Showing results by author "Margaret Dickinson" in All Categories

In Secrets at Bletchley Park by Margaret Dickinson, two young women from very different backgrounds meet in the Second World War and are plunged into a life where security and discretion are paramount. But both have secrets of their own to hide.

Rose and Myrtle Sylvester look up to their older sister, Peggy. She is the sensible, reliable one in the household of women headed by their grandmother, Grace Booth, and their mother, Mary Sylvester. When war is declared in 1939 they must face the hardships together and huge changes in their lives are inevitable. For Rose, there is the chance to fulfil her dream of becoming a clippie on Sheffield's trams like Peggy. But for Myrtle, the studious, clever one in the family, war may shatter her ambitions.

A matter of honour. A sense of duty. A time for courage. Ruthlessly ambitious Ambrose Constantine is determined that his daughter, Annabel, shall marry into the nobility. A self-made trawler owner and fish merchant, he has only his wealth to buy his way into Society. When Annabel’s secret meetings with a young man employed at her father’s offices stop suddenly, she finds that Gilbert has mysteriously disappeared.

Hannah Francis has been forced to leave her beloved mother and the life she knows in the silk mill town of Macclesfield and is set to become an apprentice at a cotton mill in the Derbyshire dales. It is a cruel blow for such a young girl, but her three travelling companions are even younger than she is, and Hannah is determined to keep their spirits up and remain in good cheer.

For twelve-year-old Mary Ann Clark life has always been tough. The pretty daughter of a wife-beating drunk, it is no surprise that she has grown up afraid of her own shadow. That is until 'Battling Bessie Ruddick' takes the young girl under her wing and into the heart of her bustling family. Growing into an attractive young woman, Mary Ann yearns to be loved and when her affection for Bessie's son, Dan, is finally returned and she becomes a skipper's wife.

Abandoned outside an orphanage as a newborn baby, spirited Maddie March has had to fight her way through life. So when she finds a home at Few Farm with Frank Brackenbury and his household, she welcomes the chance for a fresh start. Work on the farm is hard, but believing herself truly loved for the first time in her young life by the farmer's son, Michael, even the animosity of the housekeeper Mrs Trowbridge cannot mar Maddie's newfound happiness.

Thwarted in her desire to become a doctor like her brother, Robert, Pips Maitland rebels against her mother's wishes that she settle down and raise children. However, when Robert brings home a friend from medical school, Giles Kendall, it seems perhaps Pips might fall in love with an acceptable suitor after all. But the year is 1914, and the future is uncertain. Hearing that her father's friend, Dr John Hazelwood, is forming a flying ambulance corps to take to the front lines, Pips is determined to become one of its nurses and asks Alice Dawson, her maid, to go with her.

Charlotte is an only child, reared by a brutal father who cannot forgive her for not being the son he desires. Loved by most that she meets, Charlotte has a gift for friendship, and it is her work as a Sunday school teacher that gives her hope - and an escape from home. When Charlotte meets Miles Thornton, she is instantly drawn to him. He is new to the area and a widower, with three lovely young sons to look after, but the one thing he has longed for is a daughter.

Kathy Burton longs to escape the drudgery of her life as an unpaid labourer on her father's farm. With only the local church choir and the occasional dance at the village hall for amusement, she yearns for the bright lights. Spurning Morry Robinson's proposal of marriage, Kathy goes to live in the city with his aunt, Jemima Robinson. In turn, she finds employment for Kathy in a department store, but is anxious when Kathy is captivated by the sophisticated and handsome floor manager, Tony Kendall.

For Eveleen Hardcastle life gets no better than growing up on Pear Tree Farm in the Lincolnshire countryside. Her family works hard for the Dunsmore estate and Eveleen finds it impossible to resist the charms of their employer's son, Stephen Dunsmore. But Jimmy, ever quick to antagonize, ensures that his sister's clandestine trysts do not remain so for long. Mary Hardcastle reacts to the news of her daughter's affair with a shocking ferocity, which seems to be borm more of bitterness than maternal protectiveness.

It's 1919 in Ashford-in-the-Water, Derbyshire. The Ryan family are adjusting to life in the aftermath of the First World War. Walter has returned home a broken man, and so it falls to his son, Josh, and daughter, Emily, to do their best to keep their family business as the village candle makers going. Josh and Emily are great friends with Thomas 'Trip' Trippet, whose father owns a cutlery manufacturing company in Sheffield, and Amy Clark, daughter of the local blacksmith.

A young girl stands alone in the cobbled market place of a small Lincolnshire town, bedraggled, soaked through and very afraid. Who is she? Where has she come from and from whom is she running away? No one knows or cares. Only kindly farmer, Eddie Appleyard, recognises something in the girl that touches his heart. In a drunken haze and scarcely realising what he is doing, Eddie takes her home even though his wife is a tyrant, who will believe the worst.

There are some things which even the closest friendship cannot survive.... Neighbours Edie Kelsey and Lil Horton have been friends for more than twenty years, sharing the joys and sorrows of tough lives as the wives of fishermen in Grimsby. So it was no surprise that their children were close and that Edie's son, Frank, and Lil's daughter, Irene, would fall in love and marry at a young age. But the declaration of war in 1939 changes everything.

It is the early 1920s, and the Maitland family are still coming to terms with the aftermath of the Great War. After her brave work as an ambulance driver and nurse close to the Front, Pips is restless and without purpose. Determined to enjoy life after the years of misery, and to help her forget a broken love affair, she seeks excitement in the London parties and balls of the Roaring '20s. No family or community escaped the ravages of this war, and Pips knows her own has its share of troubles.

Fleur Bosley didn't believe in love at first sight, at least not until she bumped into Robbie Rodwell on a railway station in the blackout of wartime Britain. Posted to a newly built Lincolnshire airfield, Robbie as a wireless operator on bombers and Fleur as an R/T operator in the watch office, their only escape is to the little cottage in the nearby village where Fleur is billeted with another WAAF, Ruth. The two girls become good friends, but Ruth, already hurt by the loss of one of the pilots, does not approve of wartime romances.

It is 1910 in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Fourteen-year-old Rosie Waterhouse lives with her father, Sam, well-known as the local poacher, in a cottage on the Thornsby Estate. The land is owned by William Ramsey, a harsh and heartless man, determined his only son, Byron, should marry well and produce an heir. Rosie is quick to learn the tricks of her father’s trade and it’s when she’s poaching fish from the estate’s stream that she meets Byron.

Is it possible for a 10-year-old girl to fall in love? Jenny Mercer thinks so. Evacuated to Lincolnshire from the East End of London at the outbreak of war, she is frightened of the wide-open spaces and the huge skies. But the kindly Thornton family soon makes her feel welcome. And no one more so than Georgie, the handsome RAF fighter pilot who is caught up in the battle for Britain's survival. When Georgie is posted missing, presumed dead, Jenny is devastated.

Polly Longden's china-doll looks belie a strong and fiery personality. When typhoid strikes her home city of Lincoln, she needs every ounce of that strength in order to cope. With the death of her mother, thirteen-year-old Polly has to give up her ambition of becoming a teacher to care for her family. When their father, too, falls victim to the typhoid, his only hope is to go to hospital, leaving Polly to cope alone. Thankfully she has the support of her neighbours: Bertha Halliday and her son, Leo, a young policeman.

Family and friendship mean everything under the darkening skies of wartime Britain, by Sunday Times best-selling author Margaret Dickinson. It is the 1930s, and the Maitland family have spent the years following the Great War struggling to come to terms with its catastrophic aftermath, and their hopes now lie with the next generation. Their Lincolnshire village of Doddington suffered terrible loss and it has taken great courage for the bereaved families to rebuild their lives without their loved ones.

Sheffield, 1892. Patrick Halliday rules his family with a rod of iron. He’s hard on both his wife and his elder daughter, Flora, but he spoils his youngest, Mary Ellen, because she reminds him of his beloved mother. When Mary Ellen, aged seventeen, finds that she is pregnant, Patrick throws her out of the family home and Flora goes with her. After wandering the Derbyshire countryside for miles, they find shelter on a farm, working for their keep. When Flora must return to her job as a buffer girl in Sheffield’s cutlery trade, she is reunited with her friend, Evelyn Bonsor.