Cover

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ellen thought she’d always live in the remote, pretty coastal village where she grew up. After all, her husband, Harry, works on a farm where he’s guaranteed a job and home for life.

But when the old landowner dies and the couple and their young children are forced from their cottage, the future is suddenly bleak. Rather than stay – and starve – in the countryside they love, Harry sets out to find a job in the factories and mills of nearby Hull, and Ellen must leave behind everything she’s ever known to follow him and build a new life for her family on the unfamiliar city streets.

The road ahead is full of hardships and challenges. But with love and determination they make the best of things, forging friendships with other newcomers and refugees; even helping them to succeed in their new surroundings.

Then tragedy threatens Ellen’s fragile happiness. How much more can she sacrifice before they find a place to call home?

Dedication

For my family with love, and for Peter as always.

PREFACE

There were some who arrived in the town hungry and weary, with muddy cracked boots and threadbare clothing, having travelled on foot from other towns that were not so industrious as this one was. Or so it was said, for many of these travellers were unable to read, and had made the journey on the basis of rumours passed on by their fellow unemployed workers that this town had work to offer in industry and commerce.

Others were loyal agricultural labourers who, not having taken heed of the uprising in the countryside a decade earlier when angry young men took fiery revenge on their masters for poor wages, stayed faithful to their employers only to be dismissed because of the falling price of grain. They too set out to find work on the hard town streets rather than sleep under hedges while they starved in the countryside they loved, which had failed them so badly.

Then there were some who had travelled from afar, from Russia, Poland and Prussia, by foot and rail and ship, to find safety, but this town was not to be their final destination; they rested in the accommodation that had been prepared for them, bathed and ate, then shouldered their bags and crossed the station concourse to board a train to Liverpool. From there they embarked on vessels that took them away to another, larger country, where, so they had heard, there were even richer opportunities.

And then there were those who washed themselves and their clothes, ate the food that was offered them, slept peacefully, gave thanks for the kindness offered in friendship and then moved on to other burgeoning northern towns, such as Leeds and Manchester, in the hope of finding friends or relatives who had made the same journey and advised them of the prospects that were attainable.