Christmas for the District Nurses
A dramatic and heart-warming new novel set in the Blitz, from the bestselling author Annie Groves. The East End of London has been devastated by the Blitz and the people are struggling to come to terms with their ravaged city. Rationing bites ever deeper and and everything that makes life better is in short supply. For the district nurses, the challenges are tougher than ever. Gladys loves her work in the Civil Nursing Reserve, but just when she needs to rely on her sister at home to help out with the chores, she turns into a handful of trouble. Edith is learning to cope with her boyfriend's injuries after Dunkirk but will she have to choose between her love for him and her career? With no end in sight, the war reaches its darkest moment … Can the nurses – and the families and patients that rely on them – find the strength to carry on?
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CHRISTMAS FOR THE DISTRICT NURSES
Annie Groves
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Annie Groves 2019
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
Cover photographs © Jonathan Ring (models), Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy Stock Photo (background)
Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008272272
Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008272289
Version: 2019-10-04
Heartfelt thanks to Teresa Chris, Kate Bradley and Penny Isaac, without whom the stories of the district nurses would never have been told.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Keep Reading …
About Annie Groves
Also by Annie Groves
About the Publisher
December 1941
‘I don’t see why I have to do it. Why can’t you?’
Gladys shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew that there would be no point in getting angry with her younger sister. That never achieved anything. ‘Because I’m on duty this evening,’ she said calmly.
Evelyn threw up her hands, groaning theatrically. ‘Of course you are. You’re always on bleeding duty. Proper saint, you are. How did they ever manage without you?’
Gladys took the two steps necessary to cross their tiny kitchen and reached for her gabardine coat that hung on the back door. She still hadn’t grown out of the thrill of putting it on, of having her own uniform. She’d waited long enough to be able to join the Civil Nursing Reserve. She was damned if she was going to let her sister make a drama out of nothing, yet again. ‘What’s so important that you can’t make a bit of stew?’ she asked.
Evelyn scowled. ‘I was going to do my hair.’
Gladys laughed. ‘Do what to it? Didn’t you just do it?’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ Evelyn snapped meanly. ‘It’s not as if you ever took any trouble with yours. Look at it, just hanging down straight, all flat and horrible.’
Gladys shrugged, pulling on her heavy coat. She knew her mousy-brown hair was lank but she was far too busy to spend hours curling it in papers or hunting down bleach or whatever smelly substance it was that Evelyn used to lighten her carefully coiffured locks. ‘Not much point when it’s mostly hidden by my cap,’ she pointed out.
‘Exactly.’ Evelyn pouted. ‘You’re always down that blasted first-aid post, when you aren’t running round after those district nurses in their precious home. You never have no time for us no more. I have to do everything and it’s not fair.’
‘Not fair?’ Gladys couldn’t bite back her instinctive response. ‘I tell you what’s not fair. Having to miss nearly all my schooling cos Ma couldn’t cope with all seven of us. Working my fingers to the bone for you lot when I was only a kid myself. Only learning to read when I started work at the nurses’ home. Even that was just good luck in that two of them made time to teach me. Now, when I finally get a chance to do nursing like what I’ve always wanted, you still expect me to cook for you first, so you don’t have to give up an evening doing your hair.’
Evelyn wasn’t impressed. ‘Oh, not that again. Poor old Gladys. You’d have hated school anyway – I know I did. So count yourself lucky.’
