Second World War novel on legacy of poppy factory

A HENLEY author has written a novel about the lives of three young women set during the Second World War.

Kirsten Hesketh, 62, who lives in Greys Hill, wrote The Poppy Girls under the nom de plume Kirsty Dougal, published by Penguin.

Set in Richmond, Surrey, in 1940, it tells the story of studious Carrie, Sarah, daughter of a war hero, and newcomer Mabel.

Living on the Poppy Factory estate, the three girls are entirely different, but as the Blitz begins and everyone does their bit, their lives become entwined.

Kirsten has also written books set around the First World War, including The Post Office Girls and A Post Office Christmas (as Poppy Cooper), Wartime on Sanctuary Lane and A Christmas Miracle on Sanctuary Lane (as Kirsty Dougal).

She says: “This is my first Second World War book, so it feels a bit different to me and it just feels much closer. The First World War seems ages away but for me and obviously I wasn’t around during the Second World War, but I was only born 18 years or so after, so I grew up with my parents still talking about it.

“Also, my mum’s still alive, she’s 93 now and she remembers it, so I think I feel a little bit more responsibility this time, that there are people around who remember it, to kind of get it right. Having grown up with wartime stories from my parents, it just feels much closer to home really.

“It’s funny, because she’s in a care home in Henley and I go in often to see her and I sit and chat to her and all the friends she’s made in there, they’re lovely. Quite often, they can be a little bit sketchy about details that have happened in the last week, but they remember, with crystal clarity, their experiences during the war and they were only children then.

“It was such a big deal that they can remember being taken up on to buildings with fathers to watch for incoming German planes and that kind of thing, quite exciting stuff and they remember that like it happened yesterday.

“My dad told a story that he was too young to fight in the war but he was cycling to his O level or equivalent, whatever it was called then, in 1945 and he got blown off his bike by a bomb blast.

“The bomb didn’t him but everyone around was just kind of blown off their bikes and covered in cuts and bruises, but he just got back on his bike, cycled to his exam — I think it was his art exam — and just did his exam. It was just like life went on.

“So for the first time I’ve been able to actually interview people who remember it, rather than just relying on books and stuff online.

“I lived in Twickenham for quite a long time and the actual poppy factory building in Richmond is quite distinctive, it’s kind of like an Art Deco building.

“It’s very white and it’s quite striking, with red writing up the side saying ‘Remembrance’, it’s a bit of a local landmark so I knew it was there. There’s a couple of reasons I chose to write about it, one was just because it’s just a kind of romantic building, where all the poppies are made.

“It was set up to give employment to disabled servicemen from the First World War, who were finding it difficult to get jobs after the war, so they set up this place where they could make artificial flowers to sell around Remembrance Sunday.

“They also built a big community around the factory which is still there, they built a whole load of flats in the Thirties. There was an old stately home there which they turned into their social club, it was called the Remembrance Club and that had a cinema there and a bar and a games room. That building is not there anymore but the actual flats are still there, still owned by the Poppy Factory.

“I liked that idea of a community around this place but the real reason I chose to set the book there was because I’m fascinated by the fact that the two world wars actually happened so close together. I wanted to write about a group of girls who had kind of come of age in the Second World War, but they had grown up in the shadow of the First World War.

“So, the poppy girls have grown up on the Poppy Factory estate and all their fathers have been disabled by what happened in the First World War. Now they’re turning 18 and they’re facing a war of their own, I was interested in how their childhood might affect them.

“So, I’ve got one girl who basically wants nothing to do with this war, because as far as she’s concerned it disabled her father and changed his life and no good could come of it. So she just wants to go to university and get on with her life.

“Then I’ve got another girl whose father was a war hero in the First World War and she wants to be a heroine herself so she’s approaching it from an entirely different angle.

“Then we’ve got a third girl who’s a bit of an enigma and no one really quite knows what she’s up to but part of the plot is working out what Mabel is up to. She’s recently been evacuated out from the East End and has arrived on the Poppy Factory estate.

“I was interested in the idea of these girls who had grown up with so much in the shadow of the First World War and now there’s a new war. It’s just so close after it.

“It must have been horrendous for the older generation, having been through it once and now their children were expected to get involved, just grim. So that was the backdrop to the whole thing.

“The new war is starting and one girl doesn’t want to get involved, one girl does and at the beginning of the book those two are not friends at all, even though people refer to them as the poppy girls because they’ve been brought up on the Poppy Factory. They don’t identify as such at all, they just want to live their own lives.”

l The Poppy Girls, by Kirsten Hesketh writing as Kirsty Dougal, is out now in all good bookshops, published by Penguin. For more information, visit kirstenhesketh.co.uk