Publisher's Synopsis
Lu Wilmott grows up in the Portsmouth slums of the 1920s. Stricken by diphtheria, she is sent to the Hampshire countryside to recover. In this idyll she discovers a robust fighting spirit, new and challenging friends and the first stirrings of sexual attraction. But, faced with little choice, she follows her mother and aunts into the city's infamous staymaking trade, where young girls and old women endure conditions so appalling that Lu comes to realise that things must change. And she can be the instrument of change. Over time, Lu proves to be a survivor - and one to be reckoned with.
