Yours Cheerfully by A J Pearce
I’ve been looking forward to reading Yours Cheerfully by A J Pearce ever since I devoured the first instalment in the Emmeline Lake chronicles, Dear Mrs Bird,* when it was first published in 2018. I’ve been under-the-weather and generally confined to bed this week, getting over an onslaught of vaccine side-effects, so my kind Mum drove to our nearest Waterstones and picked up the shop’s exclusive, signed, sprayed-edge edition of Yours Cheerfully for me. Isn’t it a beauty? I perked up the moment the book was in my hands, and I read it in less than a day, once more gripped by the adventures of its plucky, warm-hearted heroine, twenty-four year old Emmeline (‘Emmy’) Lake, who does her best to navigate a career as a London journalist, whilst living through the privations, heart-breaks and dangers of World War Two.
Having got off to a rather rocky start at the Woman’s Friend magazine (as chronicled in Dear Mrs Bird), Emmy is determined to prove her worth and is kept busy answering queries from female readers writing into the ‘Yours Cheerfully’ advice column. Having longed to be a female war correspondent, Emmy realises that she can still Do Her Bit by providing support to the millions of women at home whose lives have been forever altered by war, and she is thrilled when the Ministry of Information calls on women’s magazines to help recruit female workers to the war effort. Finally, Emmy feels she has a chance to do proper war-work, beyond her volunteer shifts in the fire service.
A Vintage British Propaganda World War Two Poster
Inspired by a chance meeting on a train with a young, newly widowed mother (Anne Oliver), who is just about to take up a factory job, Emmy decides to run a series of articles on the inside stories of women working in munitions factories, hoping these pieces will inspire other women to join their ranks. As she dives deeper into the lives of Anne and her colleagues, though, Emmy realises that many women are expected to work full-time, often with overnight shifts, without being provided with adequate (or any) childcare. Anne also reminds Emmy that work for women isn’t simply a patriotic choice: many women have no option but to work and they have to support their families on lower wages than men earn doing the same job.
On her first visit to the munitions factory in which Anne works, Emmy is shocked to see small children waiting in a corner of the busy, noisy room; a situation that sparks a row with the (male) factory overseer and leads to the dismissal of the children’s mother, Irene. ‘Don’t be so quick to judge,’ Anne snaps when Emmy wonders what woman in her right mind would bring children into such a dangerous environment, ‘she hasn’t got a choice.’
Women Making Munitions Boxes by John Campbell Hutton (1906–1978). Photo credit: Museum of Farnham
Emmy realises she has been judgemental, as well as naive, over the challenges faced by working women, and she resolves to do what she can. Finding it a delicate balance between getting labelled as unpatriotic (an extremely serious charge in a country at war), but still speaking up for the rights of women workers, Emmy and her friends learn that power comes from unity and refusing to be cowed into silence.
Part of the reason I enjoy A J Pearce’s writing so much is that we have a shared interest in the largely untold stories of the everyday lives of women during the Second World War. Dear Mrs Bird concentrated mainly on London during the worst of the Blitz, as well as the day-to-day concerns of women during the war. In Yours Cheerfully, Pearce’s focus is on the propaganda role newspapers and magazines played during the war and on the experiences of women in previously male-dominated workforces. She handles these subjects with a refreshing lightness of touch and a convincing ability to recreate the sensibilities of a bygone age.
I would perhaps have liked to see a bit more of London in this book, although it was fun to read about Senate House in Bloomsbury as the HQ of the Ministry of Information, having studied just around the corner from this impressive Art Deco building as a student. A large part of the action in Yours Cheerfully takes place outside of London, and there isn’t much sense of what life was like in the city at this time - a marked difference from Dear Mrs Bird. I also found it odd that Emmy’s volunteer work in the Auxiliary Fire Service barely gets a mention; I know the worst of the Blitz is over, but it would have been interesting to keep up with this side of Emmy’s life.
Re-Forming Shell Cases (The LMS at War Series) by Norman Wilkinson (1878–1971). Photo credit: Photo credit: National Railway Museum / Science & Society Picture Library
If you enjoyed Dear Mrs Bird, though, then it’s safe to say that you’ll love Yours Cheerfully, which makes a hugely enjoyable and satisfying sequel, and if you haven’t read Dear Mrs Bird, then you could easily dive straight in with Yours Cheerfully, although I certainly recommend reading both! It was very moving to return to the Emmeline Lake series in the midst of another global crisis, and to be reminded of the strength there is in showing both friends and strangers understanding, sympathy and compassion.
Kindness, female solidarity and friendship are at the heart of A J Pearce’s books, and it’s hard not to read Yours Cheerfully without having your faith in humanity restored. Not that Pearce’s writing is saccharine; Emmy comes across plenty of selfish, unpleasant characters and finds that it is all too true that the world is divided between ‘women who stick up for each other, and women who don’t.’ At their core, though, Pearce’s novels are a celebration of female friendship, and this is partly what makes them such heartwarming, comforting reads. If, like me, you’re in need of a bookish pick-me-up, then let Yours Cheerfully be your next read.
Buy the special Waterstones edition of Yours Cheerfully here. Follow A J Pearce on Instagram, Twitter and her website.
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