Churchill’s Angels
The first in a series of books featuring four young women whose lives will be forever changed by WWII. Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn.It is 1939 and in the town of Dartford, Grace, Sally and twins Daisy and Rose, are determined to do their bit when war is declared. Grace, desperate to get away from her sad home life, signs up for the Land Army. Sally’s dream of stage school is thwarted by the war, but she finds hope in an unexpected place.For the twins, nothing has prepared them for the shock of the blitz and the nightly raids on their hometown. Rose signs on at the local munitions factory, but with her brothers away fighting, Daisy is needed at home in her father’s greengrocer shop.When she unwittingly trespasses on a wealthy estate and meets the aristocratic flying ace, Adair, Daisy initially dismisses him as a ‘toff’. But they become friends and Adair encourages Daisy to indulge her passion for aeroplanes. Could Daisy’s dream of being a pilot be closer than she thinks? And in these uncertain times, a girl would have to be crazy to fall in love, wouldn’t she?
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RUBY JACKSON
Churchill’s Angels
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.
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
Jacket layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Jacket photographs © Colin Thomas (girl); UPPA/Photoshot (background)
The Author hereby waives all moral rights in the Work. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Publishers undertake to include the Author’s name in all copies of the Work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9780007506231
Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007506255
Version 2016-10-17
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This book is dedicated to Sarah and Colin Ramsay
August 1939
‘Cheerio, Mrs Richardson.’
Daisy Petrie held the door open as her last customer, still grumbling under her breath, left the shop.
‘Give me strength,’ Daisy muttered. ‘I have got to get out of here.’
She stood for a moment watching the old lady’s progress along the crowded High Street. Two large trams passed each other as they flew noisily along their tracks and the indistinguishable words of a carter and a van driver drifted over to her on the warm air.
The day promised to grow even warmer, and she caught the smell of fresh fish from the open window of a neighbouring shop.
Hope somebody buys them before they go off, she thought ruefully as she stepped back into Petrie’s Groceries and Fine Teas.
She looked around the family’s small shop, the place where she had worked almost every Saturday while growing up, and full time since she had left school. It was, as small, family-run grocery shops go, a pleasant place. Behind the counter was a wall that, to the child Daisy, had seemed a magical place, lined as it was with large black tins, each one exotically painted with brightly coloured Chinese dragons. Inside each tin, sweet-smelling tea leaves waited to be weighed out for knowledgeable customers.
The large window, into which her dad, Fred Petrie, put out the bargains of the day, looked out over the busy High Street, and there in the middle of the street now stood Mrs Richardson, chatting enthusiastically to young Mrs Davis, who was obviously trying to be polite while keeping an eye on two active toddlers.
‘Not too tired to stand now,’ said Daisy.
Mrs Richardson had grumbled loud and long about having to wait while Daisy had dealt with the three customers before her.
‘Should be two assistants working every day, Daisy, not just when it suits you, and so I shall tell your dad or your mam when I see them. Kills me, all this standing about, absolutely kills me.’
Daisy had apologised, explaining that her father was at the market, since it was market day, and her mother … she had not given the actual explanation, but had taken refuge in ‘busy in the back’, a euphemism that covered a multitude of explanations. Her mother was actually upstairs in the family flat baking for the party Daisy and her twin sister, Rose, were giving for their friend Sally Brewer. Sally, to Daisy’s delight and more than a little envy, had actually been accepted at a drama college.
What would it be like to go to college, to learn new things every day, to earn a certificate with your name and special letters after it, which would show the world that you were very good at something?
I want to do more with my life than weighing tea leaves and lentils, but what?
Daisy looked at herself in the spotless mirrored art deco panel on the locked cupboard that held patent medicines. She frowned at her image. Oh, to look like Sally, tall, slender, with glorious eyes and blue-black hair, or even her own twin sister, Rose, who was as tall and slim as Sally but had the Petrie family’s corn-coloured hair, which reached almost down to her waist and which she usually fashioned into a long pigtail. Daisy could see nothing exciting in her own short dark hair, her beautifully shaped eyes or her compact athletic body. She did not see the kindness in those green eyes or the willingness to see the best in people that shone from them.
