Lakeland Lily

‘The new series will be greeted with joy by the thousands of women who enjoy her books.’
Evening Mail, Barrow-in-Furness
on Champion Street Market

‘You can’t put a price on Freda Lightfoot's stories from Manchester's 1950s Champion Street Market. They bubble with enough life and colour to brighten up the dreariest day and they have characters you can easily take to your heart.’

The Northern Echo.

‘Lightfoot clearly knows her Manchester well’

Historical Novel Society

‘Kitty Little is a charming novel encompassing the provincial theatre of the early 20
^th
century, the horrors of warfare and timeless affairs of the heart.’

The West Briton

‘Another heartwarming tale from a master story-teller.’

Lancashire Evening Post
on For All Our Tomorrows.

‘a compelling and fascinating tale’
Middlesborough Evening Gazette
on The Favourite Child
(In the top 20 of the Sunday Times hardback bestsellers
)

‘She piles horror on horror - rape, torture, sexual humiliation, incest, suicide - but she keeps you reading!’ Jay Dixon on House of Angels.

‘This is a book I couldn’t put down . . .
 
a great read!’

South Wales Evening Post
on The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

‘a fascinating, richly detailed setting with a dramatic plot brimming with enough scandal, passion, and danger for a Jackie Collins’ novel.’

Booklist on Hostage Queen

‘A bombshell of an unsuspected secret rounds off a romantic saga narrated with pace and purpose and fuelled by conflict.’
The Keswick Reminder
on The Bobbin Girls

‘paints a vivid picture of life on the fells during the war.  Enhanced by fine historical detail and strong characterisation it is an endearing story...’

Westmorland Gazette
on Luckpenny Land

 
‘An inspiring novel about accepting change and bravely facing the future.’

The Daily Telegraph
on Ruby McBride

Lily Thorpe is a spirited, ambitious fisherman’s daughter, desperate to escape the poverty of her Lakeland home. When the rich Clermont-Read family spoils her plans, Lily embarks on a personal quest for revenge and marries their only son, Bertie, a handsome indolent charmer. Rejected by his family, the young couple soon find themselves battling against the very poverty Lily had hoped to escape... A twist of fate brings her the freedom she craves, but the price Lily must pay is vindictive snobbery from Bertie's mother - as well as another far greater one, finally leading to a passionate affair with Nathan Monroe, a local steam boat captain. Now it is Lily who must protect herself against the threat of vengeance and decide who is more important, her husband or her lover.

I am indebted to Diana Matthews of the Windermere Nautical Trust for her assistance with research and for her splendid booklets, Lake Festivals on Windermere and Lake Windermere’s Golden Jubilee. Also to her father, George Pattinson, for his excellent book, The Great Age of Steam on Windermere,
which first inspired the idea. Any mistakes or liberties taken for the sake of the story are, of course, my responsibility and not theirs. Last but by no means least, thanks to the steamboat skippers who still operate these wonderful boats from the Steamboat Museum, Windermere, who told me their fascinating history and answered my many questions while I enjoyed several delightful cruises on the lake.

T
able of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Now read a sneak preview of The Bobbin Girls

Also by Freda Lightfoot available as ebooks

About Freda Lightfoot

1909

‘Lily Thorpe, if you don’t come in this minute I’ll batter your face with a wet kipper. See if I don’t!’

The recipient of this dire warning made no move to respond, for she was entirely engrossed in holding her breath so as not to interrupt what must be the longest kiss on record.

‘That was your mam,’ the boy said at last when nature forced them up for air.

Lily, dizzy from the kiss, swept aside her shining brown hair and laid her cheek upon Dick’s chest with a sigh of blissful contentment. For a long moment she lay listening to the rapid beat of his heart then lifted her face a fraction to give him the full benefit of her bewitching hazel eyes, glowing almost gold with desire, her tiptilted nose, and the bluntness of a deceptively demure chin which, he claimed, only proved how very stubborn she was. Lily meant to let him see that she would not be averse to the kiss being repeated.

Not, she admitted wryly, that the ash-pit roof from which strings of washing flapped, was the most romantic place in the world to experiment with these delightful new sensations. Situated at the bottom of a yard shared by half a dozen other houses besides her own, shovel-loads of ash from the fire were stored in the pit and used to sweeten the tippler privy next door.

But from its roof Lily could see beyond the huddle of narrow streets and overcrowded fishermen’s cottages that made up The Cobbles, as far as the dark green fringe of woodland that cloaked the lower reaches of the Lakeland hills, the bare tops of the more distant peaks, and, if she stood on tiptoe, the glimmer of silver-bright water that was the lake.

Beyond the lake was the world where, one day, Lily meant to be: Rydal and Grasmere to the north, the busy towns of Windermere and Kendal to the south. To the west lay the snow-capped peaks of the Langdales, while to the east were the high fells of Kentmere. These were the limits of Lily’s knowledge. She had never in her life stepped outside the boundaries of Carreckwater, though she took every opportunity to escape the pungent confines of The Cobbles, squashed as it was between Fisher’s Brow and Old Martin’s Yard, far from the more elegant quarters of the small town.

Lily hated The Cobbles and all it stood for. The sweet-sour stink of poverty gave a sense of hopelessness to the tiny overcrowded cottages. Walls ran with damp both inside and out. The alleys were infested with the kind of livestock nobody welcomed, and her mother fought a thankless daily battle against cockroaches. Each night the drunks would noisily roll home and by morning the stink of urine and vomit would be stronger than ever. Lily’s single all-pervading desire was to leave The Cobbles for good.