The Seaside Girls

Tracy Baines

Description

A brand new series full of friendship, singing and laughter as war looms...

Cleethorpes 1939
With the country teetering on the brink of war everyone faces an uncertain future.
Destitute after the tragic death of her father, aspiring singer Jessie Delaney and her family have no choice other than to accept the charity of relatives to ensure a roof over their heads.
Spiteful Aunt Iris soon has Jessie dreaming of a life filled with colour and excitement that she knows the theatre can offer. How can Jessie escape the drudgery, support her family and pursue her dreams?
Through her father’s connections Jessie finds work as a Variety Girl in a new show at the Empire in Cleethorpes, a small seaside theatre on the east coast. But taking the job means flying solo and leaving her family and her sweetheart, Harry behind.
Friendships are forged but will the glamour of show business lose its shine without those she loves close by?
A gritty and heart-warming saga perfect for readers of Elaine Everest, Nancy Revell and Pam Howes.

Praise for Tracy Baines:

‘A charming, heart-warming saga about ambition, hard work and courage in the cut and thrust of a world often driven by jealousy and spite’. Rosie Clarke
‘Immerse yourself in the exciting, evocative world of Wartime musical theatre. I highly recommend this book.’ Fenella Miller
‘An emotional, entertaining read that had me gripped!’ Sheila Riley
'An absorbing and poignant saga. I loved it from the very beginning and would highly recommend it...' Elaine Roberts
'Terrific - beautifully written. The book twinkles. A well-crafted and satisfying story' Maisie Thomas
‘A pleasure from start to finish.’ Glenda Young
‘…you will have to read this well-researched song and dance of a novel in great gulps as I did’ Annie Clark
‘I just loved this book! Molly Walton
The Variety Girls is terrific - beautifully written & with an unusual background. The stage costumes twinkle with sequins and the book twinkles with tiny details of theatre life that add depth and atmosphere to this well-crafted and satisfying story. Maisie Thomas, The Railway Girls
‘A pleasure from start to finish.’ Glenda Young, Belle of the Backstreets
‘…you will have to read this well-researched song and dance of a novel in great gulps as I did’ Milly Adams
‘an evocative, busy, entertaining read, which has well balanced touches of humour, vying with angst, and of course, more than a dollop of tension.’ Margaret Graham, Frost Magazine
‘Characterisation is one of the book’s strong points – the individual characters stay in your mind long after you finish the story.’ Barbara Dynes, The Voice

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Soutien psychologique et conseils familiaux
• Sea Stories
• Mashups
• Wholesome
• Feminist
• Holidays
• 20th Century
• Siblings
• Theater
• Bereavement
• Historical
• HISTORY
• Women
• Coming of Age
• Inglaterra
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• The arts
• Theatre
• Friendship
• Historical romance
• Dating
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Sea story
• Sibling
• General officer
• Military
• Woman
• World War II
• Feminism
• The Women
• City Life
• General
• Clean
• Grief
• Sagas
• Family Life
• War
• Romance
• England
• Death
• Fiction
• Seconde Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 30 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804264973
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SEASIDE GIRLS


TRACY BAINES
CONTENTS



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34


Acknowledgments

More from Tracy Baines

About the Author

Sixpence Stories

About Boldwood Books
To Mum and Dad, Tommy and Joan Lee, the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story.
To Neil, who makes me laugh every day. Which has probably saved his life.
And to The Lee Sisters, Dianne and Taryn, the richest kids in town.
1
NORFOLK, WHITSUN BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND, SATURDAY 27TH MAY 1939

The house was a pressure cooker, Aunt Iris the lid, pushing down on them all. Jessie looked at the mantle clock. It clicked round: another minute. How long could a person last without air? Five minutes? She recalled that even the great Harry Houdini had not been able to hold his breath for more than four minutes. She longed for escape, wondering how these interminable afternoons didn’t bother her mum, who was absorbed in her needlework.
Grace Delaney had settled herself in the high-back chair to get the best of the light as she worked, her elegant posture the only lasting trace of her former life as a ballerina. The grey streaks in her auburn hair turned to silver as the sun streamed into the sitting room that overlooked the front garden. The last few years of worry and sorrow had left their mark and, although her mum never complained, they were etched in every line of her fine-boned face.
Jessie got up and went to the window, slid the sash open as gently as she could. The slightest noise and Iris would descend on them, migraine or not.
‘Don’t, Jessie. You know your aunt dislikes the windows being opened in here.’
Jessie bit at her cheek. ‘There isn’t much she does like, Mum.’ How on earth Uncle Norman got lumbered with such a harridan was beyond comprehension. Her mum’s only surviving cousin, he’d welcomed them into his childless home when Jessie’s dad had died, but it was blatantly clear that Iris found the Delaney family’s arrival a great imposition, disrupting her regimented and antiseptic world.
They shouldn’t have come, wouldn’t have if only her mum had been a little stronger in health. Living here these past eight months had changed them all, and not for the better. Eddie, her fourteen-year-old brother, was at school most of the time but even he had become subdued.
The imposing Victorian villa stood at the edge of a small village a few of miles from Uncle Norman’s solicitors’ practice in the busy market town of Holt, a house of great luxury compared to the shabby little houses and rooms her parents had had over the years. Living at The Beeches had made her realise that there was more to happiness and comfort than expensive furnishings and an inside lavatory.
Jessie paused. ‘Just a few minutes, Mum,’ she said, turning to face her.
‘Don’t do anything annoying, love. We mustn’t upset her.’
Her mum gave a small, hacking cough, and resumed her embroidery. Jessie watched her elegant fingers move, her needle glinting as it pierced the cream linen tablecloth. It would be one of the many her mum had worked on since they’d come to live here. She’d planned to take in dressmaking work to support her family but Iris had been aghast that Norman’s relatives could even consider bringing trade to the house. It was bad enough that they were connected to the music hall. And so, increasingly, they were trapped, fashioned to the life Norman and Iris Cole wanted for them.
Jessie had been manipulated into taking a secretarial position at Norman’s office for which she was entirely unsuited. She was suddenly overwhelmed with resentment for the way in which her mum had resigned herself to life here. But what else could they have done? Her parents’ lives had been lived on the stage, touring in shows, taking rooms when the long productions ended and her dad had been ill so many times before that it was a shock to them all when he died. She and Eddie had grown used to the periods of darkness that overcame their father – the melancholy, the drinking, the weakness in his chest that Mum explained was from the effects of the Great War. Dad’s failing health meant that he became unreliable, and bookings dwindled to nothing. In the end they shared two small rooms in a dilapidated house in the backstreets of Derby and her father gave music lessons while her mum took in sewing. They didn’t have much but they were together, and that was all that mattered.
Jessie leaned out of the window, feeling the breeze on her skin. The scent of lilac blossom warmed by the afternoon sun hung in the air and blue tits darted through the shrubs in search of a meal. Her heart ached for things to be as they once were.
When all the debts had been settled after her dad’s death, they’d been left with nothing. She wanted to be angry with him for leaving them to this silent, colourless hell but she couldn’t. She gripped at the sill. She should have kept singing, then they needn’t be here, because she’d have kept a roof over their heads, she was sure of it. Her mother had given up because she was tired, but she’d get better, and Jessie would find work she loved, they both would. She was eighteen now; she could strike out on her own. Hope stirred inside her. There must be a way to escape this miserable existence.
‘Close the window, Jessie. Please,’ her mum urged.
Jessie eased the sash down but not quite closed, and looked again at the clock. Almost four, almost time for her aunt to terminate her nap and descend on them, her pinched face certain to turn the milk sour at tea. She paced around the room. Why did everything have to be brown? The heavy drapes at the window, the walls, the floor: brown and insipid, colourless – just like her aunt, exactly like their life. Jessie walked to the rosewood piano, pulled out the stool.
‘Not yet, Jessie dear, we don’t want to disturb your aunt.’ Her mum’s voice held a hint of firmness this time, but Jessie had had enough. What was the worst that could happen? Sharp words, angry silences? It would be worth it. She lifted the lid.
‘I won’t play anything lively. A little Debussy, almost a lullaby, you know how you love it.’ She flexed her fingers, wanting to bring some light into her grieving mum’s life, and placed her fingertips gently on the keys. Four o’clock was the rule and, as the clock chimed the hour, she began to play. In moments she was transported by the music, sensing her mum’s panic fade, and the thought of Iris’s disapproval dilute and disappear. Her mum set her sewing in her lap, rested her head on the back of the chair and Jessie was gratified to see a smile play on her mum’s lips. Music was a blessing, her dad’s gift, and now hers. She closed her eyes as she played, her mood changing. What was it? Happiness? Joy? There was movement upstairs and she ignored it, wanting the music to fill her up, only stopping when she felt her mum’s hand on her arm. ‘Shh, my love.’
Iris was in the doorway, her hands pressed to her ears, a pained expression upon her long, white face, her dark hair a sharp contrast. ‘What hideous noise, Jessica. You know quite well that I have a migraine.’
Her mum’s grip on her arm tightened. Jessie’s hand covered hers; for a fleeting second, mother and daughter looked at one another. Jessie gave her aunt the sweetest smile she could muster. ‘It was after four, Aunt. I thought you’d be awake.’
‘I was awake but that’s hardly the point.’ With a final squeeze of Jessie’s arm, her mum hurried to Iris’s side. It was in that moment that Jessie saw the lengths her mum was willing to go to keep the peace, if it gave security to her family.
‘Could I get you a glass of water, Iris? Would that help? You might be dehydrated,’ her mum whispered, and Jessie’s throat thickened to see her mum so submissive to this woman.
Jessie closed the piano lid carefully and twisted herself around on the stool. ‘I’ll get it, Mum. You sit down.’
She slipped out of the room and returned with a glass of water, noticing that the window had been closed completely. Well, the old cow was strong enough to do that, Jessie thought, as she handed Iris the glass. Her aunt took it and sipped at the water while her mum stood in attendance. Jessie hovered close by her. Iris waved her hand as if to brush them away like specks of dirt.
‘Do sit down, Grace.’ Iris’s voice was sharp. ‘And take this nonsense away.’ She pointed at the embroidery.
Jessie caught the look of pain on her mum’s face and clenched her fists as Grace picked up her needlework, chose another chair and, head down, continued with her delicate silk roses. Iris sipped at her water, the clock ticked, and the air became stale again. Jessie began to play imaginary piano on her thighs, finishing the tune she had been prevented from completing. Iris fixed her with a beady eye. Jessie carried on, relishing the effect her silent playing had.
‘You are too wilful by half, young lady,’ Iris snapped. Her mum looked up. ‘You may have turned the head of young Harry, but if he has any sense he won’t marry you. What sort of mine would…’ She picked at minute fibres on her brown skirt then brushed them away with the flat of her hand. ‘Any young man worth his salt wants a wife to be proud of – unless of course you’d be satisfied with a man of lesser opportunities?’ She tilted her head to one side, peering down her sharp nose at Jessie, dark eyes narrowed. It was an ill-concealed dig at her dad.
Jessie folded her arms across her chest. ‘Dad was kind and loving, and had the sweetest soul.’ She saw her mum tense.
Iris sniffed.