This Lovely City

by Louise Hare

This was a really enjoyable read. Based in 1950’s London. When we still needed help to rebuild the city after the blitz. This scheme is now known as Windrush, as the men and women came over on the Empire Windrush.

Lawrie Matthews and his friends, Aston, Sonny and Moses came over to the UK hoping to get jobs and make better lives for themselves. Except they didn’t get the welcome and jobs that they had been promised.

Lawrie eventually found himself a job as a postman. He found that he had to work twice as hard as his fellow colleagues just to keep his job. His days were long and he walked for miles delivering peoples mail.

He eventually found a room to rent closer to work and he ends up falling in love with the girl next door called Evie. Evie lives with her strict mother, in the house her mother grew up in until her father threw her out. For getting pregnant and to top things off the babies father was coloured.

All though Evie’s life she’s had to fight prejudices’ against her because of her colour. When these man and women arrived on the Empire Windrush, for once she started to feel less alone. She started to date Lawrie from next door and he introduced her to his friends.

Lawrie played in a band with some of his friends in clubs down in Soho. Some nights Evie would go to the night club with one of her friends, just so she could see Lawrie and have a little dance with him during his break.

Eventually Lawrie and Evie become engaged. But things become very difficult for them, when Lawrie finds and pulls out a black baby from a pond on Clapham Common. The police arrest Lawrie as they are sure he is the babies father.

One of the police men that interviewed Lawrie starts harassing him. Turning up at his home, work place and anywhere else Lawrie goes. Then they turn to Evie and try to get her to confess to the baby being hers and that she killed it. The same police man that harassed Lawrie starts to harass them both any chance he gets.

Eventually secrets come out that could jeopardise Lawrie and Evie’s future wedding and happiness. When certain secrets come out Lawrie understands Evie’s dislike of his best friend. Can Lawrie and Evie overcome all of the secrets that had been kept? Who will be charged with the murder of the baby girl and what has Evie’s mother got to do with what’s been happening?

Such an interesting book to read. Telling us about the hardships and prejudices’ that the Empire Windrush people had to overcome along with the realisation that life in London wasn’t what they expected. A lack of housing, the lack of people either wanting to give them jobs or even willing to let them rent a room or house. Also the country was still rationing food along with the cold bleak weather.

I look forward to seeing what else this author writes next.

Pages: 400, Publication Date: 12 March 2020, My Rating: