The Favourite Child

Isabella Ashton has always been her father's favourite, but when she becomes involved with the new Birth Control Movement, Simeon is scandalised. It’s 1928 and running a family planning clinic in Salford is challenging but rewarding work, and Bella is grateful for the help of Violet Howarth, a big, generous-hearted woman who takes her in off the street. A friendship with Violet’s son, Dan, quickly turns to love. But Bella also becomes involved with handsome ne’er-do-well Billy Quinn, leader of an illegal betting ring, and soon finds everything she has worked for put at risk, and herself in mortal danger. . .

This book is dedicated to the memory of all the women who were pioneers in the work of birth control and improvements in women’s health care. In particular to Charis Frankenburg who, together with Mary Stocks, opened the real Salford and District Mothers’ Clinic for Birth Control in 1926. My sincere thanks go to Mrs Frankenburg’s daughter, Mrs Ursula Kennedy, for inspiring me with the idea in the first place and for her help with information on the work of the clinic from family papers. For anyone interested in learning more I would highly recommend they read her mother’s autobiography,
Not Old, Madam, Vintage
. It sheds as much light on a remarkable woman as on the noble and worthwhile enterprise she helped found.

The clinic depicted in this story, though it may bear some similarities, certainly in its work and aims to the original, is entirely fictitious, as are the characters. Salford is as real as I can make it. I would also like to acknowledge the unstinting help of the Librarians at the Manchester Central Library who always seem to know what I am looking for and how to find it.

‘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

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

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Now take a sneak preview at Kitty Little

Also by Freda Lightfoot available as ebooks

About Freda Lightfoot

1927

Isabella Ashton alighted from the tram car at the corner of Cross Lane and strode out along Liverpool Street, her boots ringing on setts polished by generations of clog irons; thick woollen skirt swinging against her long legs. The slanting rays of a weak winter sun glinted momentarily upon wet slate roofs before being blotted out by a belch of smoke from a forest of broken chimney pots.

Two children passed her, one a girl of about seven or eight pushing an old pram loaded with a pitiful quantity of coal. Seated in the midst of it sat a grey-faced toddler chewing on a piece, dribbles of black soot running down its chin. In front, pulling with all his puny strength was a child of no more than four or five years. A boy judging by his ragged britches. The pair had evidently been visiting the coal yard on the corner of Denbigh Street and were returning home with their meagre prize which would barely keep a family warm for more than a day. Isabella’s heart went out to them. How was it that small children must bear such onerous responsibilities?

As she paused to watch them go by, she took off the hated cloche hat and shook out her red-gold hair. Long and untamed, it seemed, like its owner, utterly beyond control, refusing to be either confined or tidy, despite all efforts.

She wished she could have bought the children a wagon full of coal, had done so for others on numerous occasions, not to mention giving those in need countless loaves of bread, pairs of boots and whatever else she could supply. But Isabella knew that even she, daughter of Simeon Ashton, the well-to-do manager of a thriving cotton mill, couldn’t afford to provide the whole of Salford with heat for their hearths and food for their kitchens. Not that it was easy to get them to accept anything at all. She’d learned to tread carefully with her well-meant offers of help, for fear of causing offence.

Tucking the hat into her pocket she picked her way around puddles, and children skipping or playing hop scotch. Women shrouded in thick woollen shawls hurried by, many with yet more children clinging to their skirts. The lamplighter was just completing his round, setting his long pole against each gas lamp and bringing a warming glow to the cold street.

A man stepped out from the lighted doorway of a tripe shop, a stone jar of hot soup cradled in his hand. ‘Ow do Miss Bella.’ A friendly voice, cap neb touched in deference. ‘Thee’s a sight for sore eyes on a raw night like this.’

‘And yourself Joe.’ Bella returned the greeting, hazel eyes bright with good humour. All her friends called her by the shortened form of her name in these parts, and she rather liked it.