Liverpool Daisy

This novel remains one of Helen Forrester’s most widely read pieces of historical fiction, set during the Great Depression in 1930s Liverpool.

Liverpool 1931. Daisy Gallagher — big, tough and loving — learns to fight competition, laugh with her customers, weep in private. In a Liverpool torn by the Depression, Daisy grows to womanhood the hard way. She becomes the mainstay of her poverty-stricken family and is devoted to her friend Nellie O’Brian, who is dying for lack of medical attention.

Daisy’s desperation for money leads her into the darkened streets — and into the arms of drunken sailors willing to pay for their relief. Through her own strength and sacrifice, she earns enough to pay for her friend’s much-needed medical care. Her family know nothing of her secret occupation — but when her stoker husband returns from the sea, Daisy realises, terror-stricken, that the moment of truth has finally arrived.