Shipyard Girls in Love Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Nancy Revell

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Historical Notes

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Sunderland, 1941

  With a brief break in air raids providing some much-needed respite from the war, things are looking up for head welder Rosie, who has fallen head over heels for Detective Sergeant Miller. But how long can their romance last in such uncertain times?

  Life remains full of challenges for Gloria, who must face her abusive ex-husband and confront her own guilty conscience about baby Hope’s real father. The secret is tearing her apart but if she admits the truth, she will risk losing everything.

  Both women are determined that their love and faith will be enough to keep the most difficult of promises, but nothing is as simple as it seems …

  About the Author

  Nancy Revell is the author of the Shipyard Girls series, which is set in the north-east of England during World War II.

  She is a former journalist who worked for all the national newspapers, providing them with hard-hitting news stories and in-depth features. Nancy also wrote amazing and inspirational true life stories for just about every woman’s magazine in the country.

  When she first started writing the Shipyard Girls series, Nancy relocated back to her hometown of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, along with her husband, Paul, and their English bull mastiff, Rosie. They now live just a short walk away from the beautiful award-winning beaches of Roker and Seaburn, within a mile of where the books are set.

  The subject is particularly close to Nancy’s heart as she comes from a long line of shipbuilders, who were well known in the area.

  Also by Nancy Revell

  The Shipyard Girls

  Shipyard Girls at War

  Secrets of the Shipyard Girls

  To the seven hundred women who worked in the Sunderland shipyards during World War Two.

  Acknowledgements

  As the Shipyard Girls series continues, so does the incredible support and enthusiasm I have received from so many people and organisations:

  John Wilson and his lovely staff at Fulwell Post Office, researcher Meg Hartford, Jackie Caffrey of Nostalgic Memories of Sunderland in Writing, Beverley Ann Hopper of The Book Lovers, Linda King, Norm Kirtlan and Philip Curtis of the Sunderland Antiquarian Society, journalist Katy Wheeler at the Sunderland Echo, the Sunderland and Gateshead libraries, The Word in South Shields, Suzanne Brown and members of the Sunderland Soroptimists, book blogger Amanda Oughton, Pat Robinson for the loan of her father’s book: The Barbary Coast: The Story of a Community by J. Gordon Holmes. As well as ‘Team Nancy’ at Arrow: publishing director Emily Griffin and editor Cassandra Di Bello, my wonderful literary agent Diana Beaumont, and, of course, my parents, Audrey and Syd Walton, husband, Paul, and walking companion, Rosie.

  Thank you.

  Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark

  – Rabindranath Tagore

  Prologue

  East End, Sunderland

  July 1918

  ‘I just don’t understand, Mam.’

  And it was true. Sixteen-year-old Gloria Turnbull simply did not understand.

  ‘I thought we would be together for ever.’ Gloria spoke her words quietly, as though more to herself than for her mother’s benefit. ‘We promised each other we would.’

  Quiet tears were now rolling down Gloria’s cheeks as she turned her forlorn gaze to her mother, who was perched on the edge of her daughter’s narrow wooden-framed bed.

  ‘There’ll be someone else out there for you,’ Peggy tried to console her daughter as she started to get up off the bed. It was nearly six o’clock and she knew Clifford would be back soon. If there wasn’t a plate of something hot, filling and tasty waiting for him, there’d be another war on.

  ‘Trust me,’ Peggy said, gently pushing her daughter’s curly brown hair away from her eyes, ‘there will be others after Jack.’

  ‘There won’t be! There won’t be anyone else, Mam!’ Gloria’s voice was thick with emotion. ‘Not like Jack – I know!’

  Peggy opened her mouth to rebuff her daughter’s comments, but closed it again. Gloria was not far off her seventeenth birthday. She had only ever had eyes for Jack, and Jack had only ever had eyes for Gloria, or so Peggy had thought. Everyone who knew the pair had presumed they’d be engaged before long. Even Clifford had been saying to her just the other night that it was ‘about time’ young Jack came to ask for his daughter’s hand.

  ‘I’ll bring you some supper in after I’ve sorted yer dad out,’ Peggy promised as she left the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her.

  Only when she heard her mother shooing away her younger brothers and sisters, who had been milling around in the hallway wondering what was going on, did Gloria allow her tears to come freely.

  Why, Jack? Why? Gloria wanted to scream. She wanted – needed – an answer.

  Gloria smothered the sound of her heartache in the bunched-up pillow she had pressed hard into her face, and she coiled her body up tighter, as if by doing so she might disappear and become nothing, feel nothing. At the very least she hoped to barricade the world and all the hurtful feelings that came with it away from her being.

  Deep down, though, Gloria knew that it was too late to ring-fence her heart. It had already been shattered into hundreds of pieces. And like a mirror that had been dropped, the shards of glass had been flung far and wide and there was no way it could be pieced back together.

  Jack’s sudden decision to end their courtship had come like a bolt out of the blue. There had been no warning, no falling-out, no gradual dwindling of feelings. Far from it – they had been as mad about each other as when they’d first met when Gloria was fourteen and Jack fifteen. And they were certainly as passionate a
bout each other, although Gloria, of course, was saving herself for marriage.

  They’d only ever really had one major falling-out in all the time they had been together and that was a few months back, when they’d argued over Gloria having a ride home from work on the back of a lad’s motorbike. The green-eyed monster had showed itself in Jack and they’d had an almighty bust-up. Neither of them would back down, with Jack declaring Gloria shouldn’t have accepted the ride, and Gloria standing her ground and saying there was nothing wrong in it – that the boy was just a workmate. It had been the first time their stubborn natures had clashed so forcefully and it had taken a few weeks before they’d kissed and made up.

  When they did, though, they’d seemed closer than ever before, talking about getting married and even joking about how many children they’d have. Jack hinted that he intended to ask Mr Turnbull for permission to marry his daughter on the day of Gloria’s seventeenth birthday next month.

  But then, without any kind of warning, their lives together came to an abrupt halt when Jack came to meet Gloria after work at the ropery and told her he was ‘really sorry’, he was ending their courtship.

  At first Gloria thought it was some kind of wind-up, but when he told her he was serious and she asked him ‘Why?’ – a question she would ask herself for a long while after – Jack seemed unable to give Gloria an explanation, but instead just kept on apologising.

  When Gloria kept on demanding an answer, tears had formed in Jack’s eyes, which alarmed Gloria even more. She had never seen Jack cry. Not once.

  ‘Something’s not right!’ Gloria was beside herself. ‘Yer don’t just love someone one minute and turn yer back on them the next!’

  But that was exactly what Jack did.

  ‘You deserve better than me, Glor. Much better,’ he said before he turned and walked away.

  Away from Gloria and away from the future they could have shared.

  In the weeks following their split, every time Gloria thought of her life without Jack, which amounted to just about every spare minute she had of every day, her whole body would well up with the most terrible feeling of panic. It was as though she was falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, with no idea where she would land, all the while the question Why? spinning around in her head.

  It took a month to find out the answer. Her friend Violet sat her down one lunch break at the rope factory and pushed the Sunderland Echo under her nose, with the words, ‘Sorry, Glor, but I think you should see this.’

  Never a strong reader, Gloria used her finger to follow the article Violet had directed her to look at. She saw Jack’s name and her heart foolishly leapt, before her eyes darted back up to the subheading: FORTHCOMING MARRIAGES.

  Again and again she read the words:

  MR J. CRAWFORD AND MISS M. I. HAVELOCK

  The engagement is announced between Jack Crawford, son of Irene and Edward Crawford, and Miriam, daughter of Catherine and Charles Havelock, both families of Sunderland, County Durham. The wedding will take place at St Andrew’s Church, Roker, Sunderland, on Saturday, 5th September.

  At first Gloria’s mind seemed unable to process what she was reading, until, finally, a great wave of realisation drenched her.

  Violet put her arm around her friend, who was sat stock-still, staring down at the newspaper. She couldn’t imagine what Gloria was feeling. Not only had she been dumped by Jack, but she had been replaced by one of the town’s most well-known beauties, who was also one of the richest. Everyone in the town knew the Havelocks. Mr Havelock probably owned or had substantial shares in a good 50 per cent of the town’s businesses and shipyards. His wife, Catherine, and daughter, Miriam, were often photographed at various highbrow events and were known to go to the launch of every ship built on the Wear, which was where, Violet presumed, Miriam must have met Jack.

  ‘And talk about a shotgun wedding,’ Violet said quietly.

  Gloria turned quickly to look at her friend. ‘You don’t think …?’ Gloria left the question unfinished. It was as though she was reading about a complete stranger, as if she had never known Jack at all, as if the love they had shared had meant nothing. But worst of all, if Violet was right and this was indeed a ‘shotgun’ wedding, it could mean only one thing – Jack had betrayed Gloria in every way possible.

  Over the next few weeks Gloria tried her utmost not to become obsessed with the Havelocks and, especially, Jack and Miriam. Jack would be turning eighteen just a few days before the marriage ceremony, meaning he would not have to get permission from his parents to walk down the aisle. Not that Gloria thought his mam and dad would have offered up any objections. They’d probably be waiting cap in hand, and palms turned skywards, as Jack walked out the church.

  And from what Gloria had heard, Miriam was at least a year older than Jack. There had been speculation that she was in fact approaching her twenty-first birthday, which meant that if her own family had been against their coupling, she was of an age where she could do what she wanted, whether they liked it or not. And, if it was a shotgun wedding, she had clearly been doing exactly what she wanted well before now.

  In the run-up to the wedding, Gloria’s emotions seemed to be in constant motion, swinging like a pendulum – one moment hate-filled, the next heartbroken. She cried herself to sleep most nights, but quietly so none of her other siblings with whom she shared a room could hear. Her father had told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to see Gloria’s face ‘tripping her up’ over the trifle of some failed romance – not, he said, when every day ‘our boys’ were being killed on foreign fields.

  Over the next six months Gloria became an avid newspaper reader, scanning the back pages every day. At first for an article on the wedding, which she had been surprised to see was just a few words with no photograph, then to check out the ‘Births’ section for an announcement that Mr and Mrs Crawford had had either a son or a daughter.

  Gloria knew her family and friends thought it was time for her to dry her eyes and get on with her life, especially as the Great War had finally been won and people saw it as a time for new beginnings. But Gloria’s heart was still raw with grief and she honestly believed it was a wound that would never heal.

  ‘Perhaps they didn’t have to get married, after all?’ Gloria asked Violet just under a year after Jack had become Miriam’s husband.

  Violet looked at her friend and sighed inwardly. Gloria had to stop obsessing about Jack and his new life – with his new wife.

  ‘Mm,’ Violet agreed, before nudging her friend and adding playfully, ‘but what I find odder still is that my best mate hasn’t even been out, let alone gone on a date since that lying toerag did the dirty on you. Which is why …’ she paused, keeping a steady hold of the huge bulk of raw fibres they were combing out, a technique known as hatchelling, ‘… you’re coming out with me and Dickie tonight.’

  Violet failed to mention that her Dickie was also going to bring along a friend of his who had recently been demobbed, having served most of the war out on the North Atlantic.

  When Gloria turned up that evening, she was furious with Violet, but she had been brought up to be polite and not cause a scene, so when Dickie introduced her to his mate, a former Royal Navy petty officer, she forced a smile on her face.

  ‘Gloria, this is my good friend …’ Dickie turned to the serious-looking young man, who was wearing a smart new suit that Gloria guessed must have been bought with the money he had been given after being demobilised, ‘… Vincent Armstrong.’

  ‘And Vincent,’ Dickie turned with great ceremony towards Gloria, ‘this is Violet’s very good girlfriend – Gloria Turnbull.’

  The young man stepped forward and held out his hand to Gloria.

  ‘Please,’ he told Gloria, ‘call me Vinnie. Everyone calls me Vinnie.’

  Chapter One

  Hendon, Sunderland

  Saturday 22 November 1941

  ‘And Dor … Thanks for the cake!’ Gloria had to shout to be heard above the
piercing squeals of a passing tram.

  Dorothy and the other women welders had just left the warmth of the Elliots’ mid-terrace home, where they had been for a little, low-key party to celebrate baby Hope’s christening, and were now standing on the pavement of a bustling and noisy Tatham Street.

  ‘It really was the “biggest cake ever”!’ Gloria added, her voice shaking a little with emotion.

  Dorothy’s face lit up and she tottered back to the front door as speedily as she could in the heels and figure-hugging black dress she was wearing. Her face was full of compassion as she flung her arms around Gloria and gave her a tight hug.

  Dorothy had promised Gloria ‘the biggest cake ever’ if she finally got round to having Hope baptised. There had been much ribbing and banter over the promised cake and how it was going to be the centrepiece of Hope’s party. But, after the unexpected and very dramatic events of the day, the wonderful three-tiered Victoria sponge – a marvel in these times of rationing – had paled into insignificance.

  ‘We’re all here for you,’ Dorothy whispered in her ear. ‘Night or day … And I mean that!’

  For once Gloria didn’t chide her workmate for her open display of affection and, much to Dorothy’s surprise, actually hugged her back.

  As Dorothy turned to join the group, Gloria forced back the tears welling up inside her as she looked at the women welders, who were all wearing the same look of concern on their faces.

  ‘Thank you!’ she managed to shout out above the cacophony of street sounds to the four young women who not only were her workmates, but had become her closest friends this past year and a half.

  Dorothy, Angie, Hannah and Martha all waved back at Gloria before they joined the gurgling stream of shoppers who had brought the east end alive this afternoon following the morning’s torrential rainstorm. The dark, thunderous clouds had gone, leaving behind a clear blue sky. Even the sun was now starting to show itself.

  ‘Blimey,’ Angie said, as they hurried down the street, ‘that was a christening and a half, wasn’t it? With Jack just turning up like that?’