31
January 1946, London
At a coveted window table in the Lyons’ Corner House in Coventry Street, near Piccadilly Circus, Evie was sitting with Jasmine and Hugh, surrounded by carrier bags full of school uniforms. She was exhausted. Remembering Mary Helston’s assertion that England was always cold and gloomy, Evie had to admit her friend was right. Today had been draining, trailing from shop to shop, an increasingly tetchy Hugh dragging his feet, while Jasmine tried not to show her boredom with the whole business. London was grim, foggy, and still bearing the scars of the Blitz, gaps in rows of buildings like missing teeth, bomb sites everywhere. Getting the school uniforms had been a trial – to get each child kitted out had necessitated visits to several different stores as rationing mea
