Dear Evelyn Wright,
I am recently divorced and, while my husband remains in the family home, I have been forced to start again. My new house is a state and I’m terrified I’ll never find any new friends or settle here. How can I start again and make a new life for myself and my children?
Moving somewhere new can be daunting, and it can sometimes be hard to make new friends. Perhaps you might consider joining some local clubs to meet like-minded people with similar interests. Otherwise, getting a dog can also be an excellent way to make new friends, as well as a wonderful way to help your children to settle in a new home. Please rest assured, dear, that if you make an effort to bring new people into your life, you will not be lonely for long. I wish you luck.
Evelyn Wright
In The Lost Letters of Evelyn Wright, Beth is being forced to start all over again following an acrimonious divorce. When she and her children move into their rundown cottage, Beth immediately gets to work renovating it – and that’s when she comes across some old agony aunt letters hidden beneath the ancient wardrobe in the children’s bedroom.
The letters date back to the 1950s and are from an agony aunt called Evelyn Wright. Beth finds herself drawn into Evelyn’s world and, the more she reads, the more she finds Evelyn’s words bring her comfort.
Whenever I write about a different time or place I try my best to make it authentic. And that’s how I found myself at the British Library armed with a notebook and my phone camera, where I spent a very happy day reading through endless old copies of women’s magazines from the early 1950s.
Some, such as Woman and Woman’s Own, looked very different but were still the magazines we have today. Others, such as Mirabelle, folded long ago, but all were full of amazing stories, illustrations and adverts that made me realise just how much times have changed.
Adverts for vacuum cleaners, margarine and hair rollers; photos of heart-throbs such as Cliff Richard and Adam Faith; photo love stories and features advising women how to find a man, what to knit next and where to buy the best flower-print dresses.
But the agony aunt columns were what I was most interested in. And as I read more and more I began to realise that, while on the surface things might have changed enormously, the truth is, people still need advice, and good advice never ages.
And while women’s rights have clearly come a LONG way since then (thank goodness), it just goes to show that, in some ways, things never change. People always need someone to turn to, and to know that someone cares.
I wanted to include a real flavour of these old letters into the book, so I have included an agony aunt letter of my own at the beginning of every chapter, using the real ones as inspiration. I certainly had fun writing them, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them too!