Down Daisy Street
About the Author
Katie Flynn has lived for many years in the Northwest. A compulsive writer, she started with short stories and articles and many of her early stories were broadcast on Radio Mersey. She decided to write her Liverpool series after hearing the reminiscences of family members about life in the city in the early years of the century. She also writes as Judith Saxton. For many years she has had to cope with ME but has continued to write.
Praise for Katie Flynn:
‘She’s a challenge to Josephine Cox’
Bookseller
Bookseller
‘You can be guaranteed that if you pick up a Katie Flynn book it’s going to be a wrench to put it down again’
Holyhead & Anglesey Mail
Holyhead & Anglesey Mail
‘A heartwarming story of love and loss’
Woman’s Weekly
Woman’s Weekly
‘One of the best Liverpool writers’
Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
‘[Katie Flynn] has the gift that Catherine Cookson had of bringing the period and the characters to life’
Caernarfon & Denbigh Herald
Caernarfon & Denbigh Herald
Also by Katie Flynn
A Liverpool Lass
The Girl From Penny Lane
Liverpool Taffy
The Mersey Girls
Strawberry Fields
Rainbow’s End
Rose of Tralee
No Silver Spoon
Polly’s Angel
The Girl from Seaforth Sands
The Liverpool Rose
Poor Little Rich Girl
The Bad Penny
A Kiss and a Promise
Two Penn’orth of Sky
A Long and Lonely Road
The Cuckoo Child
Darkest Before Dawn
Orphans of the Storm
Little Girl Lost
Beyond the Blue Hills
Forgotten Dreams
Sunshine and Shadows
Such Sweet Sorrow
A Mother’s Hope
In Time For Christmas
Heading Home
This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Epub ISBN: 9781446428597
Version 1.0
Reissued by Arrow Books in 2004
10
Copyright © Katie Flynn 2003
Katie Flynn has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by William Heinemann
First published in paperback in 2003 by Arrow Books
Arrow Books
The Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099453390
Contents
For another Kathy: Kathy Nimmer of Indiana and her dog, Raffles – two of the best and nicest folk you could wish to meet.
Many thanks go to Rosemarie Hague, for her wonderfully vivid memories of Liverpool during the Second World War and to Alan Hague, who told me as much about the RAF in Norfolk as my tiny mind could hold. Also many thanks to the staff of the Great Yarmouth Library, who got me invaluable information about the Horsey floods.
As usual, many thanks to the staff of the Wrexham Library, who supplied me with books on the Second World War and, last but not least, thank you Bet Carter, née Douglas (affectionately known as ‘Dougie’ by her fellow Waafs) for all the information on barrage balloons.
PART IChapter One
1935
It was a fine September day and Kathy Kelling, neat in her new school uniform, was coming slowly along Stanley Road, swinging her satchel and enjoying the warmth of the sun on her back. A lad who was drawing level with her gave a loud guffaw as he caught sight of her and slowed his pace to amble alongside, saying as he did so: ‘Who’s perishin’ smart, then? I’m a-goin’ to call you Lickle Miss White Socks. Well, whazzit like then, your new school? Or are you too swell-headed to speak to the likes of me, eh?’
Kathy eyed the lad cautiously. She knew him, of course – all the flower street kids knew one another – but since he was two or three years older than herself, she could not immediately put a name to him. She gave him the benefit of a long, hard stare and realised after a moment that he was Annie McCabe’s older brother . . . what the devil was his name? Johnny? Jimmy? Yes, that was it, Jimmy. He had a shock of soot-black hair and deep set, dark-blue eyes, and was wearing a faded check shirt and ragged grey flannel trousers. Though he had boots on his feet, they were so cracked and broken that she could see the greyish tinge of his skin through them.
‘I’m not swell-headed, as you call it, Jimmy McCabe,’ Kathy said, having placed him. ‘And it weren’t me who wanted to leave Daisy Street School and all me pals, it were me mam, just remember that!’
‘Awright, awright, keep your flamin’ hair on,’ Jimmy said in an aggrieved tone. He squinted across at her, beginning to grin. ‘My Gawd, even your bleedin’ ribbon is a green ’un! I bet your bleedin’ knickers are green an’ all.’
Kathy felt her face grow hot. ‘You cheeky bugger!’ she said wrathfully. ‘The colour of me knickers is no concern of yours, nor me hair ribbon, for that matter. Oh, gerralong home and let me enjoy me walk.’
Jimmy guffawed again. ‘I’m a-goin’ to keep you company,’ he said grandly. ‘Can I carry your smart school bag, Miss?’
Kathy was about to tell him roundly that if he laid a finger on her satchel she would beat him to death with it, when a welcome diversion occurred. A figure came hurrying along the pavement towards them, waving and calling out as she came. ‘Kathy! Ooh, we did miss you, it were horrible in school wi’out you. But how did it go? I say, you look real posh. What are the other girls like? Do you have a best pal yet?’ The girl glanced at Kathy’s companion, raising her eyebrows interrogatively. ‘Don’t say you’re sweet on our Kathy, Jimmy McCabe! Are you walkin’ her home like they does in romantic novels, eh?’
If Jane O’Brien had searched for a year, she could not have found a better method of sending Jimmy McCabe on his way. He gave a loud, jeering laugh and spat into the gutter, then said: ‘Bleedin’ girls! I wouldn’t walk a decent one home, lerralone a stuck-up little tart like Miss Kathy Kelling. I just stopped to tell her wharra fool she looks in that green jacket thing. Anyhow, she won’t want to go around wi’ you, Jane O’Brien, now she’s at a posh private school, with a green uniform!’ He looked speculatively at Jane. ‘But if youse is short of a pal, now that Lickle Miss White Socks has took herself off, you’ve gorra champion in Jimmy McCabe any time you say the word.’
Jane sniffed but Kathy saw that she dimpled as well. ‘Oh, gerron with you! Buzz off, Jimmy,’ she said dismissively, and the two girls watched as he loped off down the road, disappearing into the next side street.
The girls turned to each other and Kathy tucked her hand into her friend’s arm, shaking it slightly. ‘All boys are alike; they take one look at you and want to be pals,’ she said. ‘Wish I had curly yellow hair and dimples.’
Jane laughed. ‘At our age, all boys hate all girls,’ she said wisely. ‘But in a year or two it’ll be a different story and we’ll both have fellers dogging our every move. Now come on, queen, tell me everything, right from the first moment you started at the new school. There ain’t no point in me telling you, because Daisy Street School don’t change, ’cept that it were mortal dull wi’out me best pal to have a laugh with.’
Kathy took a deep breath and began to tell Jane all about her day from the moment she had entered the large, airy reception hall until, with her bag crammed with strange books and her head with strange experiences, she had left her new high school. Looking back on it now, it had been an unusual, almost unnerving experience. She had started at the Daisy Street School at the tender age of four, nine long years ago, and knew everyone, both teachers and pupils, almost as well as she knew her own parents. She had been reluctant to agree to Mrs Kelling’s suggestion that she should try for a scholarship to a school whose pupils would continue to matriculation level and beyond, but had sat the examination and had been secretly impressed both by the lovely old house and by the crowds of girls in their smart green uniforms. The fact that they were all strangers to her had worried her at first but when she got the letter saying that she had gained a place and inviting her to the school for an interview with Miss Beaver, the headmistress, she had decided that perhaps it was high time she knew more of the world than the restricted area of the flower streets. Furthermore, her parents’ pride in her achievement had made her realise that they would be cruelly disappointed if she turned down this opportunity.
‘It’s the best chance you’ll ever have to better yourself, luv,’ her mother had said fondly. ‘You’ll make friends with girls whose parents are a good deal higher up in the world than either meself or your dad, because workin’ in a corner shop like I do or in a timber merchant’s yard, like your dad, aren’t what you might call jobs which need brains or education. Your dad’s never been bitter, but he were top of his class right up to the time he left school and should have gone on to do examinations and that, only by the time he were fourteen his dad had died and his mam needed every penny her lads could bring in. So you see, you’re gettin’ the opportunities that were denied to us and we’re right proud of you. You shall have everything the other girls have, everything you need, even if it takes our last penny. Not that we’d let Billy go short, but he’s a baby still and by the time he needs money spending on him you’ll be earning.’
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