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ANNIE GROVES
Child of the Mersey
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2014
Copyright © Annie Groves 2014
Cover photographs © Colin Thomas (woman, boy); The Walters Industrial Archive/ Paul Walters Worldwide Photography Ltd/Topfoto (houses); Shutterstock.com (sky, airplanes).
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
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: 9780007550807
Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007550814
Version: 2017-09-12
My adorable grandchildren Emily, Abi, Daniel, Jack and Hollie
The Future.
Thomas, Michael and Mathew
Our Heavenly Stars xxx
Table of Contents
September 1930
‘Mam?’ Eleven-year-old Kitty Callaghan edged further into her mother’s bedroom. Unusually, the clean but faded curtains were not yet open, and in the dim light Kitty could just make out her mother lying on the bed. Ellen’s head was to one side, as if looking down at something, and a small, barely perceptible sound was coming from her direction.
It had gone noon but there was no dinner ready. When Kitty and her brothers, fifteen-year-old Jack and ten-year-old Danny, came home from school and the shipyard there was always something hot to eat, even in the summer. Kitty did not know where her dad was. Maybe he was out looking for work – if he had not got a start on the dock that morning.
‘Mam? Mam, are you all right? Are you sick?’ Rising panic caught Kitty’s throat as she inched towards the bed. When her mother did not answer, fear made Kitty’s heart beat faster.
If she opened the curtains, Mam would wake with a fright, which Kitty knew