Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Mrs Pengelly is Edie's billet host — the gruff, fair, unsentimental Devon farm wife who is the hardest person in the room to fool and the one who does the most without ever saying so. She teaches Edie the farm and never softens the lesson. Theirs is the series' quietest, truest bond: not a replacement for the mother Edie left in London, but room in a heart for a second kind of love.
Bill Fletcher is Edie's father — an East-End dockman who signs on with the merchant navy and sails the…
Edie Fletcher is ten years old when the war sends her away — a London girl put on a train with a label round…
Hettie is the Pengelly farm's most disagreeable hen — big, rusty, bad-tempered, and nobody's friend, and the…
Joan Pengelly is Tom's older sister, on the edge of grown-up when Edie arrives — a careful politeness that…
Mr Pengelly is the farmer who takes Edie in — large, undemonstrative, and kinder than a wary London girl…
Mrs Hooper is Vera's neighbour and friend in Bethnal Green — the Fletchers' London anchor, all sharp opinions…