Threads of Silk

Ellie Tyler’s dreams of going to art college and getting away from life in postwar London’s East End are shattered when she is forced to give up her education and go to work for her father’s boss in a disreputable night club. She has fallen in love with Harry, her foster brother, who is away in the army.

She consoles herself that when he returns he will rescue her from her unbearable situation. But then she suffers horrific abuse at the hands of her father and runs away, ending up in a small Essex village. She manages to find work in one of the remaining silk mills in the area and, with the encouragement of the mill owner, slowly begins to rebuild her life, re-discovering her creativity and gaining confidence from her success as a designer. But, although she still dreams of Harry, her first love, she feels she can’t face him after what her father did to her, and she cuts herself off from her family. Will she ever find happiness, or will those ‘threads of silk’ bind her forever to her traumatic past?