Bridget’s War

Shirley Mann

WHEN a young London policewoman is posted back to her roots in the Isle of Man in the midst of the Second World War, she finds that the island she remembers as a rural idyll has become a cauldron of resentment and fear.

Bridget’s War is the fourth story celebrating the role of women on the home front in a fascinating saga series from Derbyshire-based journalist Shirley Mann (pictured below) who follows up her compelling sagas, Lily’s War, Bobby’s War and Hannah’s War, with another exciting, emotion-filled story starring a wartime female police officer.

Mann’s first novel, Lily’s War, was inspired by her mother who was a WAAF and her father who was in the Eighth Army. Her second book, Bobby’s War, features a young ATA pilot, and Hannah’s War has a wartime Land Army girl at its heart.

Here we meet Manx born and bred Bridget Harrison who loves the island and knows every inch of it like the back of her hand. But that doesn’t mean she wants to be there now in 1942 as war rages around the world. A newly-trained police officer, living in the vibrant and bustling city of London, she thought she had it all... a budding career, celebrity status as one of only a few female officers, and a busy social life.

Then the war strengthened its grip and she found herself posted back to the island, a stark contrast to the exciting streets of the capital. But, tasked with managing Rushen Camp, a women's internment camp where Jews have to rub shoulders with Nazi Germans, she unearths a cauldron of resentment and fear that brings a dangerous war right to the shores of the island.

Bridget realises the barbed wire around the camp is keeping in secrets that will test her training to the limit and what seems like a simple arrest leads her down a path that puts her and the island's security at risk.

And then there are the two brothers... one she has adored since childhood who has become a war hero, and the other a brave lifeboatman and farmer. Bridget finds she is torn between being the adult she wants to be and the tomboy from her childhood... the girl who roamed the cliffs in the days when there were no boundaries.

Mann plunges readers into the challenges faced by a woman tackling not just a pioneering job but the dilemmas and dangers of policing under the extraordinary circumstances of wartime on a small, isolated island. Set against a backdrop full of wartime period detail, including the perils of working in the restless confines an internment camp, a compelling layer of nostalgia, intrigue, romance and life in a little-known corner of the home front, Bridget’s War is a saga full of real history, heart and heritage.
(Zaffre, paperback, £8.99)