Love and the LAND GIRL

Tyneside, spring 1941

‘Are you all right, my dear?’ Uncle Charles was standing at her desk before Sarah even realised he was in the office. ‘You look exhausted.’

She smiled wearily. ‘I haven’t been able to sleep properly since the other night…’

Uncle Charles nodded. ‘Maybe they’ve done their worst, maybe they’ll take their aeroplanes somewhere else. Let’s hope so, anyway. They were going for the shipyards more than likely…’

And missed. Hitting houses and civilians. It was so shocking that, even now, Sarah couldn’t believe what had happened.

‘Won’t they keep coming back till they do hit the shipyards? I just lie awake waiting for it all to happen again. I don’t know how people stand it.’

‘My dear girl, I know it’s hard, but it doesn’t do to dwell. We must all try to carry on.’ Uncle Charles was talking to her as if she was a child needing to be soothed and, though she’d just had her 21st birthday, she felt like one.

And it wasn’t just the air raid, or the war, which she understood the need for, no matter how terrible it was. No – it was the simmering warfare in her own home. It seemed to be so much worse at the moment. She’d been aware of the tension between her parents on and off over the years, had assumed all parents behaved like that and had learned to ignore it. But even so, it