Allie Burns: The Lido Girls

Welcome to St Darlstone!

It’s the summer of 1935 and holidaymakers are flocking to St Darlstone’s magnificent lido on the British coast!

With little hope of finding a husband, no-nonsense Natalie lives for teaching, until she finds herself out of a job courtesy of her best friend Delphi. But if she can bring her rigorous physical fitness programme to the people of St Darlstone, maybe there’s a chance she can start again?

So Natalie takes on the Lido Girls. With Delphi’s handsome brother, Jack, on the scene, and Delphi’s desperate struggle to defy her overbearing parents and follow her dreams, Natalie must find the courage to face up to her own fears, and realise what she truly wants in life…

The Lido Girls

Allie Burns

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Contents

Cover

Blurb Welcome to St Darlstone! It’s the summer of 1935 and holidaymakers are flocking to St Darlstone’s magnificent lido on the British coast! With little hope of finding a husband, no-nonsense Natalie lives for teaching, until she finds herself out of a job courtesy of her best friend Delphi. But if she can bring her rigorous physical fitness programme to the people of St Darlstone, maybe there’s a chance she can start again? So Natalie takes on the Lido Girls. With Delphi’s handsome brother, Jack, on the scene, and Delphi’s desperate struggle to defy her overbearing parents and follow her dreams, Natalie must find the courage to face up to her own fears, and realise what she truly wants in life…

Title Page The Lido Girls Allie Burns ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Author Bio ALLIE BURNS grew up by the seaside and now lives in Kent with her husband and two children. The Lido Girls is her first novel. For photos and research that inspired the story go to Pinterest @Allie_Burns1. To find out about upcoming projects visit www.allie-burns.com or follow her on Twitter @Allie_Burns1.

Dedication To Alan Ashwell

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Reader Questions

Copyright

ALLIE BURNS

grew up by the seaside and now lives in Kent with her husband and two children. The Lido Girls is her first novel.

For photos and research that inspired the story go to Pinterest @Allie_Burns1. To find out about upcoming projects visit www.allie-burns.comor follow her on Twitter @Allie_Burns1.

To Alan Ashwell

Chapter One

The naughty boy

After gambolling to the edge of the board, the diver bounces from it in a seated position, using her behind to propel her into the air.

Natalie turned the key in her bedroom door, once for the latch, twice for the deadbolt. She tugged at the depressed handle, and only when the door was clearly locked tight did she drop to her knees and pull out a package from beneath her narrow bed.

Inside the cardboard box, cradled in crinkly tissue paper, was a white V-necked blouse adorned with the black silhouette of a lady mid leap, and beneath it a pair of black satin shorts. The uniform of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty. This morning’s special delivery.

She held the shorts in front of her. Gosh, there’s nothing of them, but… She smoothed her fingertips across the fabric and in one swift movement she was standing and unfastening the buttons on the shoulder of her gymslip. Her navy pleated one-piece, a uniform she wore every day, made her who she was and had done for more than ten years as both student, teacher and now Vice Principal. She couldn’t help but see her gymslip as a relic of the past compared to these glossy upstarts, harbingers of a new era, masquerading as a pair of shorts.

Is that what she was becoming herself: a relic?

The curtains! Before undressing any further, she reached across her bed to pull them shut and as she did she saw Margaret Wilkins cutting through the fir trees at the edge of the empty playing field. She had a book under her arm. Now there was a young lady who wasn’t living in the past.

In Natalie’s many years of physical training she’d not yet come across a young lady so dedicated to following her own fancies, wherever they may take her. Margaret Wilkins was a dreamer who thought nothing of skipping anatomy class because it was irrelevant, in her eyes, choosing instead to sit by the river and read a good romance novel. She was a girl who obfuscated her sporting talent with devilry.

But it wouldn’t end well. The college didn’t reward individuality; the system didn’t want change. You either met the expected standard or you were sent packing, and when it happened to Margaret Wilkins, which seemed more and more likely, Natalie feared that she wouldn’t be able to save her.

Natalie considered the gymslip hanging around her waist. She was one to talk about breaking the rules. She should be in her office dictating her weekly letters to parents. But how could she be expected to concentrate on her work when the insistent call of that package had been whispering, no yelling, to her from under her bed since it had been delivered that morning? You’d better be quick then, before someone notices you’re gone.

In the muted daylight she let the heavy tunic drop to her ankles, peeled off her thick woollen stockings, slipped on the blouse and then stepped, barefoot, into the shorts.

She splayed her hands over her exposed legs, redeployed her fingertips to read the zigzagged Braille of the elasticated seams that pinched against the tops of her thighs. Then she twisted her torso to get a good view of the shorts across her behind. She smoothed them again and then lifted her knees to skip lightly on the spot. The fabric glided across her skin with an elegance that spread to her state of mind, her movements, and she added a light bounce at the top of each skip.

Wonderful. But not meant for the likes of her, not really. They were as likely to introduce a uniform like this here at Linshatch College of Physical Education as they were to have a beauty contest; and if she got caught wearing these clothes, well she’d be in more trouble than Margaret Wilkins.

Angling her hand mirror this way and that, she inspected her legs in the shorts. Athletic, sturdy and of course, dove white. She hadn’t embraced the new fad for sunbathing; she much preferred to be on the move.

There was a knock at the door and the hand mirror fell to the linoleum floor with a clatter, but she hadn’t the time to flip it over and see if it had survived. She dived into bed instead, eyeing the keyhole, with nowhere to hide in her room but under the bedclothes.

‘Miss Flacker, are you there?’ It was her secretary, Miss Bull. ‘Miss Lott wants to see you in her office.’

‘Very good. I’ll be there right away,’ she called back, hoping Miss Bull wouldn’t think it odd that she hadn’t opened the door to her. ‘I was just er…’ There was no explanation to be had. ‘I’ll be with Miss Lott right away.’

*

The sight of Olympia in tram-sized lettering made the hairs on Natalie’s arms stand on end. She’d seen pictures in the newspaper last year; Mosley’s British Fascist party rally had filled every inch under that hall’s giant glass roof. Now it was the turn of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty.

Tributaries of the League’s members jostled into her as they left the station in one giggling river, and were lured across the busy London street to the exhibition hall.