Mersey Girl by June Francis

Author:June Francis
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781473501317
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter Eleven

Lizzie walked past the bomb site in Ranelagh Street, pretending to be unaware of the catcalls from a couple of labourers working on the rebuilding of Lewis’s departmental store. A week or so ago the site would have been full of people and the shouts of barrow boys would have vied with the noise of buskers and people on soapboxes telling everyone that either THE END IS NIGH or they must look to the future and get the present government out. Then the police had decided that the site was becoming dangerous due to the rebuilding so it had been closed to the public.

Lizzie had been for an interview at Booth and Co. and would be starting work at the King’s Dock next week. She felt excited about the prospect. The office building looked out over the Mersey and she felt certain she would find it much more interesting there than at the insurance company. It was Alex she had to thank for the job because it was he who had suggested to Phyl that she try Booth’s after Elder Dempster’s and a couple of other companies had not had any vacancies. Apparently old man Payne had known one of the older Booths. Now she was off to do Alex a favour by spending the rest of the day in the shop whilst Phyl was in Southport.

Lizzie was walking a roundabout way to get there due to public transport being in a bit of a muddle as it was 12th July when the lodges of the Orange Order paraded. The whole family except for Billy, Nan and Sam, had left the house well before eight o’clock to march to the sound of flute, squeeze box and drum to Exchange Station to take one of the special trains to the seaside resort further up the coast towards Blackpool. In charge of all sixty lodges in this remembrance of William of Orange having beaten the forces of the deposed James II of England over two hundred and fifty years ago, was Brother W.H. Wilkes, Provincial Grand Master.

It still seemed strange to Lizzie that the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland should be remembered in this way. Her parents had never rejoiced in their Protestantism or Britishness, or been so fiercely loyal to King and country in the way the Eccles were. Even one of the Orangemen’s marching songs referred to them being ‘Sons of the Sea and British Boys’, and Maisie had informed her last night that today a message would be sent to the King, whose health was causing anxiety, assuring him of their best wishes and loyalty. She glanced up at the overcast sky and prayed the rain would hold off for the day and quickened her pace.

She came to Abercrombie Square where paint was peeling from houses that once had been the joy of rich merchants. Then she saw something which took her mind completely off the Eccleses. A couple of buses had crashed into each other and were blocking the road ahead.

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