HarperElement
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First published by HarperElement 2015
© Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover photographs (not representations of the women portrayed herein) © George W. Hales/Getty Images (WAAF officer); The Everett Collection/Mary Evans Picture Library (military officer); IWM Collection (WRNS officer); London Fire Brigade/Mary Evans Picture Library (background)
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Source ISBN: 9780007501229
Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007517565
Version: 2015-03-17
Contents
If you like this, you’ll love …
Although thousands of girls up and down the country were joining up for the fight against Germany, not many of them could claim to have actually seen Hitler in person. But Kathleen Skin, a 19-year-old nanny from Cambridgeshire, was something of a rarity. In August 1939, she was staying at a hotel in Cologne when it was visited by some very high-profile guests.
Kathleen was on her way to a church summer camp in Denmark, and was staying in one of the hotel’s cheapest rooms, up by the servants’ quarters in the attic. One evening as she was returning to her room, a housemaid came up to her and whispered, ‘Do you want to see the Führer?’
‘What, here?’ Kathleen replied, astonished.
‘Yes,’ the girl said, excitedly. ‘He comes tonight for dinner. You can look from up here, but do not let anyone see you.’
‘All right,’ Kathleen said, taking up a good viewing position at the top of the stairs. She was eager to catch a glimpse of the man whose name was on the lips of everyone in Europe.
Peering down the stairwell, Kathleen watched as a little man in uniform strode into the hotel, accompanied by a large entourage. A quick glimpse of his famous toothbrush moustache was enough to convince her that it really was Hitler. It was strange to think that such a small, unimpressive-looking person could be holding the whole world to ransom.
After a couple of moments, the official party was whisked into the dining room. Kathleen crept back to her bedroom, pleased that she would be able to go home and tell her family that she’d actually seen the German chancellor.
Since childhood, Kathleen had always been gripped by a lust for travel. She had learned to read at an early age, and had devoured Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, dreaming of one day visiting such exotic lands herself. She loved nothing more than listening to her father tell stories about his adventures in India when he was a young man in the Army, or her mother’s tales of growing up in South Africa, where her Danish grandparents had moved during the gold rush.
Kathleen’s parents had met when William Skin was on his way back to Britain to be demobbed. While he was passing through Cape Town, a naval revolt had broken out, and he and his fellow soldiers had found themselves ordered to disembark and take over, until replacement sailors were sent out by the Navy. While he was there he had joined the local glee club and been enchanted by the red hair and green eyes of the lovely Amelia. He had promised to return and marry her as soon as he left the Army, but their romantic plans were scuppered by the outbreak of the First World War. Mr Skin was one of the first to be sent over to France, where his trench was so badly shelled that the stretcher-bearers left him for dead. It was only when a burial party came around to collect the dead bodies that they realised he was still alive and rushed him to hospital.
In time, Mr Skin had recovered sufficiently to be able to walk again, but the muscles and tendons in one leg were so badly damaged that he was left with a strange lolloping gait. He had lost the sight in one eye and his hearing had been affected too. He was convinced