Danielle Byers

“Tonight’s news switched from RAF men to a city somewhere abroad – I didn’t catch where. The footage showed hungry-looking people queuing for food, flanked either side by soldiers. There was snow on the ground. The people in line wore star-shaped badges on their coats.
Watching, I began to feel uncomfortable instead of proud. The Pathé news voice – jolly and brisk – jarred with what I was seeing. These people weren’t just hungry but scared. I could tell by their faces how desperate they were, and it made me horribly guilty for the fuss we’d made about our supper.”
― Emma Carroll, Letters from the Lighthouse

“Nurse Spencer came back without tea. One look at her and I knew she had bad news.
‘Oh lord,’ she said, closing the curtain behind her. ‘Maybe you weren’t so lucky after all.’
I wanted to pull the covers up and hide, then she might go away and take her awful news with her. But I couldn’t bear not to know, either. ‘It’s not my brother? Or…’ I gulped. ‘My sister?’
‘It’s your mother. A bomb landed on the building where she was last night.’
The ringing sound was back in my ears; I wasn’t sure I’d heard her properly. ‘My mother?’
‘Yes, it was a direct hit. You mustn’t think that she suffered.’
She probably said this to every relative, every time, which I supposed was nice of her. The words, though, didn’t sink in.”
― Emma Carroll, Letters from the Lighthouse

“I’d never met Queenie, but I knew she’d taken on running the village post office after her and Gloria’s parents died. She was only nineteen, so it was a big responsibility, but Gloria said that’s what the war did to people – it made them grow up fast.”
― Emma Carroll, Letters from the Lighthouse

“And until we found Sukie I was the big sister, the responsible one. That was pretty alarming too.”
― Emma Carroll, Letters from the Lighthouse