What do you think of if you’re asked about what sort of jobs women did in the Second World War? Land girls, WAAFs, WRENS, nurses, munitions workers? Did you consider the women who drove ambulances out in the middle of air raids to rescue people? They seem to have been forgotten in history and yet they played a vital role and did a really tough job having to deal with the casualties of bombing. So when I thought about who I wanted to write about, the women of the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service were perfect. Not much had been written about them in fiction, they were in the thick of the Blitz and have a rich vein of potential story telling material.
It was important to get the background of the stories factually correct and weave those facts about what it was like working as an ambulance driver into the story, from the details of everyday work like scrubbing out the ambulances to the fact that crew members called each other by nicknames. Diaries, letters and oral histories from the archives of the Imperial War Museum gave me an insight into their world and threw up gems of incidents, ones that wouldn’t make the history books but which were very much part of their lives, things like having stirrup pump water fights or writing their own ambulance station magazines and these have inspired my ideas.
“East End Angels” focuses on the lives of three women - Winnie, Frankie and Bella -who are thrown together at Ambulance Station 75, a short raven’s flight from the Tower of London. Coming from very different social backgrounds and family lives, they have to cope with the challenges of rescuing casualties as the bombs rain down during the Blitz.
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Available in paperback 14th December from Asda, Tesco and Amazon
All about Rosie...
Rosie Hendry lives by
the sea in Norfolk with her husband, two children, chickens and a snake. She's
worked in a variety of jobs from fruit picking, waitressing, teaching and as a
research scientist but has always loving reading and writing. Starting off
writing short stories for women's magazines, her stories have gradually become
longer as her children have grown bigger.
Listening to her father's tales of life during the Second World War sparked Rosie's interest in this period and she's especially intrigued by how womens' lives changed during the war years.
Listening to her father's tales of life during the Second World War sparked Rosie's interest in this period and she's especially intrigued by how womens' lives changed during the war years.
When she's not working,
Rosie enjoys walking along the beach, reading and is grateful for the fact that
her husband is a much better cook than her.
website www.rosiehendry.com.
website www.rosiehendry.com.
Twitter @hendry_rosie
Facebook rosie.hendry.94
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