Hidden Histories

"Hidden Histories" is a historical/family saga spanning almost eighty years and set in Ireland, Scotland and England. It is about the impact of political and historic forces on ordinary lives, the interdependence of past and present, exploring how identity is transmitted from one generation to the next. It is also a story of loss: of the separation of mothers from their children and of the bonds between them.
It tells the story of four generations of women, beginning with cousins Margaret and Tillie, Protestants from Belfast, in 1916. The women all have secrets which enfold over the years and are revealed to their daughters and granddaughters through letter writing or personal revelation. Tillie, who is in love with her cousin (Margaret's brother William), goes away to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) during the First World War. After the war Tillie settles in London and marries (unhappily) for respectability and money. Her life could scarcely be more different from that of her cousin Margaret who marries a Scottish miner and goes off to Airdrie to begin her married life.