Liverpool Miss

  Minerva, sitting on top of the town hall dome, smiled particularly on the Liverpool theatres of those days, as if to encourage specially her actors to create for two young girls a world of wonder which helped to make endurable the soot-blackened city outside the theatre walls. In those precious hours in the stuffy Playhouse gallery, tucked up comfortably beside Sylvia, I was happy as I had never before been happy in Liverpool.

  Thank you, dear Minerva. Thank you for all that sweet content. I knew you’d help me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LIVERPOOL MISS

  Helen Forrester was born in Hoylake, Cheshire, the eldest of seven children. For many years, until she married, her home was Liverpool – a city that features prominently in her work. For the past forty years she has lived in Alberta, Canada.

  Helen Forrester is the author of four best-selling volumes of autobiography and a number of equally successful novels, including most recently Madame Barbara. In 1988 she was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Liverpool in recognition of her achievements as an author. The University of Alberta conferred on her the same honour in 1993.

  OTHER WORKS

  By Helen Forrester

  Fiction

  THURSDAY’S CHILD

  THE LATCHKEY KID

  LIVERPOOL DAISY

  THREE WOMEN OF LIVERPOOL

  THE MONEYLENDERS OF SHAHPUR

  YES, MAMA

  THE LEMON TREE

  THE LIVERPOOL BASQUE

  MOURNING DOVES

  MADAME BARBARA

  Non-Fiction

  TWOPENCE TO CROSS THE MERSEY

  LIVERPOOL MISS

  BY THE WATERS OF LIVERPOOL

  LIME STREET AT TWO

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.uk

  This paperback edition 1994

  7 9 8 6

  Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1982 Reprinted twenty times

  First published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head Ltd 1979

  Copyright © Jamunadevi Bhatia 1974

  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN 9780007369317

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1 Auckland,

  New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com