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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Coronation Street is an ITV Studios Production
Copyright © ITV Ventures Limited 2018
Cover design by Cliff Webb © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019.
Cover photograph © Stephen Searle/Alamy Stock Photo (Coronation Street); 2ebill/Alamy Stock Photo (children on front cover); © Topfoto.co.uk (women and children on back cover).
Jean Alexander / Hilda Ogden archive photograph © ITV / Rex / Shutterstock
Maggie Sullivan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008354756
Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008255190
Version: 2019-10-09
To my wonderful nieces Avril and Masha
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Jean Alexander – would the real Hilda Ogden stand up please?
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Maggie Sullivan
About the Publisher
Weatherfield, January 1945
Hilda Ogden blew the dust off the photograph frame.
‘My Stan,’ she sighed. She pursed her lips in the direction of his cheek only drawing back when they touched the cold glass. ‘Come home soon, chuck,’ she whispered as she placed it back on the tiled mantelpiece. ‘The bed’s cold without you.’ But she had no time to dwell on her prisoner-of-war husband right now. While he remained stuck in Italy there wasn’t much he could do to help her, but here at home it was Monday morning, the start of a new working week, time for Hilda to brave the spell of wintry weather that had suddenly hit Weatherfield, and hope that the thin dusting of snow that had already stuck to the wet cobbles overnight wouldn’t seep through the canvas of her shoes. It was time for her to venture out to find a new job.
‘We won’t be needing all our workers now, so it’ll be last in first out,’ Al Martin the supervisor at Earnshaw’s munitions factory had said last Friday when he’d handed over her wages, her notice, and a few additional hours’ pay for some extra time she’d put in. ‘Consider yourself lucky the boss was feeling generous enough to give you a few bob besides.’ Hilda had looked down at the added coins, wondering what she might be able to treat herself to from the corner shop on the way home.
Al was one of the growing number who were convinced the war was going to end very soon now since the Home Guard had been disbanded in December and the Civil Defence was gradually being stood down and Hilda could only hope he was right. The occasional unmanned rockets were still falling in the south but things in Weatherfield had been quiet regarding bombs and sirens for several weeks now and rumour had it that it would all be over in a few months. Not that it would make it any easier for her to find a new job if all the soldiers came rushing home, but Hilda was willing to take on the kind of jobs that most men would avoid, like doing a spot of cleaning, especially if the money was put directly into her hands, no strings attached. She had shrugged as she turned to leave the office, humming in her usual tuneless way.
She’d wondered about trying for a job at the pub in Coronation Street, The Rovers Return, as it was not far from Charles Street where she and Stan were renting rooms; well, she was renting the rooms – Stan had never even seen them, of course. She’d had the occasional drink in the Rovers, met a few of the locals, but she wasn’t sure about working with the stuck-up landlady, Annie Walker. The Tripe Dresser’s Arms, on the other hand, around the corner from the Rovers, was more Hilda’s style with its bare brickwork, sawdust sprinkled on the stone floors, and its rough-and-ready customers. It had been closed for a while but Hilda had heard it would be opening again soon with new landlords. According to one of Hilda’s friends, they were doing it up and would be needing staff, so she should get down there quick.
Hilda pulled her well-worn coat round her skinny frame and shivered, watching through the windows as further flurries of snowflakes settled on the slushy paving stones. She knew the thin, unlined material wouldn’t provide much protection against the chilling wind but it was all she’d managed to find in the Red Cross charity shop this winter and she hoped her thin-soled shoes wouldn’t send her slip-sliding across the shiny cobbles. She shook her tightly wound curls free from the curlers she’d wrapped them in overnight and covered them with a headscarf that she tied under her chin. Checking her reflection in the wide oval mirror over the empty fireplace, she pulled up her coat collar and, with a hopeful smile, set off in search of work.
Lizzie Doyle looked down at the piece of paper in her