‘Let’s go in this café here for a cuppa, eh?’ said Ivy, hoping to lighten the mood. ‘All this shoppin’ is thirsty work.’ She grabbed Holly’s elbow and hauled her into the first café they came to.

The next day dawned bright and clear if cold and after dinner Ivy suggested, ‘Let’s go for a stroll in Hyde Park. A bit o’ fresh air will do us good.’

Holly had seemed very preoccupied since her mother had gone back to the Midlands, and even the shopping trip hadn’t helped. Ivy hoped that a walk in the park, surrounded by beauty, might cheer her up a little.

When they got there, they were surprised to find that many women were milling about bearing placards, which said ‘Votes for Women’.

‘These must be them suffragettes they’re always on about in the newspapers,’ Ivy said intrigued. ‘Look.’ She pointed ahead to where one woman was standing on a raised platform addressing a crowd. ‘Let’s go an’ listen to what she has to say.’

Holly wasn’t too sure about it but Ivy wasn’t taking no for an answer so she followed her to where a large crowd of women had assembled to listen to the speaker. They had been there no more than a few minutes when suddenly a large number of policemen with truncheons appeared from nowhere and all hell seemed to break out as they tried to disperse the crowd. Women began to scream as the police manhandled them and now it was Holly who urged, ‘Come on, I think we should get out of here, there’s going to be big trouble.’

Some of the women clearly had the same idea but others were openly fighting the police and screaming abuse at them.

By the time they reached the road again and began to hurriedly walk along it, Holly’s nerves were in shreds but Ivy was buzzing with excitement and indignation.

‘Can’t see what the women were doin’ wrong!’ she said. ‘It were a peaceful enough talk so why did the coppers have to come an’ interfere! From what I heard that woman was talkin’ a lot o’ sense. Why shouldn’t we women be allowed to vote an’ have the same rights as men?’

Holly shrugged. She hated trouble of any sort and had no intention of getting mixed up in it but Ivy was well and truly riled.

‘I shall be comin’ again to hear what the women have to say,’ she declared as they hurried home arm in arm, and Holly had no doubt she would. She, on the other hand, was eager to pursue her Red Cross training and intended to do something about it that very week now that they were settled. She would make her mother, even her grandfather, proud.

Chapter Nine

‘I’ve enrolled at the University College Hospital on Florence Nightingale’s Red Cross course,’ Holly excitedly told Ivy later that week when they had both finished work.