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
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Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
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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
Table of Contents
Read on for an exclusive extract from Grace’s story, Wave Me Goodbye.
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