Far from the East End - The moving story of an evacuee's survival and search for home

‘Gladys changed into her new uniform. The dungarees hung loosely on her boyish frame, the crotch resting somewhere down by her knees and the backside looking like a crumpled sack waiting to be filled with potatoes. The short-sleeved blouse seemed to have been designed with a buxom matron in mind, and one with arms as thick as her legs, not a skinny, flat-chested 14-year-old. What kind of monstrous creatures worked in this Blue Room?’

In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London’s East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate and Lyle’s where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked.

This is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness, providing a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female.

Includes Gladys’s own personal photographs of life as a sugar girl.

Discover the remarkable memoir by GI Bride and bestselling author Iris Jones Simantel.

Iris had escaped the Blitz but now lived in crippling poverty after the war - until a chance meeting changed her life. Aged just sixteen, she fell in love and married US soldier Bob Irvine. And soon after she set sail for a new life in America.

It was the 1950s, the land of hope, dreams and Doris Day movies. But Iris ended up in a cramped Chicago bungalow, shared with Bob's parents. With a baby on the way and a husband turning daily into a stranger, Iris was wracked by homesickness. Trapped and desperately lonely, she had to make a fresh start, in a country where hope and opportunity thrived.

In this dramatic sequel to the Sunday Times bestseller, Far From the East End, we follow young Iris Jones Simantel from London to New York, Chicago and Las Vegas in her struggle to find work, love and a sense of belonging in a foreign land.

Iris Simantel is the acclaimed winner of the Saga Magazine 'Life Story' competition, beating several thousand entries to publish her first memoir Far From the East End. Iris grew up in Dagenham and South Oxhey (with an evacuation to Wales in between) before marrying her GI husband Bob and moving to Chicago. She now resides in Devon where she enjoys writing as a pastime.

‘When Lilian Tull came to Tate & Lyle shortly after the end of the war, she was older than most new arrivals. A lanky, fairhaired woman of 23, she worked in the can-making department, where the Golden Syrup tins were assembled. Lilian had arrived on the job with a heavy heart, and her colleagues noticed a sad, far-away look in her eyes.’

In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London’s East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate and Lyle’s where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked.

Includes Lilian’s own personal photographs of life as a sugar girl.