Mrs Clipper has baked a special cake that is full of cherries which she says is strictly for children only and grown-ups are not allowed to eat it. Dear Kitt, do try to smuggle a piece for your poor old sister who so adores cherry cake.
I want you to promise me that you will not fuss and worry yourself about the journey. You know Ernest well enough and he will probably tell you stories the whole way and when it is time for your return (ages and ages away), Baby and I will travel with you.
I am sure that this will be absolutely the most splendid Christmas, for Boy Holman’s father has a whole stableful of horses and ponies and says that he has personally arranged a visit by Santa Claus to the children’s party.
Just a few more days and we shall be able to hug one another (unless, of course, that at six-and-a-half you are too grown-up for such carryings-on. Goodness, I do hope not, for I don’t know what I should do without a hug from my dear Kitt).
With much love from your sister, Esther
A VIEW OF GALWAY BAY AT SUNSET
Happy Christmas, Danny.
With fondest love, yours, ‘O.H.’
—
Leaflet issued by the North London Herald League pre-1914:
A GOOD SOLDIER
A good soldier is a blind, heartless machine. At the word of command he will put a bullet in the brain of the bravest and noblest man who has ever lived. He respects neither the grey hair of age nor the weakness of childhood. He is unmoved by tears, by prayers or by arguments. He is indifferent to human thought or human feelings.
DON’T BE A SOLDIER – BE A MAN!
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Ken Weller for his generosity in giving me permission to make use of Don’t be a Soldier!, his book on the radical anti-war movement in North London, 1914-1918.
Betty Burton 1991
First published in the United Kingdom in 1991 by HarperCollins
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © Betty Burton, 1991
The moral right of Betty Burton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788630337
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Goodbye Piccadilly Page 38
