Welcome Home (48 page)

More heartbreak is to come when Jenny’s mother Dot decides that she wants her daughter home and Jenny is forced to come back to live in the city which is now under almost daily attack from
enemy bombers. Dot’s ‘fancy man’, Arthur Osborne, treats Jenny kindly. But is Arthur only interested in the girl because she can be useful to him? No one will suspect a
ten-year-old girl of being involved with the Black Market . . .

When the law comes a little too close for Arthur’s comfort, the family flees the city and head towards the hills and dales of Derbyshire. There, Jenny is caught up in a life of deception.
All she really wants is to go back to Lincolnshire. For Jenny has never given up hope that one day, Georgie will come back . . .

ISBN 978-0-330-54430-6

Sisters in love. A family at war. A city in peril.

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.

When the tram on which Peggy is a conductress is caught in a bomb blast, she bravely helps to rescue her passengers. One of them is a young soldier, Terry Price, and he and Peggy begin courting.
They meet every time he can get leave, but eventually Terry is posted abroad and she hears nothing from him. Worse still, Peggy must break the devastating news to her family that she is
pregnant.

The shock waves that ripple through the family will affect each and every one of them and life will never be the same again.

ISBN 978-0-330-54431-3

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. Heartbroken, she finds solace
with her grandparents on their Lincolnshire farm, but her father will not allow her to bury herself in the countryside and enlists the help of a business connection to launch his daughter into
Society.

During the London Season, Annabel is courted by James Lyndon, the Earl of Fairfield, whose country estate is only a few miles from her grandfather’s farm. Believing herself truly loved at
last, Annabel accepts his offer of marriage. It is only when she arrives at Fairfield Hall that she realizes the true reason behind James’s proposal and the part her scheming father has
played.

Through the years that follow, Annabel will know both heartache and joy, but the birth of her son should secure the future of the Fairfield Estate. Yet there are others who lay claim to the
inheritance in a feud that will not be resolved until the trenches of a bitter world war.

ISBN 978-1-4472-3724-2

A
LSO BY
M
ARGARET
D
ICKINSON

Plough the Furrow

Sow the Seed

Reap the Harvest

The Miller’s Daughter

Chaff upon the Wind

The Fisher Lass

The Tulip Girl

The River Folk

Tangled Threads

Twisted Strands

Red Sky in the Morning

Without Sin

Pauper’s Gold

Wish Me Luck

Sing As We Go

Suffragette Girl

Sons and Daughters

Forgive and Forget

Jenny’s War

The Clippie Girls

Fairfield Hall

Many sources have been used for information for this novel but I would like to pay tribute to the wonderful book,
The Secret Ministry of Ag. & Fish
by Noreen Riols
(Macmillan) and also to acknowledge use of the newspapers of the day, particularly the
Grimsby Telegraph
and its
Bygones
publications.

My special thanks to the staff of the North East Lincolnshire Local History Library in Grimsby Central Library – Jennie Mooney, Debbie Grundy, Tracey Townsend and Simon Balderson –
who so kindly helped me with my research. Also my grateful thanks to Vanessa Dumbleton and to Carol and Garry Sidney for their interest and help. And, as always, my sincere thanks to the staff at
Skegness Library for their continuing support.

My love and thanks to my family and friends for their constant encouragement, especially those who read the script in the early stages; David Dickinson, Fred Hill, Pauline Griggs and Scott
Heath. And never forgetting my wonderful agent, Darley Anderson, and his team, and my editor, Trisha Jackson, and all the team at Pan Macmillan.

First published 2015 by Macmillan

This electronic edition published 2015 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-4472-3727-3

Copyright © Margaret Dickinson 2015

Design ©
www.blacksheep-uk.com
Figure ©
www.colinthomas.co.uk
Street scene © Getty Images
Bunting © Shutterstock

The right of Margaret Dickinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third party websites referred to in or on this book.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit
www.panmacmillan.com
to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews
and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.