Goodnight Sweetheart Read Online Free PDF

He called round earlier whilst you and June were out, but he couldn’t stay.’
    ‘Aye, well, I hope you didn’t go and say anything daft to him,’ June challenged her, adding for Frank’s benefit, ‘Daft thing’s bin saying that she isn’t sure she wants to be engaged, if you please!’
    Molly could hear the impatience in June’s voice.
    ‘Well, if she isn’t sure…’
    Molly could feel herself starting to blush guiltily as her heart gave a funny little beat. She liked Frank so much. He was always kind to her, listening to her as though he really cared about what she was saying and treating her like a grown-up,while June was impatient with her. But then that was Frank all over, being kind to folk.
    ‘Don’t you go encouraging her to be daft, Frank,’ June warned sharply. ‘Of course she wants to wed Johnny – just like I want to wed you,’ she added more softly, before demanding, ‘Don’t you, Molly?’
    Obediently Molly nodded her head. What else could she do?

THREE
    ‘Well, I’ll tell you something for nothing, young Molly, you’re not gonna be the only one sporting a new engagement ring this weekend,’ Irene Laidlaw announced on Monday morning when the other machinists had all finished examining Molly’s ring, ‘seeing as how so many young men have received their papers. Of course, it’s different for me,’ she added loftily, ‘since my Alan was one of the first to volunteer …’
    ‘Probably because he wanted to get away from her,’ one of the other girls muttered, causing a ripple of giggles to spread across their small enclosed work space, with its sewing machines and air smelling of new cloth.
    Although she had no official senior status, it was accepted by the other girls that Irene was their leader. She had been working there the longest and, although opinionated, was a kind soul and the first to befriend a girl new to the factory and help her settle in.
    All the girls worked in pinafore coveralls to prevent bits of thread and cotton from clinging to their clothes. And at least Hardings, unlike some of the factories, had windows big enough to let in proper daylight so that the girls weren’t straining their eyes as they bent over their machines.
    ‘I’ll be glad when we’ve finished this bloomin’ bloomers order, and start workin’ on sommat a bit more glamorous,’ one of the girls complained with a noisy sigh.
    ‘Aye, I can’t see your Bert getting excited about you tekkin’ home a few pairs of these to surprise him wiv, Janet,’ the girl working next to her grinned cheekily. ‘I’m sick to me back teeth of ’em meself.’ She too sighed as she surveyed the mound of bloomers waiting to be made up.
    The girls were three-quarters of the way through a big order for ‘quality undergarments’, which in reality meant enormous pairs of bloomers as favoured by older women, and equally utilitarian brassieres. The kind of corsets favoured by most middle-aged women were supplied and made by specialist mail-order firms so that customers could be measured for them in the privacy of their own homes, and were so expensive that it was rare for the women Molly and June knew to own more than a best corset and a spare.
    ‘Pity it’s not some of them fancy French knickers we’re mekkin’ up,’ Janet said longingly.
    ‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you getting a pattern from Lewis’s and making yourself some,Janet,’ June pointed out briskly. She already had her eye on a nice piece of selvedge material. She reckoned she could get three pairs of drawers out of it if she got Molly, with her clever fingers and good eyes, to cut them for her. If she was very lucky she might be able to come by enough fabric to get Molly to make her a matching brassiere as well. There was a strict list that allowed each girl one piece of spare or unused fabric from any one contract, and the only way to get more was to ask one of the other girls to do a swap or to sell off her piece. Perhaps she’d ask