The Soup Kitchen Girl

Libby Ashworth 

WHEN civil war broke out across the southern states of America at the tail end of 1861, the repercussions stretched far across the Atlantic Ocean to the mill towns of Lancashire.

Cotton was the lifeblood of these northern industrial strongholds and their communities but the mills were totally dependent on imported raw cotton from American plantations and when the Cotton Famine, as it became known, saw supplies dry up, mills closed and workers were laid off.

It was a tough time to be alive in Lancashire and nobody knows that better than Blackburn-born author Libby Ashworth who has written historical novels, sagas and non-fiction books featuring fascinating corners of the county’s rich and fascinating heritage.

Ashworth (pictured below) can trace her family back to the village of Whalley in the Middle Ages but it was the experiences of her great-great-grandfather, William Eastwood, who worked as a both a spinner and later a shopkeeper in Blackburn, which inspired this new saga series set during the cotton mill crisis.

In 1861, about 25,000 of Blackburn’s 61,126 population were directly employed in the cotton trade and as the looms fell silent, the mills were forced to shut down leaving entire families facing abject poverty, hardship and despair, and engineers, machine-makers and shopkeepers desperately trying to keep their businesses afloat.

The American Civil War dragged on until the spring of 1865 and Ashworth’s new hard-hitting series explores this period of intense deprivation through the lens of three young women in Blackburn, each one from a different background but brought together by the mill crisis and discovering that there are no boundaries to a friendship born from community struggle.

Sally Grimes is the eldest of a family of six children and, in one capacity or another, they are almost all employed in mill work and when the news comes through that a civil war is starting in America, her dad Jimmy is convinced it’s ‘nowt to do with us’. But when no raw cotton arrives, the looms power down and the mills stop work completely, the family have nothing left to live on. The war on the other side of the ocean has stolen their livelihood, there isn’t a thing they can do about it and the last thing proud Jimmy wants to do is ask for charity.

In another part of the town, Ruth Hodgson’s widower father has a confectionery shop but the sweets he made months ago have not been sold and like other shopkeepers and publicans, workers are not buying luxuries and his business lies in ruins. His only hope of surviving is to allow the council to run his shop as a soup kitchen. He will be the kitchen’s supervisor and his confectionery vats will be used to make the soup. But when he falls ill, it is up to Ruth to persuade the relief committee that she is capable of taking on the work in his place.

Caroline Haworth, meanwhile, is the daughter of a Blackburn mill owner who employs all of the Grimes family except for the two youngest children. Her father is a good man who regards his workers as almost family and is eager to do all he can to help them, and Caroline, despite her demanding and volatile mother’s disapproval, is more than willing to volunteer at the newly opened soup kitchen.

Soon all the three women are volunteering at the kitchen which is playing an increasingly important social role in helping a community fighting to survive without work and money. But with all sections of the town now in need, the kitchen is running out of money and the only solution is accepting a loan from the wealthy Dutton family… a loan that comes with unwanted strings attached.

Authentic, gritty and filled with the harsh realities of life in Lancashire during the notorious Cotton Famine, The Soup Kitchen Girl is a moving tribute to not just the determination of those who found themselves caught up in the economic disaster, but also to the resilience of women like Sally, Ruth and Caroline who broke through the class barrier to come together and help families in distress. As always, the portrait of a close-knit Lancashire community is beautifully drawn with each character – whether good or bad – playing an integral part in an enthralling story which brings to vivid life some of the severe challenges facing the townsfolk, and the ties of love that bind them together.

With her vast local knowledge and research, and her gift for transforming real history into page-turning drama, Ashworth weaves fascinating nuggets of social history into her story, using her own family’s experiences to lay the foundations of what promises to be another gripping and emotionally-powered saga series.
(Canelo, paperback, £9.99)