“This will be a Christmas to remember”
- Book: Christmas Wishes for the Railway Girls (The Railway Girls #8)
- Location: Manchester
- Author: Maisie Thomas
After initially taking the first couple of books in this series to settle me in and let me get to know this newly established group of all female, WWII railway workers, collectively known as ‘The Railway Girls’, subsequent episodes have concentrated on the ever-changing dynamics of their professional and personal relationships as the war has progressed and. Due to the ever evolving and fluid wartime situation, it was inevitable that there would be some alterations to the make up of the group, as personal circumstances meant that some of the original faces left and were replaced by a select few new members, usually only by personal recommendation.
Author Maisie Thomas, has also been keen to use each of the later stories, to focus a little more closely on two or three of the main protagonists and their wider circle of friends and family, whilst still keeping true to the original group integrity of ‘The Railway Girls’, who are very firmly women occupying space in a man’s world. So with this, episode 8 of the series, we are nearing the end of 1943 and I know that my journey through the ups and downs of the friends’ lives is probably nearing its final chapters, which, when it inevitably happens, is going to sadden me immeasurably. But Hey! let’s not too hung up on that time in the future, as it hasn’t happened yet!
This Christmas is set to be a particularly significant milestone in the intrinsically linked lives of Joan, Margaret and Alison, so let’s catch up and say Hi! to the ladies…
…
Baby Max is now almost eighteen months old and his mother Joan, one of founding members of The Railway Girls, is desperate to return to work on the railways at Manchester’s Victoria Station. Luckily for her, husband Bob is one of the kindest and most liberal minded of men, so whilst many husbands would insist that Joan should stay at home and look after their son, he is quite happy to give her the space to work out exactly what she wants to do with her life, although he does ask that she doesn’t go back to shift work. This inevitably restricts her to an administration role, not something she really wanted to do, but she aims to make the most of the opportunity to maintain her new found independence, whilst still being a devoted wife and mother.
Margaret works in the locomotive sheds, a heavy and dirty job, but one which she takes pride and satisfaction in doing well. She too, is one of the founding members of The Railway Girls Club and doesn’t know where she would be without the support and encouragement of the other ladies. On the whole the motto of the group is ‘a trouble shared is a trouble halved’ and secrets between them are not usually something to be contemplated. However, Margaret holds a secret which, if it were to become public knowledge, would not only be the undoing of all vestiges of her personal respectability in just about everyone’s eyes, but would rip apart the future happiness of one of her dearest friends. Feeling the burden too much to keep all the distress to herself though, she has confided in both Joan and Dot, who are united in their support for her stance and the maturity with which she handles the situation. Therefore, when Margaret spots the all too familiar signs of anguish and despair in Sally, one of her co-workers, she knows that she has to hold out the hand of friendship and offer her the same support that she herself had been afforded, knowing exactly what it had felt like to walk in Sally’s shoes.
Alison is besotted by and deeply in love with the handsome and well respected Doctor Joel Maitland. When he decides that now is the right time to make an honest woman of Alison, she is overjoyed and cannot wait to share the news with her fellow Railway Girls and her roommate, Margaret. A summer 1944 wedding is in the planning, when Alison is taken to one side by the railway authorities and is tasked with an important matter of national security, about which she is able to tell no one, being required to sign the official secrets act to ensure her silence. She is, on the one hand very proud to be of such great service to her country and its war efforts, but understandably disconcerted that she has to keep secrets from Joel, even before they are married. To fit in with Alison’s new schedule, the wedding also has to be brought forward, so a fast thinking bride to be, convinces Joel and the rest of The Railway Girls, that a Christmas Eve wedding would be the icing on the cake for her. However, Alison really need not have worried about keeping her secret safe from Joel, when his own shocking admissions of deceit are laid on the line for her. Alison was already aware that the man of her dreams came with something of a past history, but nothing could have prepared her for this latest stomach churning revelation, which might well have the power to not only destroy her dreams of becoming the proud Mrs Maitland, but might also find the rest of The Railway Girls having to take sides between Alison and her nemesis.
Will Alison get to walk down the aisle for her dream Christmas wedding and if she does, will all her Railway Girl friends be there to support her?
…
As always, reading an episode of The Railway Girls chronicles by author Maisie Thomas, is like bidding hello to a group of friends I haven’t met with for a while. There is always so much news to catch up with and gossip to share, and what better place to do that, than the railway cafe where the service always comes with a smile and everyone, regardless of how important or well-to-do they are, are treated equally and can feel relaxed and at ease.
The Railway Girls are a mixed group of women, from many different backgrounds and social strata, who have taken on and owned, many of the important manual and physical jobs, which the railway so desperately needs to keep filled, in order that alongside keeping normal services operating for the general travelling public, the onwards movement of supplies, troops and munitions to frontline positions, is kept running smoothly.
As ever, this thoughtfully structured storyline, is broken down into short well signposted chapters, designed for those of us for whom real life often gets in the way of our reading, which means that we have to take short breaks away from the pages. The writing sympathetically and empathetically brings into sharp relief, many of the societal mores, dyed in the wool traditions and class driven ideologies and barriers, which a lengthy, devastating and all-consuming war, has through necessity, summarily tossed aside.
The long held notion that ‘a married woman’s place is in the home’, whether men like it or not, is a maxim which is now largely irrelevant, as so many women have been picking up the jobs on the home-front, which the man have been forced to abandon, having been called upon to serve their country. Yes! it is inevitable that when hostilities cease, some women will more than willingly take up their previous mantel of homemaker. However, for many, their new found freedoms and responsibilities are going to be difficult to easily relinquish and in those households, life is never going to be quite the same again, as women have found an inner strength and determination to juggle their employment duties, household chores and family devotions, with consummate ease.
The idea that women should not only look after their own children, but might be paid to care for those of other mothers, who wish to work outside of the home. Or, on occasion, calling upon other family members to help with those caring duties, something which would have, in the not so distant past, been frowned upon by husbands and fathers up and down the country, who would somehow see this as a sleight on their on masculinity and their control in keeping their own house in order.
Women, who have for the first time, felt able to candidly discuss the varying degrees of marital abuse to which they were previously subjected and which now, with support of their comrades, they feel empowered to stand up and deal with, in the knowledge that they are able to take a stand and fend for themselves, even if that means living apart from and calling to account, their abuser.
Whilst the very thought of abortion, or the acceptance of pregnant unmarried women by society, were largely still taboos which were not to be countenanced or accepted under any circumstance. However, the seeds of change were slowly taking root, with the likes of The Railway Girls forging the way towards engendering a more understanding and compassionate reaction. Slowly disappearing were the long held beliefs that single pregnant women should be forced to work as unpaid skivvies, taking on hard and very manual work, right up until the moment they give birth, when the baby was immediately removed from its mother, who was then cast back out onto the streets to fend for themselves, emotionally distraught and with their dignity and reputation destroyed.
The characters are all quite easy to connect with and become invested in as the seeds of change are being inexorably sown on so many fronts and, given the diverse cross-section of the community and society they collectively represent, The Railway Girls are often at the forefront of this transition. It may be that the matriarchs of the group such as Dot and Cordelia, will take a little more time to invest fully in this new order and way of thinking about things, but being surrounded as they are, by a modern generation of more open-minded and liberal thinking younger women, I’m sure it won’t take too long before they will all be onboard with this new way of thinking.
This episode is particularly focussed on the characters and therefore doesn’t really rehash the location in too much detail, although there is more than enough information to keep any armchair traveller, such as myself, satisfied. Some wonderfully descriptive narrative and dialogue immersed me in the ever watchful atmosphere of an important mainline railway station, both front of house and behind the scenes, whilst I was able to soak up the day to day trials and celebrations of a community who lived life from hand to mouth, needed to make do and mend, took shortages and privations in their stride, yet on the whole, still managed to maintain their self-respect, humility, pride and humour, with great aplomb and dignity.
The books can be read perfectly well as stand alone stories – but why would you want to do that when, opening the cover of the very first book, is like finding yourself with a whole new family, who write to you with their news on a regular basis!
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