Secrets of the Sewing Bee

The ramifications of the first week of the London bombings stretched further than Bethnal Green. Night after remorseless night the East End copped it. But to Dolly’s shining pride, everyone apart from Peggy was back at their workstation on the Monday morning after that first dramatic weekend, and one week on, they may have been a little battle-wounded, but the brave and tenacious machinists were still going strong.

By night, Dolly and the rest of the girls took their sewing and headed down to the crypt at St John Church, and in the morning after a quick wash – or if they were lucky, a free shower in the Lifebuoy van if it was parked outside – they would hotfoot it to Trout’s to check it was still standing before clocking on.

The immense relief and joy Dolly felt each morning when she turned the corner to see the factory silhouetted against the ash clouds, a Union Jack flag fluttering out of the window and a Still open for business sign tacked to the door, was hard to put into words. Though Dolly had a hunch that the fact the factory was still standing had more to do with Archie’s insistence on staying there overnight to deal with incendiary bombs than with mere good fortune alone.

It was a Saturday afternoon, precisely one week on from Black Saturday, as it was now dubbed, when the man himself called all the machinists to order.

‘Shut them machines down, ladies, and listen,’ Archie called. ‘I have some news. Peggy’s mother, May, just called in on her way back from visiting her at Bethnal Green Hospital. I’m delighted to say the docs are pleased with her progress. It could be a while before she’s discharged – by all accounts her legs ain’t a pretty sight, but she’s alive, and that’s what counts. I told Mrs Piper that Peggy’s job remains open until she is well enough to return. Meantime, I think we all know who we have to thank. Stand up, Lucky and Flossy.’

Dolly watched as Flossy blushed. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she mumbled. ‘It was all Lucky.’

But the women gave her a proper Trout’s chorus of approval, whooping and banging their cotton reels with their empty enamel mugs.

‘Peggy owes you her life, and May still has a daughter because of you both, and don’cha forget it,’ Dolly said over the clamour. ‘You were very brave not to abandon her in her hour of need.’

‘Dolly’s right,’ insisted Archie. ‘All my girls are brave. I’m so proud of you all. Watching you clock on this morning, not a minute late, I don’t mind admitting I had a lump in my throat.’

The foreman cast his eye over the floor with a tender smile of propriety. ‘I counted you all in personally, and I don’t want to lose another one of you.’

With that, everyone’s eyes instinctively drifted over to Lily’s workstation, where Archie had symbolically draped her sewing machine with a Union Jack flag.

‘We will never forget Lily Beaumont,’ he said, gulping deep in his throat. ‘But in her memory, we will fight harder than ever before.’

He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘In ten minutes, it will be four forty-three p.m., precisely one week from the start of the bombs. I’d like us to have a minute’s silence in honour of Lily; then Doll’s going to bring round a whip, so we can all put a bit of money in to send Lily’s older brother, who’s away serving. He’s God knows where in the army fighting for his country, and back home, he’s lost his mother and his sisters. His whole family wiped out . . .’ An awful silence turned the room over as each and every one of them digested Archie’s sad words.

Pat shook her head and folded her arms over her vast chest. ‘Some Home Front he’s going to return to. Poor bugger.’

‘And he’s PBI too,’ Dolly found herself remarking. ‘Poor bloody infantry,’ she added, when she spotted Flossy looking confused.

‘We can’t pretend to know when the end will come, but I suspect ’itler’s gonna try his hardest to bring us to our knees,’ Archie went on.

‘And he will, Sal, make no mistake,’ warned Archie. ‘My mate down at the control tells me there were over five hundred incendiary bombs extinguished in Bethnal Green that first night alone. I felt like half of ’em landed on our roof.

‘For that reason, I’m going to keep Lucky posted up there during working hours. He’s gonna keep a sharp eye out for enemy planes, and he’s rigged up a buzzer system so we can keep working after the siren goes off. One buzz for “Keep working”; then if they get too close for comfort, two buzzes and we head down the shelter.

‘I’m also gonna close the factory up early, at five p.m., so you can all get yerselves sorted for the long nights ahead.

I’ll pay you an extra four shillings a week danger money; anyone not happy with that can leave now. I hear the Rego down Curtain Road are hiring.’ He planted his hands on his hips and gazed round the room expectantly, but no one moved a muscle.

‘That’s my girls,’ he grinned. ‘On a brighter note, the bombing of our fine city has caused the Yanks to sit up and take notice, and Vera tells me that the Red Cross are sending through an urgent consignment of free wool to the WVS, so the Victory Knitters won’t have to scrimp and save anymore.’

‘That’s right,’ added Vera. ‘Our little sewing bee is more important than ever before, though we will have to turn our attentions away from HMS Avenge. Having said that, I would urge you to continue writing your letters. We may not be able to provide comfort items for them, but we can provide words of comfort.

‘We can use our time in the shelters during the raids to great effect. The WVS urgently need blankets for hospitals and first-aid posts, armlets for emergency helpers and layettes for bombed-out families with babies.’

Sensing a drop in morale, Dolly grabbed her knitting needles and held them aloft. ‘Come on, girls,’ she urged. ‘They ain’t guns, but it’s our way of fighting back. Let’s get knitting for victory.’

Pat rose from her bench and folded Dolly into her arms. ‘God love you, Dolly Doolaney. Where would we be without you? Don’t worry – we won’t let you down. It’ll take more than a few bombs to stop the Victory Knitters.’

Pressed into Pat’s voluminous chest, Dolly smiled as a chorus of cheers and general approval rang round the floor.

‘Bleedin’ hell, Doll,’ teased Pat, pinching her side. ‘I know decent grub’s in short supply, but you’re wasting away, gal. Don’t lose any more weight, will yer?’

Every single member of Trout’s stood stiffly behind their sewing machine and reverently bowed their head, in tribute to the short life of Lily Beaumont. Dolly couldn’t help but sneak a look at poor Lucky, who had removed his cap and was staring hard at the floor, a black armband encircling his shirtsleeve. He might have lost his sweetheart, but how she hoped he had finally gained the sense of worth he craved. Night after night he had proved himself, dodging bombs and digging out bodies.

The cataclysmic turn of events would surely make or break them all, but for Dolly at least, the real danger lurked within.

At the end of Saturday’s shift, Flossy was just wondering whether she had time to stop at the shop on the way home to replenish her meagre food provisions before the sirens went off when Sal tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Upstairs in the canteen,’ she muttered under her breath, casting a furtive glance about the factory. ‘And don’t tell Vera.’

Intrigued, she followed Sal into the works canteen and was surprised to find every member of the Victory Knitters – bar the forelady – seated round a large table.

‘All right, girls, it’s like this,’ said Sal, when at last the hubbub had settled. ‘Who here is angry about the lack of shelter in the East End?’

‘Look at this,’ spat Sal in disgust, as she flung a copy of a newspaper across the table.

Flossy could just about make out the headline: The Cockney Is Bloody But Unbowed. Sal picked it up and started to read: ‘“East London paused for a moment to lick its wounds after what had been planned by Hitler as a night of terror. I saw only quiet calm that amazed me. Even homeless chatting smilingly.”’

‘But it’s all, you know, what do they call it . . . ? Propaganda, ain’t it?’ said Kathy. ‘The East End can’t be seen to be cracking.’

‘And I agree with you, Kathy,’ said Sal. ‘But don’t we have a basic right to safety? All them months the politicians knew this war was coming. Why weren’t they building deep shelters, instead of shaking hands with the enemy?’

Sal jutted her chin out defiantly, and her red hair shimmered in the fading light of the deserted canteen. Lighting a cigarette, she inhaled deeply before blowing a long stream of blue smoke into the air. ‘Now the day of reckoning has arrived and what we got? A few feeble brick shelters that I wouldn’t keep an animal in. Either that or we have to take over church crypts, goods depots or railway arches. Why should we have to? It’s all right for them lot – they’ve packed their kids off to America and they’re dining out in the basements of posh restaurants, or sitting in their steel-lined dugouts, safe as houses. Except our houses aren’t safe, are they? They’re so bleedin’ old it’s only the wallpaper holding ’em up, and who here has space in their yard for an Anderson?’

‘I ain’t got room to swing a mouse, much less a cat in my yard,’ snorted Ivy.

‘Exactly,’ said Sal. ‘You heard what Her Royal Highness said yesterday after Buckingham Palace was bombed? Reckons she can look the East End in the eye now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Her Highness, and she does some sterling work, but it’s a little bit different, ain’t it? She’s sheltering in a palace; meanwhile I’m in a pisshole.’

Sal mashed her cigarette out and started to pace the canteen. Flossy watched, riveted. The twenty-two-year-old seamstress radiated anger, from the roots of her fiery red hair to the tips of her calloused fingers.

‘Fifty-eight people, including our Lily and baby twins, killed in Columbia Market, and now I’ve heard of another “incident”, as they so charmingly like to call ’em. Four days ago, hundreds of bombed-out women and children were awaiting evacuation from a school not five miles from here in Canning Town. Three days they was waiting for the coaches that never arrived. On the fourth day, a parachute bomb split the building in two and fell in the basement. Lucky’s mate over there on rescue reckoned as many as six hundred poor souls were buried alive – said they had warned the authorities time and again to get them out. After a few days, they had to give up digging.’

Her words were unflinching, but Flossy could see she was struggling not to cry as she lit yet another cigarette with a shaking hand.

‘We can’t go down Bethnal Green Tube, can we?’ Sal went on. ‘But thousands of lives would be saved if folk could shelter down the Tubes. Honest, decent, hard-working folk are getting killed night after night. It just ain’t right. It’s us in the eye of the storm, after all.’

‘I heard two thousand swarmed down Holborn Underground a few nights back and slept on the platform,’ piped up Ivy. ‘No one tried to keep ’em out.’

‘Yeah, but they’re working stations, so the doors are always open. They’d have a job on their hands keeping huge crowds out, but Bethnal Green ain’t a finished station yet, so the doors are bolted.’

‘Simple, ain’t it?’ sniffed Sal. ‘Whitehall, in their infinite bloody wisdom, seem to think that if we go down the Underground, we’ll never come back up again – “shelter mentality”, they call it. They think the war effort would grind to a halt. Bleedin’ high-falutin’ politicians.’

‘I ask you, don’t that go some way to showing you they have no clue what our day-to-day lives are really like?’ said Pat, her top lip curling in contempt.

‘We still gotta earn a crust; we still gotta clock on each morning. If they had to scratch for a shilling like what we do, then they’d understand that going underground and never coming back up ain’t even an option.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Sal,’ said Dolly, who had remained silent up until now. ‘But the question is, what do we do about it?’

Sal stopped pacing, and her turban-topped figure cast an imposing shadow on the canteen wall. Flossy had the queerest sensation she was facing a general addressing his army.

‘We stop the hand-wringing and take action,’ Sal blazed, her dark eyes full of fire. ‘There’s a group from our neighbours in Stepney, led by an ARP fella and a newspaper reporter, going up to the Savoy Hotel, up West, to protest about the lack of shelter and the Tubes being shut to shelterers. They’re going to stage a sit-in to make a point.’

‘Good question, Flossy,’ Sal replied. ‘Because all the American newspaper correspondents are staying there. It’s the only way to get word out.’

‘Hell’s teeth,’ screeched Ivy. ‘Jerry will be here then if the last week’s anything to go by. We’ll get caught out!’

‘Look,’ said Sal, her features softening. ‘I don’t want to put anyone in harm’s way, and I wouldn’t think less of you for not coming. But the way I see it is this: we’re sitting in the backyard of the richest square mile of Britain, but does any of that wealth or privilege filter our way?’

‘Does it hell, Sal,’ muttered Pat, pulling a cigarette from underneath her turban and drumming it on the tabletop. ‘But I don’t see how staging a sit-in up at some fancy hotel’s going to change a bleedin’ thing.’

Sal calmly took the cigarette from Pat’s feverish hand, lit it and passed it back to her. ‘I’ll tell yer how. Remember the Match Girls from the Bryant & May factory in Bow?’

‘That’s all right, sweetheart. The Match Girls were famous in 1888. They were working-class factory girls from the East End, just like us, except they had to work in shocking conditions. The white phosphorus they handled gave them painful and disfiguring injuries. Not only that but it was a sweatshop: they slaved for a pittance.’

She shook her head in disgust. ‘We might have a grumble about Vera from time to time, but the Bryant &May foreman would strike ’em for not working hard enough.’

Flossy’s grey eyes widened in dismay as Sal went on. ‘It only took a few brave girls to go on strike and soon fourteen hundred of ’em had joined in the spirit of solidarity.

‘Who cares about the rights of working-class women? was what the authorities thought back then. Fifty years on and I don’t reckon that belief has changed much.’ Sal’s eyes gleamed mutinously as dusk settled over Bethnal Green.

‘Those girls were my inspiration. Would they have sat around waiting for whatever providence decides to dish out to them, or would they have fought for their right to safety?’

‘They had the guts to make their voices heard,’ Sal cried into the silence, her hands bunching into fists. ‘Now it’s our turn to fight. Come on, girls, where’s our mettle? Who’s in?’

Ivy rose creakily to her feet. ‘I’m too old – my knees ain’t up to a sit-in – but I wish you the best of luck, Sal. Do us proud, eh, dearie,’ she sighed.

‘Sorry, Sal, but I can’t,’ said a pale-faced Dolly. ‘I can’t leave Mum in a raid. Besides, Vera’s a friend. I know she wouldn’t approve, and I don’t want to upset her. She’s been good to me over the years.’

Dolly’s head whipped round in surprise. ‘Flossy, are you sure?’ she asked.

‘Quite sure, Dolly,’ she nodded. ‘I should be too scared to utter a word, I’m sure, but I’d like to be there to support the girls.’

Flossy thought back to her cowardice that first afternoon underground, when she had felt hysterical with fear. She knew Dolly would tell her not to be so foolish, that she had proved her bravery by sticking by Peggy’s side. But a part of her felt she still had something to prove, if only to herself.

‘Lucky!’ Sal exclaimed as he stepped out of the shadows. ‘How long you been there?’

‘Long enough to know what you’re up to. I’ll probably get in hot water for being late for my ARP shift, but someone’s gotta keep an eye on you girls,’ he replied.

With that, the group rose to their feet and started to gather their coats and bags, ready to make their voices heard outside of the East End.

‘I don’t like this one little bit, Flossy,’ she said. ‘Remember you are still under the care of the home – if either Vera or Matron find out, they will have your guts for garters. To say nothing of how dangerous it is.’

‘Please, Dolly,’ said Flossy. ‘All my life I’ve never dared step out of line. Who am I? The girl who grew up on the delicate ward, the girl who never quite made it to the New World, the girl who doesn’t even know her past . . . Well, it’s time to take a gamble on my future. When I finally meet my mother, I want her to be proud of me.’

Flossy felt an emotion so potent she couldn’t put a name to it sear through her. ‘I mean to go,’ she replied, her jaw clenching in determination.

Dolly closed her eyes, and Flossy fled down the darkened stairwell to catch up with Sal and the others.

Outside on the cobbled street, Sal and her band of protestors huddled in a doorway with a dimmed torch.

‘Little brightener, anyone?’ Sal asked, pulling a hip flask from inside her blouse with a trembling hand.

‘I could use some Dutch courage, Sal,’ said Daisy, taking it and having a swig.

‘We’re meeting the rest of the group over in Stepney; then the plan is to make our way to the Savoy en masse,’ said Sal. ‘Keep your wits about yer, and, Lucky, you keep an eye out for young Flossy chops here.’ She tweaked Flossy’s chin and grinned, just as the sirens started to wail.

‘Uh-oh, right on time,’ Sal muttered. ‘Let’s go. There’s not a moment to waste, but remember this: we might just be ordinary seamstresses, but our cause is extraordinary.’

Flossy felt a sense of unreality settle over her, as if her body was walking of its own accord, as they set off, moving quickly down the darkened streets. Overhead, a blanket of stars brushed the skies silver, which would have been a beautiful thing were it not for the huge bomber’s moon casting them in an ominous spotlight.

From a tiny chink in the factory’s blackout blinds, Dolly watched them with a sinking heart, until they were nothing but a smudge in the distance. She understood what Sal was doing, but dragging a young innocent like Flossy into it . . . well, it was downright irresponsible. Despair and helplessness eddied inside her. She wanted to scream and drag Flossy back into the factory; she would do anything to protect that young mite from harm. But right now, sadly she had more pressing matters to tend to. An urgent appointment that could not be delayed any longer, bombs or no bombs. Dolly pulled her hat down firmly over her face and set off into the moonlit night.

Flossy didn’t know what had stunned her the most. The noise of the sirens, the endless rubble, dodging flying debris as they ran through the streets . . . or the horrified faces of everyone in the Savoy’s underground banqueting hall, who stared flabbergasted at the East End gatecrashers. More and more protestors had joined them as they had marched up West, and now there must have been nearly eighty of them filling up the large, plush room.

Flossy stayed huddled at the back, glued to Sal’s side, her eyes out on stalks. The group of women diners nearest them looked them up and down as if they had just crawled out from under a stone. Flossy couldn’t help but marvel at their clothes, such exquisite beaded gowns and mink coats – she had never seen the like. They had obviously interrupted the shelterers’ supper, as forks loaded with Dover sole froze mid-air. A soft light glowed from the chandeliers suspended from the ornate ceiling. Nervously, Flossy pulled her old scratchy wool coat around her. This was a world not for the likes of her.

Sal nudged her. Her face was a mask of disbelief, shot through with scorn. ‘’Ere, Floss. I can’t believe me eyes. There’s a woman over there with a Labrador. See – even dogs have better shelter than us.’

Suddenly, a protestor in a black coat leaped onto a chair and held his hands aloft. ‘This is a peaceful protest, but we want to see the Tubes opened,’ he began, and soon the room was filled with their fierce chants.

‘Open the Tubes! Open the Tubes!’ Their cries filled the banqueting hall, and Flossy soon found herself carried away and added her voice to the battle cry. Journalists picked up their notepads and frantically began to scribble, and Flossy blinked as the pop of flashbulbs blinded her. The atmosphere inside the hall was electric.

‘This is simply preposterous,’ spluttered a woman over the hubbub, clutching a crystal wine goblet in a heavily jewelled hand. ‘The effrontery.’

‘I agree,’ said Sal, deliberately choosing to misconstrue her words. ‘Hundreds of women and children getting killed night after night in the East End because they won’t allow the use of the Underground as shelter. We’re ratepayers: we have a right to safety.

Before long, the police arrived and the main protestor tried to explain his position.

‘What would you do if your wife was in the situation of that woman over there?’ he asked the inspector, pointing to a woman from Stepney who had four young children all clinging to her knees.

Wearily, the inspector shook his head, knowing there was no easy answer to that question.

To Flossy’s surprise, the waiters then began calmly serving cups of tea in bone china on silver trays, and the protestors insisted on paying tuppence a cup.

Sal, Lucky, Flossy, Daisy and the rest of the Trout’s protestors paid their tuppence, then settled down on a spare patch of carpet, their backs against the ornate wall, cradling their cups in disbelief.

‘Hark at us,’ giggled Daisy, crooking her little finger as she sipped at her tea. ‘I ain’t never taken tea at the Savoy before.’

‘You all right, Lucky?’ Sal asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Without saying a word, Lucky rose to his feet and the girls watched in astonishment as he walked a few yards to a table where a smart young couple were sitting, tucking into their cheese course.

‘Gerald Fortesque, as I live and breathe.’ Lucky was smiling as he spoke, but his voice was as cold as ice. ‘Fancy seeing you! Bet you never thought you’d see my sort up here, although I have to say, I’m a little surprised you’re not dining at a Lyons Corner House!’

The man’s face was a picture of confusion as he scrambled to place Lucky; then the penny dropped and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Gerald, who is this chap?’ barked his dining companion. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’

‘I’ll save you the effort, Gerald. My name is Lucky Johnstone. I’d love to tell you how we met, but I can’t – national security, you understand.’ He winked at Gerald. ‘Let’s just say Gerald and I have a mutual friend, Peggy.’

The woman looked irritated and confused, as Gerald squirmed lower into his seat. ‘Well, I don’t care who you are,’ she said shrilly, as she played with a vast emerald-and-diamond ring on her finger. ‘You have ruined mine and Gerald’s five-year anniversary supper with your hullabaloo. As if life’s not trying enough as it without you folk breaking in here and causing all this fuss and bother.’

‘Oh, I do apologize for the interruption, ma’am,’ Lucky said subserviently. ‘And please, do let me offer my congratulations on reaching five years of happy marriage.’ Lucky drew out the word ‘happy’, his voice dripping sarcasm, before turning his gaze on a horror-stricken Gerald. ‘Only, the problem is, while you’ve both been tucking into your anniversary dinner, not three miles from here hundreds of innocent men, women and children are dying because of inadequate shelter. Mothers killed protecting their children, babies swept from perambulators and blown to pieces . . .’

‘Peggy is in hospital after the roof of the measly brick shelter she was in caved in on her after it took a direct hit. She’s lucky to be alive . . .’

‘Anyway, you think on that. Enjoy your cheese,’ he said, before striding angrily back to where the girls were sitting.

‘Who, him?’ Lucky replied, glancing over to where Gerald and his wife were embroiled in a heated argument. ‘He’s nobody.’

Presently, the all-clear sounded and the group ended their occupation of the plush hotel. Their point had been made. The battle between the people and the government would now be known.

Outside, Flossy found herself strangely euphoric at having entered a brave new world of adventure. She and the other protesters linked arms and ran giggling down the deserted streets.

‘Did you see their faces?’ whooped Sal, still glowing from her bravura performance.

‘Blimey, so I have,’ she said, running a pink tongue over the jagged edge of her front-left tooth. ‘I knew I’d caught a bit of debris when we was running to the hotel, but in all the commotion, I never clocked it. Oh well, all the better to cock a snook at the authorities. I have a feeling they won’t be able to ignore us East Enders for much longer.’

Maybe it was the relief of hearing the all-clear, the wide, deserted moonlit streets or the delightful delirium coursing through her veins from the protest, but in a fit of madness, Sal whirled round and round in the middle of the road, her hands stretched high over her head, her dress skirts billowing in the breeze.

‘You hear that? You silly sods in yer nice, congenial private shelters!’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘You can’t put us cockneys down. We won’t crawl into them pathetic shelters and think ourselves grateful. We’re from the East End, see. Proper. You don’t mess with us.’

Her gravelly voice echoed up the road; the vast white stuccoed townhouses with their taped-up windows stared back, silent and reproachful.

By the time they made it back to Bethnal Green, Flossy found herself alone with Lucky. They paused outside the town hall and she leaned back wearily against a pile of sandbags. Her eyes flickered to a sign on the town-hall noticeboard. In bland terms, it listed the numbers of dead and injured from each ‘incident’. She despaired. Weren’t the departed souls of Bethnal Green so much more than a bleak statistic?

‘What a night,’ she said, wincing as she rubbed her sore neck. Life was being lived so intensely; danger, excitement and the constant nearness of death left her exhausted to the bone.

‘That man you were talking to at the Savoy,’ she began warily. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear snatches of your conversation. That was Gerald, wasn’t it?’

Lucky nodded. ‘Turns out he was married all along, so he was cheating on his wife and Peggy with that other waitress. Some men just don’t know when to be happy with their lot.’

‘He’s certainly that all right,’ Lucky agreed. ‘He’s so crooked he couldn’t lie straight in bed, but do me a favour, Flossy – don’t say nothing to Peggy, will yer? I worry it will only set her recovery back. Besides, she’s had enough bombshells to cope with of late.’

‘I agree,’ Flossy replied. ‘On the subject of Peggy, I think I may go and see if I can sneak a quick visit to her at the hospital. I know it’s outside visiting hours, but I shouldn’t think it will hurt to see if we can try. Come with me, Lucky,’ she urged. ‘I know you haven’t been up to see her yet, but she’d love to see you.’

‘Please,’ she begged. ‘It’s just a quick visit. Seeing you will be the best medicine ever.’

The duty nurse at Bethnal Green Hospital looked too exhausted to much mind that it was outside visiting hours. The poor woman looked like she hadn’t slept in over a week, which in fairness she probably hadn’t.

‘Ten minutes and not a second more,’ she whispered to Flossy and Lucky, pointing to a bed at the far end of a darkened ward, now operating out of the basement. ‘Otherwise, you’ll get me in no end of trouble with Matron.’

‘Bless you,’ Flossy mouthed, clasping her hands together in a gesture of thanks.

Lucky could bob and weave his way round a boxing ring and duck bombs in a raid, but in a hospital ward, he looked as nervous as a kitten.

‘Wish I’d had a chance to go to the barber’s and get me ears lowered,’ he muttered anxiously.

‘Peggy won’t care,’ Flossy whispered, taking his hand and dragging him along the silent ward.

The ward was overflowing with bomb victims. Flossy couldn’t bear to see all the faces of those poor injured folk, so looked straight ahead until she reached Peggy’s bedside.

Peggy was asleep, her beautiful face chalk white against the pillow, her long lashes sweeping delicately onto the corners of her eyes. Her right leg was encased in plaster and hoisted above the bed in traction.

‘She’s asleep. We should go,’ Lucky said, turning to move off, until Flossy clasped his hand tightly.

At the sound of his voice, Peggy’s eyes flickered open, and for a second, she looked confused. Then she spotted Lucky and an avalanche of emotions crashed over her face.

Their eyes locked and the intensity of the look that passed between them took Flossy by surprise.

‘How you feeling, Peggy?’ he smiled, his features softening. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring nothing.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Look here, I don’t remember anything about that night. The last thing I remember is going into the shelter with Flossy; then it’s a blank.’ She turned her head a fraction and managed a weak smile at Flossy. ‘Except Flossy’s filled me in, told me how heroic you were that night to save me.’

Lucky blushed and fiddled with his cap. ‘It’s Flossy you should be thanking, Peggy. She refused to leave your side.’

‘I’m so very grateful to you both,’ Peggy replied. ‘The way I treated you when I first started . . . I’m quite sure I didn’t deserve to be saved.’

‘Lucky, I’m so sorry about Lily. So very sorry for your loss,’ she said quietly.

A dark shadow flickered over Lucky’s face. ‘The only comfort is that they don’t think she will have felt much pain. She was killed instantly.’ He hesitated. ‘And I’m sorry too, about your father. Dolly explained everything to me, him missing and all.’

‘I’m going to leave you two alone to talk,’ Flossy said. As she turned and tiptoed as quietly as she could from the ward, Flossy doubted either of them would even realize she had gone. She knew it would take time for Lucky to recover from Lily’s death, as it would for Peggy to admit that her father might never return. She just hoped that, when the time was right, they could repair their fractured relationship and find solace in each other’s arms. Something good just had to come from so much destruction.

As she walked, she pondered on something else too. The chances of finding her mother in all this chaos were growing ever slimmer now. But after the events of the past few hours, she felt a stronger, more capable woman. And she knew just who to try and explain her feelings to. It had been a little over a week since she had received Tommy’s letter, and didn’t she ever have news to tell him.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ a startled voice rang out from the darkened ward. ‘I thought you were at the protest up at the Savoy!’

Flossy whirled round and found herself standing face to face with Dolly. ‘I was, but it’s over and I decided to stop in and visit Peggy,’ she murmured, feeling confused. ‘W-what are you doing here?’

Dolly shifted uncomfortably. She opened her mouth and then faltered, pressing her lips together.

Dread rushed through Flossy. ‘What is it, Dolly?’ she urged, gripping her wrist, which felt painfully bony. ‘You can tell me anything. Anything.’

Dolly gazed back at her, her beautiful blue eyes feverishly bright in the gloom of the passage. Flossy felt an unexplained jolt of fear. Dolly always looked so in control, always quick with a ready retort. Now, she just looked, well, crushed.

‘Mind your backs, girls,’ called a hospital porter, clattering up the passage with a trolley. And just like that, the moment was gone.

‘Visiting a friend of mine with some nasty burns,’ said Dolly. ‘Now come on, let’s get out of here and down the crypt. The raiders will be here again soon, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Dolly was clearly flustered, so Flossy decided it was wise not to push it further and they left the hospital together in brooding silence. Events were moving at a bewildering pace, and Flossy scarcely knew what to expect next, but as they scurried up Cambridge Heath Road towards the crypt at St John, she knew with a certainty. Her friend was hiding something. Secrets between friends could be corrosive. How she hoped, in time, Dolly would come to trust her enough to reveal hers.

Out on the street, the sirens started up again for the second time that evening. Dolly gripped Flossy’s hand in hers and they started to run.

Suddenly, from out of the darkness, Flossy made out a fast-moving crowd of figures heading towards them. As they loomed closer, she started. Men and women, faces twisted in anger, clutching sticks, brooms and shovels.

‘Irene, whatever’s going on?’ gasped Dolly to a lady she recognized in the thick of the group.

‘All right, Doll. Rumour has it a Luftwaffe pilot’s been shot down and he was last seen bailing out over the Hackney Road.’ She gripped her shovel so tightly her knuckles turned white. ‘We’re going to see if we can find him, teach him a lesson he’ll never forget.’

Flossy felt Dolly’s arm grip hers. ‘No . . . no, Irene, we’re going to shelter.’

Then the lynch mob disappeared, retreating into the darkness to exact their bitter revenge, adrenaline and anarchy still pulsing in the spot where they had stood.

‘That’s one battle we ain’t fighting,’ muttered Dolly, as they continued on their way.

When they reached the church, a small and excited crowd had gathered outside with dimmed torches.

‘Dolly! Flossy!’ she called, when she saw them. Her cheeks were flushed as red as her hair.

‘Someone’s managed to get into the Tube. It’s happening. People are going down. Quick, come with me.’

‘Come on,’ Sal urged breathlessly. ‘What are you waiting for? All over London, people are taking over the Underground. This is what we’re fighting for, ain’t it?’

‘The crypt’s already heaving. Daisy, Pat and loads of the other girls have already gone down. Dolly, your mum’s with them. Please follow me,’ Sal begged. ‘There’s not a moment to lose.’

Dolly shot Flossy a nervous look, and gripping her hand firmly, they both followed Sal without saying a word.

The entrance to Bethnal Green Underground was directly opposite St John Church. As they descended the small, slippery stairwell, Dolly paused for a second. She glanced over her left shoulder, back at the church, and crossed herself before they descended into the bowels of the earth.

Safe haven or hell? Only time would tell. Further and further into the inky depths they plunged. Using every ounce of concentration so as not to fall, Flossy pounded down the out-of-use escalators, her breath ragged in her chest, the blood whooshing in her ears.

The steps never seemed to end, and because of the sheer numbers streaming down, she couldn’t get a sense of how much further there was still to go. Up ahead, she could just make out Sal’s red curls bobbing above the crowd and the occasional flash of torchlight, and from behind she could hear the wheezing lilt of Dolly’s struggling breath.

‘I’m fine. Just keep moving,’ Dolly urged. ‘Don’t stop whatever you do – we’ll get crushed.’

Abruptly, the escalator steps stopped and the crowds forked right and streamed through a heavy steel flood door onto the westbound platform.

Flossy glanced to her right and, to her astonishment, saw that most of the Victory Knitters had already commandeered a space in the pits of the unfinished tracks, and laid down bedding and blankets. Pat’s mighty bulk and sheer presence alone seemed to have secured a generous piece of space. She was perched regally on a faded green-and-pink patched eiderdown, like some sort of Queen of the Underground, cheeks flushed, chins wobbling excitedly.

‘’Bout time, girls,’ she exclaimed. ‘I nearly had to take me skirt off to save yer a space!’

Every available patch of cold concrete floor was occupied by a jumbled mass of men, women and children. It was hard, in fact, to see where the platforms ended and the pits began.

‘Oh my giddy aunt,’ Flossy breathed, attempting to slow her wildly pounding heart.

Sheer amazement prickled up her spine, and her breath hung like smoke in the freezing subterranean air. Flossy knew that for the rest of her days, she would never forget this moment.

In a dark, desperate and chaotic fashion, the East Enders had taken over the Underground station – well, if you could call it that. As Flossy gazed about, she realized it resembled a building site more than a Tube station.

Dim electric bulbs, suspended from the ceilings by a cable, cast a low, flickering light over the platform. Railway sleepers and piles of rubble lay discarded in the pits, and cables snaked up the wall. There were no tracks laid yet, which mercifully meant people could at least occupy the pits where the trains were meant to run.

Hundreds were bedding down for the night in the dark, gloomy and fetid atmosphere. Shelterers were clearly trying to respect each other’s decency, as women were changing behind held-up blankets, but pressed together cheek by jowl, privacy was a hopeless wish.

Others were unpacking flasks of tea and sandwiches, or tucking into fish-and-chip suppers. A baby slept soundly in the pits, tucked up in a suitcase, next to a couple squabbling like they were in the privacy of their front parlour. Family groups calmly knitted or played card games. At the far end of the platform, a man played an accordion and a merry rabble had gathered round and were singing along. The acoustics of the curved platform roof meant his tune was carried the length and breadth of the station, over the babble of a hundred conversations. A strange cloying smell of fried fish mingled with the scent of wet concrete and sewers.

‘Mind yerself, love,’ called a man, pushing past Flossy to join his wife and kids in the pits.

Laughter rippled round at her gallows humour. Like it mattered. Chances were her home wouldn’t be standing in the morning, anyhow.

Life was continuing. Underground. And Flossy realized that this was neither heaven nor hell but somewhere in between.

‘It’s astonishing,’ Flossy murmured, when at last she had picked her way through the tightly packed bodies and wriggled into the small space between Pat and Dolly.

‘It stinks,’ sniffed Daisy, pulling a bottle of smelling salts from her pocket. ‘And I swear to God I just saw a rat the size of a small dog scuttle past a minute ago. Urgh!’ she screamed, slapping at her thigh. ‘And something just bit me. It’s a bleedin’ bug hole.’

‘Not only that but have you seen the facilities?’ gaped Kathy. ‘It’s a bucket behind a curtain.’

‘Least you got a curtain,’ Pat quipped. ‘Though I do wish some of them blokes would piss a bit quieter.’

‘I can’t argue with you, girls – it don’t smell too pretty, and it certainly ain’t no Savoy,’ said Sal, chuckling. ‘But being down here will save lives. No doubt about it.’

The group fell silent and strained to hear above the babble of cockney voices and the accordion player.

‘Exactly. We must be, what – nearly seventy feet down here?’ Dolly smiled, as she unpacked her knitting. ‘We won’t be able to hear a thing.’

‘Thank Gawd for that,’ sighed Ivy. ‘I don’t reckon me nerves could take much more.’

‘What choice have we got, Floss?’ said Sal. ‘It’s happening night after night, after night. Not having a safe place to stay is soul-destroying.’

‘Sal’s right,’ Dolly said, putting down her knitting and sliding an arm round Flossy. ‘No one is trying to break the law; it’s do or die, self-preservation. Now, how about we distract ourselves with some work for the sewing circle? Vera and I promised the WVS we’d have some layettes ready by next week.’

Grateful for the distraction, the girls started to pull out balls of wool and knitting needles from their bags, and soon the accordion player’s melody was joined by the rhythmic clacking of needles and relieved laughter.

‘If you don’t mind, there’s a letter I have to write first,’ Flossy whispered to Dolly. ‘I’ve been meaning to do it all week.’

‘You go right ahead, love,’ Dolly winked. ‘I bet that sailor’s dying to hear from you.’

Flossy pulled a small notebook and pencil from her bag and, without pausing, started the letter she had been meaning to write since the siren’s call changed all their lives just over a week ago.

Dearest Tommy,

I was planning to respond to your lovely letter straight away, but, well, the very worst has happened. I don’t even know where to begin. I’m sure you will have heard, but the bombs we all feared have begun to drop, and we have gone from the Home Front to a battlefront.

I’m so sorry I can’t write with better news, but we all feel we understand a little of what you brave men have been enduring now, and in a way, that helps us. We can look you in the face and say, ‘We understand.’

The day after I read your letter, the bombings began and life is more of a challenge than it’s ever been. But having you to write to, well, it’s given my life some purpose.

I do so hope your family have escaped harm. I know they live near the docks and I have been praying for their safety. Would you believe I am writing this nearly seventy feet underground on the unfinished tracks of Bethnal Green Underground Station? My bed for the night! We, like every other law-abiding citizen of London, have taken over the Tubes as shelters. Earlier this evening, we also staged a sit-in at the Savoy in protest at their closure. Me! A girl who never even dared to leave the top off the toothpaste and never once failed dorm inspection. I can scarcely even believe it as I write the words. It all feels like a dream, as if somehow it’s happening to someone else, if that makes sense, Tommy.

I should never have thought I had the gumption to be a rule-breaker, but I suppose you never know what you’re really capable of doing until you’re up against it.

In my heart, though, I know it’s the right thing to do. Please don’t think ill of me, but after a very near-miss in a street shelter the day after the bombs began . . . well, I’m convinced that this is right. Being down here will save lives. I can’t pretend it’s comfortable, but at the very least we can no longer hear the bombs.

When I read your letter, life was normal. Now, well, you can’t help but feel anything could happen. Why, only yesterday I had a shower in a Lifebuoy soap van parked on the street! The weekly wash in the tin tub seems like a distant luxury!

In a funny way, I don’t mind sleeping and washing surrounded by perfect strangers. You feel you’re not facing it alone, and there’s great camaraderie down here.

Many years ago, I missed out on a passage to the brave new world. Back then, I was distraught; now, well, it may sound funny, but I’m pleased I did. I think Britain is the brave new world. I don’t know why I’m confiding in you like this, Tommy. Perhaps because you were man enough to confide in me about your loss.

We’ll keep sending comforts as much as we can, but there are many bombed-out now in urgent need of blankets and clothing.

Flossy paused and looked around furtively at the girls, many of whom were engrossed in their knitting or, like her, were writing letters to their pen pals or loved ones. Suddenly, she felt a fit of impulsiveness bubble through her veins, the same raw emotion that had gripped her earlier that evening, when she had agreed to join the Savoy protest.

I have no idea whether I’ll ever meet you in the flesh, dear Tommy. Who knows now what the future holds for either of us? But just in case I don’t . . . Next time you wind that scarf round your neck, imagine it’s me giving you a warming hug.

Yours with devotion,

Flossy x

With that, she tucked the letter back inside her bag, rested her head against Dolly’s shoulder and surrendered to the waves of exhaustion.

‘That’s it, darlin’ – you rest,’ whispered Dolly in the half-light, as she gently covered her shoulders with a blanket. ‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the Tube bugs bite.’

That night, deep underground, in the bosom of her fellow factory workers and friends, Flossy slept soundly for the first time in seven days.

Nine