Miss Purdy's Class By Annie Murray

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In the new year of 1936, Gwen Purdy, aged twenty-one, leaves her home to become a schoolteacher in a poor area of Birmingham. Her early weeks are eye-opening: at the school she faces a class of fifty-two children, some of whose homes are among Birmingham's very poorest. One of the teachers, the elderly Lily Drysdale, proves an inspiration, & Gwen begins to understand the appalling hardships endured by the children as se is drawn into their lives. Joey Phillips, eight years old & the man of the house, looks after his dying mother & lives in fear of being sent to an orphanage. When he disappears one day to a life on the streets, Gwen is haunted by his absence. & there's Lucy Fernandez, an epileptic. Through her, Gwen meets Daniel Fernandez, the elder brother in a fatherless household. Gwen falls in love & is engaged in his battle to win rights for the working class. As the International Brigade is mobilized to fight in the Spanish Civil War, Gwen has to accept that Daniel has secrets in his past which she would rather not face up to...