Down Daisy Street by Flynn Katie

Author:Flynn, Katie [Flynn, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2010-12-22T16:00:00+00:00

PART II

Chapter Ten

February 1941

‘Kathy! Hey, Kathy, wait for me!’

It was a cold, dark February afternoon. Because of the blackout there were no streetlights to show Kathy who had shouted, but she knew her friend’s voice so well that it was no surprise when Jane pounded up beside her. Both girls were now working in a large factory making parts for guns and had just finished the day shift. Kathy’s dreams of a place at university and then a degree had come to nothing, because war had been declared back in ’39 and everything had changed, almost overnight it seemed.

Mr Bracknell and Mr Philpott had joined the army and Navy respectively, and though Mr Bracknell had kept his promise to see that part of his wages were sent home to his landlady every month, Sarah Kelling had not argued when her daughter had not returned to the high school for her final year but had got herself a job. First of all, she had gone to the Empire works in Park Street, Bootle, working as a packer, but when Jane told her that she was going up to the munitions factory in Long Lane, she had decided to go there as well. Everyone knew that such places paid high wages – as much as £3 a week – and such a sum would relieve Kathy’s mother of a good few of her worries.

But now, almost eighteen months later, she was beginning to be irked by the boredom of her work, and also, if she was honest, the attitude of the factory girls. They talked of nothing but clothes, make-up and young men, and when Kathy admitted that she was studying in the evenings so that, when the war was over, she might perhaps get some higher education, they had made it clear they considered her a prig, not one of themselves. Jane was different, of course, but it was hard to work amongst people who despised you and did not attempt to hide it.

But there were advantages, too. The money was good; she and Jane took home double what they had earned at the jam factory, but there they had been able to walk to and from their place of employment, whereas now they caught first a tram and then a bus to reach their destination. They then worked a twelve-hour shift, standing at their bench and concentrating on what they were doing, for men’s lives might depend on their work. Whenever she was tempted to chat to her neighbour or to glance around the room, Kathy remembered that somewhere a soldier might one day pull the trigger only to find his gun jamming when he needed it most. If he died it would be her fault and Kathy was determined to have no one’s death on her conscience if she could possibly help it.

Others, she knew, were not so fussy, and this was another reason for not wanting to be on particularly friendly terms with her fellow workers. A good

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