Daughters of Liverpool. Annie Groves

comment. ‘Katie says there’s been a fire in Hatton Gardens.’

      Hatton Gardens being the headquarters of the Salvage Corps, Sam was naturally concerned to learn more.

      ‘I don’t have any details,’ Katie apologised. ‘It’s just what I heard. The law courts caught it as well.’

      She had also heard that both Mill Road Hospital and the Royal had been hit, but she didn’t want to say so, knowing how anxious it would make Jean on her daughter Grace’s behalf, since Grace had probably been on duty.

      ‘If they were going for the docks, let’s hope that Derby House wasn’t hit. That’s where Grace’s Seb works,’ Jean told Katie. ‘You look fit to drop, love,’ she added. ‘I’m going to have an hour in bed myself before church so why don’t you go up and get some sleep too?’

      ‘I think I will,’ Katie agreed.

      ‘Liverpool was bombed so badly last night I feel we ought to offer our services to those WVS groups in the city who might need some extra pairs of hands.’

      Bella yawned, and then shivered. It was cold standing here outside the church, even though she was wearing her new winter coat, with its fur collar, and a matching fur hat. The coat was honey-coloured, with a nipped-in waist and a flared panelled skirt, and Bella knew that it suited her. The congregation at St Mark’s always dressed smartly, with the ladies discreetly vying with one another when it came to elegance and new hats. But then, as Bella’s mother was fond of saying, the congregation of St Mark’s did come from the best addresses in the area, and St Mark’s itself was very definitely High Church, with a locally renowned choir and a long waiting list of ladies willing to ‘do the church flowers’.

      Bella would have avoided being collared by the leader of her mother’s WVS group, and slipped inside the church with her father before the woman had spotted them, but her mother had had other ideas.

      Bella watched as members of the congregation continued to arrive: families with children dressed in Harris tweed coats and highly polished shoes, the girls’ hair in plaits and the boys’ slicked back, the mothers in good but sensible rather than stylish coats, and the fathers hurrying to catch up, having had to park their cars.

      Bored and irritated, Bella yawned again. For one thing she had hardly had any sleep at all last night because of having to go into her dreary neighbour’s air-raid shelter, and for another, her mother had told her that her father had refused to increase her allowance.

      How on earth was she supposed to manage? Her clothes were virtually in rags – not that there was much to buy anyway, but she couldn’t appear at any of the Tennis Club’s dances in last year’s frock. She had a certain position to maintain, after all.

      She had told her mother this, of course, but instead of being sympathetic, her mother had actually asked her if she thought it was a good idea to go dancing when she was so very newly widowed.