10
SHIRLEY AND FRANKIE
October 1944Tilly Brown was a seamstress by trade and still proclaimed herself a ‘tailoress’, although her clients had dropped over the years since the war began because, with material being rationed, there was not much to sew. She managed to spin out the family’s ration coupons to a maximum, even making hats and handbags from scraps. She had made her sister Dolly an overcoat out of an army blanket, although somehow the khaki shade did little for her pallor and scrawny figure. In fact, when she went shopping in it, she looked like a lone WWI soldier emerging from the trenches who had not yet been informed the war had ended six months before. Tilly’s overcoat was of bright red serge, a material of which the market seemed to have abundance, and at very reasonable pri
