In this book Christine Dawe features a great many of them - from all eras and walks of life. Locally noteworthy figures, such as Kitty Wilkinson, who started the first public wash-houses in the city, Father Nugent, who rescued hundreds of starving orphans after the Irish Potato Famine, and Teddy Dance, who played a grand piano outside Marks & Spencers for many years and raised over Đ53,000 for Cancer Research, appear alongside some of the more famous...

Hannah has known how hard the world is. Thrown into the workhouse by a cousin to whom her father entrusted her, she is determined to make the most of life. But when she loses the man she loves she's seduced into a violent marriage with no escape.

It's May 1941 and Liverpool is being hammered by German air raids, during which young Mary Bradshaw is dealt a cruel blow by fate. But she has her friend Eileen to help her through the knocks, and soon she finds that when one door closes, another one really does open.

When Lucy Patterson promises her dying mother that she'll leave their comfortable home to go and live with her Aunt Flo on the other side of the Mersey, she has no idea what life in the slums of Liverpool will be like.

The War had ended and Scotland Road was left to count the cost. Abbie married her sweetheart Mike, who joined the Liverpool Police Force. Hannah moved into Ashenden Hall to nurse Richard, Earl of Ashenden, which brought her happiness, and heartache.

Eileen Gillmoss was the life and soul of the party. Today was the day she had prayed for. After five long years, her prisoner-of-war husband Bill would be coming home. But Eileen's dreams turn to dust when the man who comes back from the war is a complete stranger to her.

From the happy atmosphere of her uncle and aunt's house to the lonely seclusion of life with her reclusive mother, Annie Harrison eventually goes to live at The Grand Hotel with her rich school friend, Sylvia. But just as she seems to be settling down to a life of marriage and motherhood, fate deals her an unexpected blow.

Mary wants her girls to have what she never had. They need the security and love her hard-drinking Jack denied her. But Daisy, her daughter, falls pregnant by Sam O'Grady, war looms and her poor sister Nell despairs of ever finding love.

Set in Liverpool during World War Two, The Dressmaker tells the story of Rita and her affair with an American G.I. Her aunts are sure he's feckless and are determined to prevent him from taking Rita back to the USA which is her chance to start a new life.

Louisa, with her mother dead and her father away at sea, was becoming increasingly conscious that while Aunt Babsey's family was comfortable enough, all around them was hardship and the grinding poverty of the 30s.