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The Sugar Girls
- Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End
- Narrated by: Penny McDonald
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's summary
Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End Factories. The Sugar Girls went straight to No.10 in the Sunday Times Bestseller List, spending five weeks in the top ten.
‘On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle’s refinery on the shining curve of the Thames. Looking up at the giant gates, Ethel felt like she had been preparing for this moment all her life. She smoothed down her frizzy hair, scraped a bit of dirt off the corner of her shoe and strode through.
She was quite unprepared for the sight that met 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 & 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.
Through the Blitz and on through the years of rationing The Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but Tate & Lyle was more than just a factory, it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of the East End. From young Ethel to love-worn Lillian, irrepressible Gladys to Miss Smith who tries to keep a workforce of flirtatious young men and women on the straight and narrow, this is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness.
Tales of adversity, resilience and youthful high spirits are woven together to provide a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female.
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Critic reviews
An authoritative and highly readable work of social history which brings vividly to life a fascinating part of East End life before it is lost forever.’ Melanie McGrath
‘Delightful, a terrific piece of nonfiction storytelling, and an authoritative and highly readable work of social history which brings vividly to life a fascinating part of East End life before it is lost forever.’ – Melanie McGrath, bestselling author of Silvertown and Hopping
‘This vivid and richly readable account of women’s lives in and around the Tate & Lyle East London works in the Forties and Fifties is written as popular social history, played for entertainment. If it doesn’t become a TV series to rival Call The Midwife, I’ll take my tea with ten sugars.’ Bel Mooney, Daily Mail
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By: Annie Groves
-
There'll Be Blue Skies
- By: Ellie Dean
- Narrated by: Annie Aldington
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast, she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights and sounds of London's East End – but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind, knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl and play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally – their real mother Florrie, a good-time girl, hasn't even come to the station to wave them off and Ernie, crippled at an early age by polio, is used to depending on his older sister.
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The audible reading was poor
- By Connie Palla on 03-02-19
By: Ellie Dean
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The Postcard
- By: Leah Fleming
- Narrated by: Elaine Claxton
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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2002, Australia. When Melissa discovers a postcard addressed to 'Desmond' among her recently deceased father's effects, she is determined to discover this person's identity and his relationship to her father. She soon embarks on a journey that will take her across oceans and into the past...
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Meh
- By Summer Layne on 03-06-15
By: Leah Fleming
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Call the Midwife
- A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
- By: Jennifer Worth
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she met while delivering babies all over London - from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lived to the woman with 24 children who couldn't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side - illuminate a fascinating time in history.
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The best book I've listened to this year
- By Richard on 06-12-13
By: Jennifer Worth
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An Orphan’s War
- By: Molly Green
- Narrated by: Julie Masey
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Liverpool, 1940. When her childhood sweetheart, Johnny, is killed in action, Maxine Grey loses more than her husband - she loses her best friend. Desperate to make a difference in this awful war, Maxine takes a nursing job at London’s St Thomas’ hospital. She takes comfort in the attentions of a handsome surgeon, but Edwin Blake isn’t all he seems. And as the Blitz descends on the capital, Maxine faces more heartache. When she returns to Liverpool, she harbours a secret.
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An Orphan's War by Molly Green
- By customers coins on 05-04-19
By: Molly Green
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Shadow of a Century
- By: Jean Grainger
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Mary Doyle arrives in Dublin in 1913, doomed, she fears, to a life of domestic service. Instead, however, she finds herself deeply affected by the social and political turmoil of a fledgling nation struggling for independence. Suddenly, all that was once inevitable is no longer a certainty as she is embroiled in the very heart of the Easter Rising.
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Loved this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-20
By: Jean Grainger
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Gypsy Boy
- By: Mikey Walsh
- Narrated by: Mikey Walsh
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Mikey's family were Gypsies. They live in a closed community and little is known about their way of life. As he didn't go to school, the caravan became his world. But although Mikey inherited a vibrant culture, his family had a dark hidden history. Eventually Mikey was forced to make a decision – to stay and keep secrets, or escape and find somewhere to belong.
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Beaten up
- By Bel on 06-10-21
By: Mikey Walsh
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An Orphan in the Snow
- By: Molly Green
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Liverpool, 1941. Troubled by a dark family history and the pain of seeing her country torn apart by war, young June Lavender finds new hope when she takes a job at the Dr Barnardo's children's home. There she meets Lizzie McRae, a little girl who is the spitting image of June's sister, who died tragically years before. Against the matron's wishes, the two girls form an unexpected bond as June tries to get the traumatised orphan to speak.
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The title doesn't fit the story
- By mrsmlbj on 11-23-22
By: Molly Green
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The Forgotten Secret
- By: Kathleen McGurl
- Narrated by: Melanie MacHugh
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s the summer of 1919, and Ellen O’Brien has her whole life ahead of her. Young, in love and leaving home for her first job, the future seems full of shining possibility. But war is brewing, and before long, Ellen and everyone around her are swept up by it. As Ireland is torn apart by the turmoil, Ellen finds herself facing the ultimate test of love and loyalty. A hundred years later and Clare Farrell has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in County Meath.
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The Forgotten Secret
- By Amazon Customer on 08-31-20
By: Kathleen McGurl
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Half a Lifelong Romance
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. When they are reunited after many years, can they start their relationship again? Or is it destined to be the romance of only half a lifetime?
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super
- By Marcus Aurelius on 10-05-17
By: Eileen Chang
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Under Heaven's Shining Stars
- By: Jean Grainger
- Narrated by: Alan Smyth
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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For three young boys, Liam, Patrick, and Hugo, life in Ireland of the 1960s proves to be both idyllic and flawed. Living in close proximity but leading vastly different lives, the bonds of friendship bind these young men as they grow, dream, and navigate the storms of youth.
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A Modern Irish Catholic Tale
- By Jane Meddaugh on 12-19-20
By: Jean Grainger
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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Moggach
- Narrated by: Juliet Mills
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....
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Screenwriters Changed it for the Better
- By Carole T. on 06-05-12
By: Deborah Moggach
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The Brightest Star in the Sky
- A Novel
- By: Marian Keyes
- Narrated by: Caitriona Keyes
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The Brightest Star in the Sky follows seven neighbors whose lives become entangled when a sassy and prescient spirit pays a visit to their Dublin townhouse with the intent of changing at least one of their lives. But what will this metamorphosis be and who will the sprite choose?
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Terrible sound quality, worse narration
- By Jan on 02-23-10
By: Marian Keyes
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The Invisible Wall
- A Love Story That Broke Barriers
- By: Harry Bernstein
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This enchanting true story, written when the author was 93, is a moving tale of working-class life, the social divide, and forbidden love on the eve of the first World War. The narrow street on which Harry grew up appeared identical to countless other working-class English neighborhoods, except for the invisible wall that ran down the center of the street, dividing the Jewish families on one side from the Christians on the other.
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A Powerful Tale
- By Sara on 11-29-13
By: Harry Bernstein
What listeners say about The Sugar Girls
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mary Parent
- 03-11-23
Great non-fiction book.
Focuses on the lives of several young women who all worked at a London sugar factory in the 1940’s and follows them through their lives. Even though there is loss and distress, especially during the war years, this is generally a feel-good book. Highly recommend.
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- M.C.Garcia Jones
- 10-21-15
An ifascinating snaoshot
A snapshot of a lifestyle now gone. The individual stories snd characters are lifelike and make you feel as if you have stepped into another time and really experienced their joys snd troubles both at work and in their personal life. I found the details about the running of the factory one of the best parts of the book - so different from the way things are done now.
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1 person found this helpful
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- S. Farr
- 06-18-19
If you like Call The Midwife
This story centers around the lives of the girls and women that worked in the sugar plant in London mainly during world war 2. I love it and it fits right in perfectly with the time spans of Call the Midwife. the characters are well developed and you fall in love with them and enjoy reading about their lives and loves. Highly recommend this tale for anyone that loves British history.
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