by Fiona Ford
Character Profiles
Alice Milwood
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Alice is twenty-six years old and was born in Elephant and Castle. Her mother died giving birth to her little sister Joy when Alice was four leaving her father, Jimmy Harris – notorious criminal and leader of The Elephant Boys – to care for them. Eventually Jimmy’s criminal past caught up with him and he fled to America, leaving the girls to fend for themselves. At sixteen things started to look up for Alice when she secured a Saturday job at Liberty’s and became bosom pals with Flo. At twenty-one she found happiness by marrying RAF Flying Officer Luke Milwood, and in December 1941 made Liberty’s history by giving birth to her baby son Arthur on the shop floor. She now lives with Dot Hanson, in her South London terraced home.
Flo Canning
Flo is twenty-seven and with her twinkling green eyes, chestnut hair and peaches-and-cream complexion she is easily the most glamorous of the girls. Like Alice she grew up with only one parent after her mother disappeared when she was small without explanation. Her father, Bill Wilson, was a petty thief and so Flo was brought up in Islington by her aunt Agatha. She too started life at Liberty’s as a Saturday girl, swiftly working her way up the ranks to become manager of the eponymous fabric department. On Boxing Day 1941 she married the love of her life, Neil Canning, who is currently serving in the Navy.
Mary Holmes-Fotherington
With her raven hair and green eyes, twenty-five-year-old Mary has a striking appearance and a background far removed from the rest of the Liberty Girls. Born and raised in Cheshire, Mary had a privileged start in life and was expected to attend finishing school before war broke out. Yet she disobeyed her father and joined the ATS keen to serve her country. Through no fault of her own Mary was dishonourably discharged from the Women’s Army in 1941 and found herself in London, estranged from her family and rocked by scandal. Fate smiled down on Mary and she moved in with Dot and Alice and found work in the fabric department of Liberty’s. Her past eventually catches up with her but not before she finds love in the form of handsome doctor, David Partridge.
Rose Harper
The youngest of the Liberty Girls, Rose is twenty-one and married to her childhood sweetheart, Tommy, who is away serving in the Army. A talented seamstress with glasses, long auburn hair and blue eyes, Rose works in the office of Liberty’s. Her kind-hearted nature and generosity of spirit mean she is thought of fondly by the Liberty family. When she is poisoned after drinking illegal hooch and goes blind, the Liberty family show how much they value her by helping her return to work. With her mother and husband away serving their countries, Rose lives with her father, Malcolm, in Elephant and Castle just streets away from Dot.
Dorothy Hanson
Dot’s quick wit and habit of saying just what she means ensures she doesn’t suffer fools. She has greying chestnut hair, grey eyes and at forty-eight she is the matriarch of the group. She lives in Elephant and Castle in the terraced home her husband George left her after he was killed in the last war and frequently takes in waifs and strays. Dot recently joined Liberty’s on a part-time basis, helping out in the fabric department, and has rekindled her romance with Edwin Button, Liberty’s store manager, after more than thirty years apart.
Dear Reader,
Firstly, let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for picking up a copy of The Liberty Girls. It means the world to me that you have chosen to spend time with Alice, Dot, Mary, Flo, Rose and their special Liberty’s community.
People often ask me where the inspiration to write a series set in this wonderful store came from. It all started one dreary February day. I used to work near Liberty’s and one lunchtime I found myself inside. With time to spare, I saw things I hadn’t taken much notice of before: intricate wood carvings, sweeping staircases, a glass-panelled roof, pretty little rooms that made you feel instantly at home and of course the goods themselves – exotic and unusual treasures sourced from around the globe. Liberty’s was as breathtaking inside as it was outside.
But it was when I walked up the main staircase and caught sight of a plaque dedicated to staff killed during the Second World War that I got goosebumps. I wondered what life would have been like for the workers all those years ago. Liberty’s employees would have spent their days surrounded by beauty – but outside the chaos, devastation and sheer ugliness of the Second World War would have dominated their lives.
Liberty’s was never bombed during the blitz, and I wondered if the store became something more than a shop during that period. The plaque suggests that it was a place of community, a refuge for both workers and shoppers away from the horrors of war. Suddenly an idea was born and the first book in the Liberty Girls series was published last Christmas.
These days I am never happier than when I am in this Liberty’s world – where the girls have come to feel like old friends, and the difficulties they face feel as real as the dilemmas in my own life. I am thrilled to be making a start now on book three in the series. I hope you will join me for the next instalment, which follows the adventures of Flo and the Liberty girls as they cope with the challenges of 1942, relying on each other and the spirit of Liberty’s to survive.
Like all authors, I always love to hear from readers. If you would like to share a Liberty’s memory, let me know what you see in store for the girls, or simply say hello, feel free to drop me a line by visiting my Facebook author page: facebook.com/fionafordauthor.
Lots of love,
The Human Cost of the Bath Blitz
The scene where Alice stands on Pulteney Bridge, with a German pilot just yards away ready to gun her down, sounds like the stuff of fiction but in fact it’s completely true. During my research for this book, I uncovered several accounts of Bath Blitz survivors who claim German pilots flew so close to them during that fateful weekend that they were able to see the whites of their eyes.
Incorporating the story of the Bath Blitz into The Liberty Girls was particularly poignant for me as Bath is my home town. Growing up I was well aware of the tragedy that had struck the city, but it wasn’t until I started researching this book that I realised how detrimental the damage had been.
To put it into perspective, up until the 25th April 1942 the Georgian city of Bath had been relatively protected from the onslaught of the Second World War, aside from a couple of stray bombs that had fallen in 1941, tragically killing a handful of people.
The historic spa town was largely safe from the Germans. Unlike its more industrial neighbor Bristol, which was frequently bombed thanks to its ports, Bath was so peaceful it was almost possible to believe war didn’t exist there. Certainly this was a view the government took and Bath was not seen as a high priority to defend. Yet what many don’t realise is that Bath was in fact a key contributor to the war effort. Not only had the Admiralty been evacuated to Bath in the thirties from London, but the engineering works, Stothert and Pitt, were building Navy torpedoes and gun mountings for the Army. Bath, it could be argued, was a legitimate target for German attack.
The history books say that after the two German port cities of Rostock and Lubeck were bombed earlier in 1942, Hitler wanted revenge. Apparently he wanted to attack British cities filled with heritage and culture, to try and ebb away at the British spirit, which seemed to be unyielding, no matter how many bombs were dropped. Goebbels, minister of propaganda, suggested the beautiful cities of Exeter, Bath, Norwich, York and Canterbury would make good targets after studying the Baedeker Guide to Britain. However, it’s worth noting that this has been refuted by historians who argue the Baedeker story is nothing more than a piece of propaganda.
Whatever the reasons, on a clear moonlit evening, as Bathonians enjoyed their Saturday night in the city, eighty German planes took off from occupied France with only one mission – to decimate the city. The first explosive fell half a mile east of the city and many residents who saw the flares thought Bristol was in for another night of torment. However, as the flares became louder and brighter, pa
nic grew as people realised Bath was the Germans’ intended target. This was the start of a two-day campaign which saw the Germans damage much of the city, including Kingsmead – the residential area of Bath – Stothert and Pitt’s engineering works, Lansdown, Julian Road, the gasworks, and much of the railway line. The world-famous Assembly Rooms, which had only recently been restored, were also blitzed along with the city’s grand Regina Hotel, while fires tore through the Circus and Royal Crescent.
The death toll stood at 417, the largest for any of the towns hit during the Baedeker raids, but it was the human stories that came out of this appalling raid that captured my imagination. Take for example the GP, Mary Middlemas, who was killed instantly while taking a break from caring for her patients to get something to eat. Harry Hemming, who at twelve pretended to be eighteen so he could work as a messenger boy across the city. It was Harry who saw firemen fighting fires on Pulteney Bridge as the Luftwaffe flew close to the volunteers, and Harry who saw them gunned down to cause maximum mayhem. It was also Harry who got so close to the Germans he had to dive into the doorway of a sports shop for shelter – just as Alice does in this book.
Then there were the three boys who were remanded at Bath Juvenile Court, charged with damaging a loo and shelter, who didn’t appear at court the following week. There was also the fourteen-year-old girl who was trapped under the rubble for three days before she was rescued. And we mustn’t forget thirteen-year-old Doreen Williams, whose father had been a volunteer fireman since the outbreak of war. Although he wasn’t technically on duty during the second night of the raid he wasted no time in volunteering to serve his city once more. Putting on his jacket, he said goodbye to his family – and that goodbye is the last word Doreen heard her father say, tragically, just like so many others who never came home.
These are just a handful of the stories to have come out of that terrible weekend, but I hope that by reading this novel you will get a sense of how much of an impact the raids had on the wonderful city of Bath. We are fortunate in some respects that the Germans’ plan to destroy the city failed. Although they caused a great deal of damage, for some reason they left the north of the city untouched, leaving the Pump Rooms, Roman Baths, Circus and Crescent relatively unscathed.
Today, a war memorial dedicated to those men and women who lost their lives during that weekend stands at the entrance to the city’s Royal Victoria Park. These inspirational men and women, like Doreen Williams’ father, and Harry Hemming, who chose to look fear squarely in the eye, should continue to be remembered and celebrated. I am sure you will agree these first-hand accounts of social history are important to preserve in whatever way we can.
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Published by Arrow Books 2019
Copyright © Fiona Ford 2019
Cover image credit: Figure © Silas Manhood. Background photography © Getty Images and © Shutterstock
Fiona Ford has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Arrow Books
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London, SW1V 2SA
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Arrow Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781473560772