-for look about them. Millie’s home was always spotless as her mam was very house-proud, and she hated her friend seeing the mess in which she sometimes lived. To be fair to Millie, she’d never once turned her nose up at Alice’s home, and today there was no choice other than to ask her in. There was no sign of life and the curtains were all closed, shutting out any light. That meant either her mam was still in bed from this morning and hadn’t even bothered opening the curtains after Alice left for work, or she was up and organised with tea on the go. The day would depend on how she’d felt on waking up. The doctor had recently advised her to take a daily Yeast Vite to buck her up a bit, but they didn’t seem to be working that well and Mam said you had to give them a chance to get into your blood system. She flatly refused to return to the surgery, even though they paid a weekly sum into Lloyd George’s insurance scheme, saying, ‘Doctors are for folks that are really poorly, and not for the likes of me, who’s just got bad nerves and is at a funny age for a woman. And there might come a time when I really need the doctor, so I’ll leave it until then.’ There was no arguing with her mam so Alice didn’t waste her breath.

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open. There was a light coming from the scullery at the back of the house. Good, maybe Mam was up and the place would be tidy.

  ‘Come on in,’ she said to Millie. �
��Mam, are you in the back?’

  ‘Yes, love,’ a voice answered.

  Alice breathed a sigh of relief and invited Millie to follow her through to the back sitting room. The fire was lit and the table tidy, with that morning’s breakfast pots cleared and a clean blue and white checked cloth covering the scratched wooden surface. Floral patterned china cups and saucers and a matching milk jug and sugar bowl waited alongside a covered tea pot, as though visitors were expected. The china was all they had in the decent pots department and even though the odd cup was chipped, Mam loved to use it. The faded floral curtains were drawn tightly across in line with the government blackout regulations. In spite of the shabby old furniture that they couldn’t afford to replace right now, the room looked and felt cosy.

  Alice’s mam Edith popped her head around the sitting room door to greet the pair. Her eyes widened as she took in the packages that Alice and Millie had dropped onto the small sofa.

  ‘Oh, looks like you’ve been spoiled, my love.’ She gave Alice a kiss and smiled at Millie. She patted her hair into place and quickly glanced in the mirror on the chimney breast above the fireplace. Alice realised she’d had a trim and her hair had been styled into soft demi-waves that totally transformed her usually greasy light-brown mop.

  ‘Mam, you look lovely,’ she gasped and Millie nodded her approval too.

  ‘It really suits you, Mrs Turner.’

  ‘Well I couldn’t let you down tomorrow, could I? Millie’s mam sorted my hair out this afternoon. She’s lent me a lovely navy and cream dress and jacket to wear as well, and I treated myself to a new pink lippy from Woolies.’

  Alice felt herself filling up. She was relieved that her mam was making an effort. She knew how hard tomorrow would be as there was no Dad to give her away, but she was sure her mam would do her proud. It wasn’t going to be a big fancy wedding anyway. Terry had only got a forty-eight-hour pass and then he had to go back to Fulwood Barracks in Preston with the worry of being sent overseas at a moment’s notice on his shoulders. He’d so far been lucky but he’d told her it wouldn’t be long now. When he’d asked her to marry him a month ago and her mam had given her permission to go ahead, saying, ‘You don’t know what’s around the corner now with a war on,’ Alice had been unable to focus on anything else for days. She had made the necessary arrangements almost in a daze. Marrying the love of her life who she’d met at school had always been a dream she’d kept close to her heart. A dream that she thought wouldn’t happen for a few more years, until she was at least twenty-one.

  Millie grinned at Edith. ‘That outfit always looks nice on my mam. You’ll look smashing in it, Mrs Turner. Right, I’ll leave you two to have your tea in peace and I’ll see you at my place first thing for your wedding hairdo, Alice. Hope you get a good night’s beauty sleep.’

  ‘Are you not stopping for a cuppa with us, love?’ Edith asked.

  ‘I’d better not. Mam has customers on a Friday night until eight and I usually have to get my dad’s tea ready. I’ll see you bright and early in the morning, Alice.’

  Millie’s mam ran a hairdressing salon from her front parlour and was always busy. As she told everyone who came in to have their hair done, ‘There might be a war on, but we ladies still need to maintain standards.’ Alice saw Millie out and shut the door on the cold night air with a thud. She hoped it would be a bit warmer by the morning, but the weather forecast was bad for all of December, with snow threatened for next week. Well, just as long as it didn’t start snowing tonight. She’d no intention of arriving at the registry office with her wellies on. The wedding was booked for two thirty and that had been managed through pure luck and a cancellation. It seemed that many young couples had decided to take the plunge while they still could and most churches and registry offices were booked up well in advance this side of Christmas.

  Alice shivered, wondering how many of the new husbands would make it back home in one piece when the war ended. Her Terry had better take care, or else his mother would have something to say to that Hitler fella and his cronies. Mrs Lomax, Terry’s mother, had done more than a bit of grumbling when they’d told her they wanted to get wed as soon as possible. She’d looked Alice up and down, pursed her lips and said they were too young and what was the rush for. Terry had told her there was no ulterior motive other than wanting to make Alice his wife before he left for European shores, and at nineteen he didn’t think he was too young. She’d begrudgingly given her consent after a few nerve-racking moments, and then asked where Alice would live after the wedding.

  ‘I’ll live with my mam, of course,’ Alice had replied. ‘I can’t leave her alone while the boys are away. Besides, she needs my wages. It’s the only money we have coming in, apart from the bit Rodney sends her when he can.’

  Mrs Lomax had sighed. ‘Well, it’s not ideal. But then nothing is ideal right now, so we’ll all have to make the best of the situation until Terry comes home for good and you can get a nice place of your own. I’ll put on a little buffet here for you after the ceremony. You can ask your friends and your mother to come.’

  Alice went back into the sitting room and joined her mam at the table. A plate of sarnies now stood in the middle and two currant buns sat side by side on another small plate.

  ‘I’m sorry I haven’t had time to cook anything hot for you with going out getting my hair done,’ Edith apologised. ‘But I managed to get some corned beef and a bit of cheese today.’

  ‘Mam, don’t worry. I had liver and onions for dinner, and we had a tea party in the canteen for me earlier, so I’ve had plenty today. You eat those sarnies. I’ll just have a cuppa and a cake.’

  ‘I did a silly thing today, Alice,’ Edith confessed. ‘I left my purse in the bakers. I must have put it down on the counter after I paid for the bread and came away without it. They sent the young girl who helps in there after me. She came running up Lark Lane, shouting my name.’

  ‘Oh dear, Mam. Good job they’re honest in there.’

  ‘It is. I felt such a fool, I can tell you.’

  Edith switched on the wireless in readiness for the Home Service’s latest news. Not that they ever heard anything good, Alice thought. London was getting shelled on a regular basis and the threat to the port of Liverpool was always high. That blooming Hitler was a bad one. He’d get his comeuppance one day though, according to their foreman at work. The Halifax bombers that Rootes were building were going to be the planes that would win Britain the war and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it would happen.

  Edith poured the tea, and smiled. ‘I can’t believe my little girl is getting married tomorrow. It’s such a shame your brothers are not here. But we’ll celebrate when they come home. I don’t think this war will last much longer. They were saying in the corner shop that it’ll all be over next year.’

  Alice sighed. The war had started shortly after Mr Chamberlain broadcast to the nation on the morning of Sunday September 3rd last year that Britain was at war with Germany. Everyone seemed confident then that it wouldn’t last for long, but it was showing no signs of ending.

  ‘The thought of my Terry and our Rodney away in another country and us not knowing where they are is scary. That’s why I’m glad I’m working on making the planes that will help us win this war. I feel like I’m doing something really important, although I still wish I’d chosen nursing at times.’

  ‘I know you do, love. But you’re doing a really tough job for a young girl. Your dad would have been very proud of you.’ Edith’s eyes filled and she brushed her tears away and took a sip of tea. ‘Let’s just make the best of things for now and hope what they say is true – that we’ll all be back to normal by next year.’

  ‘We can live in hope, Mam.’

  Alice carried her mug of cocoa upstairs and drank it sitting on the narrow single bed. Her mam was already asleep in her own room. She’d told Alice not to sit up too long reading as they needed to be up early tomorrow. Alice hurried into the tiny bathroom and had a quic
k bath with the few regulation inches of water they were allowed. Not many terraced houses in Liverpool had bathrooms. Some of the girls she worked with, who lived down by the docks in the tenements, thought she was dead posh to have one. It made Alice thankful for her lot when they talked about the tin baths in front of the fire shared by at least six, and the lavatories out on the landings used by more than one family. Thank God her dad’s parents had owned this little house and as an only child it had become his when they passed away. Alice and her brothers had been born here and once this war was over and Rodney came home they would start to look after it properly. At the moment most of Alice’s wages went on buying food and putting money in the meters for gas and electricity, with a little bit left over to put towards clothes and the odd treat, like an occasional visit to the pictures. There was nothing left over for house maintenance and new furniture; it was all they could do to keep it clean, tidy and warm.

  Back in her small bedroom, which was always freezing cold, Alice shivered and pulled a blanket around her shoulders as she looked at the wedding gifts from her workmates. She placed them in the bottom drawer of the tallboy cupboard that she stored her clothes in. She ran a hand over the beautiful hand-embroidered tray cloth and pillow cases and set them side by side with two soft pink hand-towels and matching flannel. A cutlery set, in a brown leather case, a gift from her foreman and his wife, went in next alongside a pair of ornamental black poodle dogs with long painted lashes and red collars. She smiled. The dogs would look lovely either end of a mantelpiece with a nice clock in between.