Christmas on Coronation Street by Maggie Sullivan is described as, A wonderful Christmas read full of nostalgia and charm, perfect for fans of Coronation Street and readers who love Fiction set in Wartime, and that’s exactly what it is.
Elsie Grimshaw lives in one of the worst streets in Weatherfield and is desperate to escape from life at home with a brutal father and the drudgery of working at the local mill. Grabbing at the slim chances that come her way, Elsie emerges from the heartbreak of first love and her marriage to bad boy, Arnold Tanner at only sixteen years old, if not much older, then certainly wiser.
Going under her married name of Elsie Tanner, she and Arnold move in to No.11 Coronation Street in 1939 as war breaks out. Her cheeky self-confidence immediately puts her at loggerheads with local busy-body Ena Sharples and Annie Walker, landlady of the Rovers Return.
As Christmas approaches, the residents of Coronation Street must put their petty squabbles aside if they are to survive the worst that Hitler’s Luftwaffe can throw at them. And as the Manchester Blitz grips their home town of Weatherfield, the residents must pull together to make this a Christmas to remember – for all of the right reasons…
My thoughts:
I was drawn into this enthralling and at times, very sad story of teenage Elsie Grimshaw’s poverty-stricken life from the first page. She’s tough, because she has to be, and the oldest of a group of neglected children, ignored by their mother who long ago lost any joy she might have had. Elsie’s bullying father, who believed that she was there to take care of her younger siblings and hand over her earnings from her job in the factory so that he could spend it down at the local pub.
I remember Elsie Tanner very well from watching Coronation Street in the seventies and it was a joy to return to that time of this much loved soap opera. As I read this book it was as if I was sitting in Annie Walker’s pub, listening to the bickering between Ena Sharples as she scowled at young Elsie, who refused to act like others expected her to. The story takes the reader into the war years when the men enlisted and the women had to cope in the most dire circumstances with very little help, often reliant on their neighbours whether they got along, or not.
This was a heartbreaking story, but also one of hope as Elsie and her younger sister, Fay determine to find a way to move on from their difficult start in life and find some happiness.
I was relieved to see that Maggie Sullivan has written another book in this series, Mother’s Day on Coronation Street and can’t wait to lose myself in that story next.
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