With Hope and Love by Ellie Dean

Author:Ellie Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473565692
Publisher: Random House

As the train from London rattled its way towards Salisbury and her young siblings, Ivy was too tense to relax or even eat the fish paste sandwiches Andy’s mother had made for her this morning. Having never left London before she’d taken the plunge and gone to Cliffehaven in search of work, she was finding this journey a real test of her courage and strength after the dreadful two days she’d just been through.

She unfolded the piece of paper for the umpteenth time – although she knew the list by heart, she just needed to check it again. Andy, bless him, had spent ages last night carefully going through the train timetable and had written down the names of all the stations she would have to pass through. He’d even underlined the two where she’d have to change, and she’d managed to find the right platform on both occasions with the help of a friendly guard.

There was one more stop before she reached Salisbury, so she tucked the slip of paper into her jacket pocket and tried to concentrate on the difficult task ahead of her. Elsie had been three, and George had just turned five when they’d first been evacuated. The family they’d gone to then had been neglectful, feeding them nothing but beetroot sandwiches and making them sleep on mattresses in the attic, so when they’d returned to London during what became known as the phony war, Ivy’s mother had vowed to keep them with her.

However, the East End soon became the target for mass bombing during the Blitz, and she’d reluctantly sent them away again. This time, they’d really fallen on their feet, for the middle-aged couple in Salisbury wrote regularly to report on their progress, and even enclosed snapshots of them so their parents could see how well they were doing. Ivy knew that her mother had found great comfort in those small kindnesses, but, like Peggy, still found it very difficult to cope without her little ones.

Ivy stared unseeing out of the window. They weren’t so little now, for five years had passed since she and her parents had waved goodbye to them at the station with their name tags hanging on string around their necks, their brown paper parcels of clothes clutched in their small hands. The memory of those tear-streaked and bewildered baby faces had haunted her for days until that first letter had arrived from Mrs Johnson assuring the family that she and her husband would take the very best care of their precious little ones.

Ivy’s mother had sent on a couple of photographs she’d received when they’d started school, so she had a fair idea of what they looked like now, but they wouldn’t know her from Adam, she realised sadly.

The train stopped and Ivy watched disinterestedly as the passengers poured on, filling the compartments and squashing in along the corridors with their shopping bags and suitcases. She was thinking about Elsie and George and how they might have taken the news that their parents and big sister were gone.

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