The Clarks Factory Girls is a new wartime saga series by May Ellis and as I’m on the book tour for the second in the series, I wanted to read the first one, before I started the second. I’m unsure whether our friends across the pond know that Clarks Shoes used to be a massive thing in the UK (although maybe not as much these days). Almost everyone I knew had a pair of Clarks shoes as their first ever pair, and school shoes in particular would, more often than not, have been a pair of Clarks.
Anyway, this series immerses us into the lives of characters who lived and worked in the village of Street in Somerset in the UK, where Clarks had its first factory. Louisa, Jeannie, and Kate have been friends since they were all at school together and now work side by side in the machine shop in the Clarks factory in 1914.
Throughout the book, we learn how the community, factories and individuals coped with the onset of war and the challenges that it brought, whether personal or professional. I enjoyed reading about the Quakers and how their beliefs differed from those of their neighbours.
Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the opportunity to read and review The Clarks Factory Girls at War by May Ellis.
About the Book
Life-long friends Louisa, Jeannie and Kate are following in the footsteps of their families, working at the Clarks shoe factory.
But when Britain declares war on Germany, the Somerset village of Street is shaken to its core. The Clarks factory is at the heart of life in the village, but the Clark family are Quakers and pacifists. Before long, there are fierce debates amongst the workers and tensions between those who oppose the war and those who believe the village men should go to fight.
Each of the girls must decide her own position but as brothers and sweethearts leave for France, Louisa is relieved that her beloved Mattie, a Quaker, won’t be signing up. But she’ll soon find that they face fierce opposition at home as well as across the Channel.
Will the girls’ friendship be enough to keep them together, as everything around them falls apart?
May Ellis has been a legal executive, registered childminder, professional fund – raiser and a teacher. She has travelled the world, including trekking in mountains, deserts and the Great Wall of China, as well as helping build a house in Thailand. She went to university in her forties and gained a first class degree and an MA while still working full – time. Her first book, a contemporary romance, was published in 2014. Since then she has had five more novels published, including another romance and a YA time travel adventure. The last three are gritty dramas set in the 1960s/70s published by Darkstroke Books. She lives in Somerset, within sight of Glastonbury Tor, volunteering at her local library and for the Alfred Gillett Trust (custodians of the Clark’s archives). Her current series, based on the factory workers at Clark’s Shoes was inspired by her move to the area and her love of social history.
