Peggy was just putting the finishing touches to her make-up when she heard the knock on the door. Everyone else was still upstairs getting ready, so, with a cluck of annoyance, she went to find out who on earth it was.

The sight of the telegraph boy standing there with a brown envelope in his hand sent a wash of cold dread through her. This was the moment she’d feared all through the war – for telegrams rarely brought good news.

Her heart skipped a beat and began to thunder and her hand was trembling as she took it from him and closed the door. She stumbled over to the chair, feeling unsteady and faint, and had to pause for a moment to recover before she was able to tear it open and read the few stark words which shattered all her hopes and brought a cry of anguish.

New orders * not home for Christmas * letter to follow * Jim

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MEET THE CLIFFEHAVEN FAMILY

PEGGY REILLY is in her early forties, and married to Jim. She is small and slender, with dark, curly hair and lively brown eyes. As if running a busy household and caring for her young daughter wasn’t enough, she also runs the local uniform factory and still finds time to offer tea, sympathy and a shoulder to cry on when they’re needed. She and Jim took over the running of Beach View Boarding House when Peggy’s parents retired. When war was declared and the boarding house business no longer became viable, she decided to take in evacuees.

Peggy can be feisty and certainly doesn’t suffer fools, and yet she is also trying very hard to come to terms with the fact that her family has been torn apart by the war. She is a romantic at heart and can’t help trying to match-make, but she’s also a terrible worrier, always fretting over someone – and as the evacuees make their home with her, she comes to regard them as her chicks and will do everything she can to protect them.

JIM REILLY is in his mid-forties and was a young Engineer in the last days of the First War, where he served alongside his elder brother, Frank, and father Ron. Now he’s fighting for King and country in India and Burma.

Jim is handsome, with flashing blue eyes and dark hair, and the gift of the Irish blarney he’d inherited from his Irish parents; which usually gets him out of trouble. He enjoys the camaraderie of being a soldier, but the conditions and dangers he’s encountering in the jungles have somewhat dampened his enthusiasm, and he treasures the letters and cards from home.