Love Changes Everything by Rosie Harris

to her high chair in time to the song she was singing.
    However, if Sam returned home before Trixie, the first thing he’d do would be to grab the spoon away from her which usually resulted in Cilla bursting into tears and she’d still be sobbing when Trixie arrived home.
    Trixie tried to reason with him. ‘If you took more notice of Cilla and picked her up when you came in, or even talked to her, Dad, then she’d stop her singing and making such a noise with the spoon,’ she pointed out.
    Sam rarely answered or took any notice, but if he was in a particularly bad mood it often resulted in Trixie getting a backhander across the mouth unless she was quick enough to move out of his reach.
    â€˜It’s a complete waste of time you trying to get your dad to take any notice of Cilla,’ her mother warned her, ‘so stop trying. As long as you pick her up and see to her as soon as you get in she won’t come to much harm.’
    Although neither Trixie nor Ivy had more than a few pence pocket money each week after handing over the bulk of their pay-packets, they made the most of it by going somewhere different with Cilla every weekend.
    â€˜We won’t want to do this very often when the weather starts getting colder,’ Trixie laughed as, on the last Saturday in September, they squared up to the brisk early autumn breeze that whipped the grey Mersey to a foaming froth as they boarded The Royal Daffodil to go across to New Brighton.
    â€˜Why not? The fresh air is so lovely and bracing that it will do us both good after being shut up in that horrible factory all week! A good sharp walk along the promenade when we get off the boat on the other side will get rid of all our cobwebs.’
    â€˜As long as we don’t all get blown away!’ Trixie laughed. ‘It’s a good job Cilla is in the pushchair because I don’t think she’d be able to stand up to this wind if she had to walk.’
    As they left the ferry boat at New Brighton and made their way along the Ham and Egg Parade and carried on walking towards the far end of the promenade, which was usually less crowded with day trippers, their talk inevitably turned to what had gone on at the factory the previous week.
    The way Fred Linacre continued to pick on Trixie was always the main topic of their conversation.
    â€˜He’s always telling Dora to move me to another place on the assembly line and making out that I’m not doing the job properly,’ Trixie moaned.
    â€˜I know,’ Ivy commiserated, ‘but even though I’ve tried to get some of the other women to protest along with me about the way he treats you, and to take your side, none of them will risk doing it in case they lose their jobs.’
    â€˜I can understand that,’ Trixie agreed. ‘The one thing that worries me is that one of these days he’ll sack me and then there will be all hell to pay when my father finds out.’
    â€˜Not if you tell him about the way Fred picks on you and finds fault with everything you do all the time.’
    â€˜It won’t make any difference what I say because he’ll believe whatever yarn Fred spins him and you can bet your boots he’ll make out it’s something I’ve done wrong,’ Trixie told her as they stopped to buy some ice cream cornets.
    â€˜I was telling Jake about it,’ Ivy told her as she waited while Trixie tied a bib around Cilla and helped her hold her cornet. ‘He said that if we belonged to a Trade Union, then Fred wouldn’t be able to pick on you like he does. You’d be able to report it and if you could prove he was picking on you for no reason at all, then the Union would support you in your fight and take it up with the bosses on your behalf. If they weren’t able to get them to agree to sort it out then they’d call a strike and everyone would stop work till it was dealt with by an arbitrator.’
    â€˜Really?’