When I started to write Welcome to Weaver Street, the first book in the Weaver Street series that brings Kitty and Tom Conlon from Dublin to Liverpool in 1916, I thought about what it must have been like for my great-grandparents to make the same journey from Mayo to Manchester in the 1850s. The idea for Weaver Street came from the street I lived in where all the neighbours pulled together and stuck by one another through thick and thin, sharing their joys and sorrows. Once I had told Kitty’s story and that of her friends, Maggie Beth and Mavis I knew I couldn’t leave it there and ‘Hard Times in Weaver Street’ continues their story.
I come from a long line of talkative Yorkshire women – they could have talked for Britain – and it was listening to them that inspired me to write about the ‘hungry thirties’ and the struggles they faced in a changing world. My mam was an active socialist, interested in politics, and keen to improve the lot of the working classes. Her reminiscences of how ordinary people survived in the most extraordinary of times and overcame the challenges they faced are at the heart of my story. The Wall Street crash in 1929 affected both rich and poor and mass unemployment brought many families to their knees.
I remember my dad telling me how he queued outside Learoyd’s Mill in Huddersfield every morning in the hope of being ‘set on’ for a day as a loom weaver, and my mam telling me how she had to scrimp and scrape to put food on the table. When the Jarrow Hunger Marchers made their futile protest march from Newcastle to London, my mam was out on the street handing bags of sandwiches and bottles of water to the bedraggled men and women to help them on their way. My parents detested Oswald Mosley and his ‘black shirts’ and denigrated the abdicating king, Edward V111, for the problems they caused to the country they loved. Fascinated by these stories, I wove them into the lives of my characters, and into this mix, I brought Rose, a wealthy, unhappy girl whose life is transformed by the good folks of Weaver Street, their friendship and love making the world a better place.