Belfast Blitz

April 1941 and Belfast is now having the same treatment as many towns in the UK and suffering bombing raids, especially in the area around the Dockside where important war work was being undertaken. Two sisters, Emma and Audrey, live with their brother Paul, and their mother and father. Their father worked at the hospital as a doctor, Audrey at 21 worked in Woolworths, Emma after years as a junior member of the St John's Ambulance Brigade, was now volunteering for the First Aid Post. There private lives are there own business and secrecy around what went on behind closed doors was very much prevalent in those years. Emma has a big secret that she keeps from her family, that of her love for another woman and Audrey just keeps hoping that her fiance would be more of a man. Things were so much different in those years and especially in the way that Northern Ireland had different rules from Southern Ireland, as it still does today but with a war raging, things were that bit harder to tolerate, as the children on the train hiding their shopping from the Customs Men shows. With massive bombing raids in April 1941, this book follows the two sisters Emma and Audrey as they cope with the Belfast Blitz and also their own personal stories of how they coped with the traumas of war over those few days.
This book certainly opened my eyes to the fact that the people of Belfast also suffered tremendous damage to the city and their lives, yet this is never really talked about.

The front cover depicting two women overlooking an industrial landscape is very true to the storyline, you can imagine them talking about their secrets and longings of what they hoped the future may hold for them and their loved ones.