Katie King - The Evacuee Summer - Heart-warming historical fiction, perfect for summer reading

Milburn neighed loudly in reply, her belly quivering, making Roger jump visibly for the second time in only a minute or two.

The children tried not to laugh too conspicuously, while Mabel allowed herself a broad grin.

They all knew already who the boss was, and it certainly wasn’t Roger.

Chapter Three

Several streets away, Peggy was making heavy weather of heaving the battered old perambulator she shared with Gracie back towards Tall Trees, despite it being such a lovely day and the sunlight showing the golden tones in Peggy’s shiny hair to best effect. Her green-sprigged cotton summer dress felt looser than it had even a few days before but Peggy barely noticed, although once upon a time she had been very proud of her trim figure, her tiny waist being the envy of sister, Barbara.

While Peggy had slimmed right down since her pregnancy, baby Holly, now a lively five and a half months, had at last almost caught up with other babies of her age, despite being born two months early. Now, as Peggy pushed her through the sun-dappled shade of the tree-lined street, Holly was cheerfully kicking her crocheted blanket away from her now plumply dimpled legs.

Peggy had been helping out at June Blenkinsop’s teashop, as she did most days. She and June had been talking only that morning about the rapid increase in customers now that the toasted teacakes and pots of tea that June had been serving in a colourful array of delicate china teapots had just about totally given way, due in no small part to Peggy’s staunch encouragement, to a menu of simple but filling hot meals of the meat-and-two-veg variety, and tea served in small metal utilitarian teapots to workers from six in the morning until gone ten at night. Such was the demand from people who were often juggling paid shift work alongside voluntary but nonetheless crucial war roles, that June’s business was thriving. As if to prove the saying that every cloud has a silver lining, the outbreak of war had turned June’s café into a rapidly expanding business, with a growing rota of cooks and Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) helpers, that meant it was going from strength to strength.

And now it looked as if the business could expand even further as Peggy was in midst of looking into setting up at least one, although ideally two, mobile canteens that could be driven from place to place. After nearly nine months of almost no bombs dropping over England since the war had begun, the newspapers were increasingly claiming the long-expected German aerial offensive must at last be drawing near, and so if the anticipated bombs were about to rain down on them all then mobile canteens would be a godsend in fortifying those who had to deal with the aftermath of such terrible events, and this had got Peggy pondering.

‘June, I’ve thought more about the mobile canteens as you wanted, and I think we could make it work. I’ve totted up some rough figures, we could use the café’s kitchen for the prep and we’d need to sort some metal mugs and plates, but I think we’d get these through the NAAFI suppliers. I think we’d get an old vehicle donated from somewhere like the railways. James…’ Peggy had said to her friend earlier as they sat at a table with cups of tea during a swift twenty minutes after the morning rush and before lunchtime really got going. ‘Yes, you can take that look off your face! James said that if we got a van or something bigger, he thought some of the recuperating men at the hospital could help convert it to a canteen.’

June ignored Peggy’s mention of the handsome young doctor at the new field hospital as she said that, actually for the plates and the vehicle and so forth, it might be sensible if she had a word with the people at the authorities she’d be dealing with over expanding her business. ‘They’ll maybe have a stock of old vehicles set aside that they’ve requisitioned for this sort of thing,’ June added, ‘and I think too, if we get this off the ground, then the WVS and maybe the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) will step in with volunteers.’

‘I was talking about it the other day and Gracie said she was keen to be involved, especially if she can drive the canteen,’ Peggy mentioned.

June and Peggy thought a little further on what Peggy had just said, before they shared a raised-eyebrow look even though they were both very fond of Gracie, a young single mother who also lodged at Tall Trees along with baby Jack, after which Peggy added, ‘Seeing how Gracie rattles that pram around with poor Jack inside, we’d definitely better have metal plates and mugs if she’s going to be driving.’

Peggy and June talked through a few potentially profitable fundraising ideas and the discussion had ended with June suggesting that Peggy might like to consider going into a formal arrangement with June as regards the café. This would mean that rather than Peggy simply manning the café’s till as she did at present, perhaps the two women could arrange something as bold as a proper partnership, with legal papers drawn up as to each woman’s responsibility. June had even gone as far as suggesting they rename the business, with ‘Blenkinsop and Delbert’ being the obvious choice.

Peggy had been so taken aback at June’s generous offer that she hadn’t known what to say, and had been left gawping with her mouth open and closed like a fish. The offer also implied that Peggy would be in Harrogate for some time to come, and while she understood this in the intellectual sense, in practical terms she always felt as if it wouldn’t be long until she and Holly and the twins were back in the crammed streets of south-east London that were so close to her heart, and she could go to see Barbara for a pep talk whenever she was feeling a bit down, which had sometimes happened since Holly’s arrival.

When, after a while, Peggy still hadn’t said anything, June had had to suggest that Peggy think about it for a while and then they could talk about it again when she didn’t feel to be quite so much on the back foot.

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, Peggy,’ June added as she stood up and adjusted her apron ready to go back to the café’s kitchen, ‘but you don’t seem quite yourself today…’

June Blenkinsop had hit the nail on the head. Peggy absolutely wasn’t herself. No, not at all. The partnership discussion with June had been very flattering, naturally, and it had given Peggy a lot to mull over as she had never thought of herself as any sort of businesswoman. But she’d been a schoolteacher in Bermondsey for nearly a decade and so it was hard for her to think of herself as anything else.

Not that Peggy could do much thinking on what June had said just at the moment, as the truth of it was that she had too much else to worry about.

Normally, when Peggy pushed her daughter along, she felt consumed with love for her, as well as a very, very lucky mother indeed. Every few paces she would look down at Holly and make a funny face or say her name, and then the two would smile gaily at each other. Holly’s unexpected arrival on a snowy Christmas Eve had been traumatic to say the least, and indeed it was only the quick thinking of the children at Tall Trees that had saved both Peggy and Holly’s lives. Over a month in hospital under the watchful eye of the wonderfully sympathetic young doctor, James Legard, had meant that Peggy left the hospital feeling recovered and much stronger than she had felt when she had gone in, and with an always peckish although still tiny baby in her arms. But this was understandable as Holly had arrived dangerously early.

Not a day went by when Peggy didn’t remember what a very close call it had turned out to be for both of them, or the many ways in which she would be forever grateful to all concerned. Connie and Jessie, her niece and nephew, had been wonderful, and Peggy felt she might not be around today if they, and their friends, hadn’t acted so quickly and in such a grown-up way when they found her collapsed.