The Boat Girls Read Online Free PDF Page A

climbing around the boat in skirts, Arnold, would you? Going up and down ladders, and things. It wouldn’t do at all. Would it, Kathleen?’
    Prudence held her breath. If Mother thought it was a good idea, then there was a faint chance that Father might come round to it.
    â€˜No, I suppose it wouldn’t, Dot. And I certainly wouldn’t want Prudence to go into any of the services.’ Her mother lowered her voice, leaning towards her father. ‘Look what happened to MrsWatson’s girl, Arnold. The air force sent her home in disgrace and everybody’s been gossiping about it.’
    â€˜You don’t want any trouble like that with Prudence, do you?’ Auntie Dot said. ‘Think of all the talk there’d be at the bank.’
    Her father laid the cutting carefully on the table beside him and took a sip of his tea. ‘I’ll give it my consideration, that’s all. I’ll think about it.’
    Auntie Dot winked at her.

Three
    ROSALIND FLYNN HAD begun her professional acting career at six years old when she had played the part of an extra fairy in an open-air production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. Her father had taken the role of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and her mother that of his betrothed, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. The company toured the country during that summer of 1931, performing in gardens and among old ruins and on village greens, rain or shine. When autumn arrived it disbanded. Her parents joined a repertory company in the west of England and appeared in supporting roles in a long string of popular plays, while Rosalind was given other walk-on, non-speaking parts and was sent to the local school. Later, they moved on to join other companies, taking work wherever they could get it, ‘resting’ when they could not and always waiting and hoping for the day when they wouldfinally take the leads and see their names up in lights.
    There had never been any doubt that Rosalind would follow in their footsteps and, as their own hopes gradually faded, those dreams were transferred to her. She had the looks and the voice and she had already learned that the smell of greasepaint was the headiest scent in the world, and that the most thrilling sounds were the swish of the curtain and the applause of an audience. By the time she was thirteen she was playing small speaking parts, and every so often the drama critic of a local newspaper would single her out as promising. At fourteen years old she was growing rather tall, which was a disadvantage, but, as her mother often said, there were always plenty of tall male actors, and height lent presence on stage.
    And then the Second World War broke out and everything changed. Actors were called up, theatres and cinemas were closed down, finding work became even more difficult and her parents ‘rested’ for longer and longer periods. Her father’s health – never good – deteriorated. The bronchitis that had plagued him for years became much worse and, even if there had been good parts offered, he would have been unable to play them. When a doctor advised sea air, her parents took out their savings and cashed in an insurance policy to buy a run-down terrace house in a sidestreet of a south coast town where they let rooms to commercial travellers. As the war progressed and the need for entertainment was recognized, theatres began to open up again and Rosalind was occasionally given small parts at the Winter Gardens – maids, country girls, younger sisters, attendants, Dick Whittington’s cat in the Christmas pantomime. The Germans had occupied Europe and the sound of their guns could be heard firing on the other side of the Channel. Before long their fighters came swooping over, rattling away with their machine guns, and their bombers droned overhead en route to attack airfields and London. The expected invasion, though, was thwarted by the RAF and the war took another turn, to be fought out in