With a threepenny bit in her clenched hand, Audrey Barton pushed her way through the jostling crowds on the platform. Bournemouth Central railway station was crammed with people waiting to board the train bound for Southampton docks and Audrey’s eyes skittered from face to face as she tried to locate her brother. Trembling in her blue swing coat, her dark blonde hair resting on the collar, she tried not to stare at the drama all around her. With sunlight slipping through the station ceiling and casting beams of light like spotlights onto the platform, the concourse felt to Audrey like a giant stage. Except that this was real life, she thought solemnly, and nobody was acting. There were fathers wordlessly shaking their sons’ hands, misty-eyed mothers and grandmothers handing food parcels to their beloved boys and dear, sweet infants and toddlers in their fathers’ arms, not understanding the gravity of what this farewell kiss, planted heavily on their young cheeks, might mean. Already on board the train were young, fresh-faced recruits leaning out of the windows, one writing on the train door in chalk, ‘Look out Mr Hitler we’re coming to get you!’

And what of the sweethearts? The fragrance of Evening In Paris scented the air and Audrey could almost hear lovers’ hearts breaking above the hiss and whistle of the steam engine. One girl was balancing on the shoulders of her friend so that she could kiss a young soldier leaning out of the train window. When he gripped her around the waist as if he would never let go, a ripple of applause broke out. Another girl clutched a bunch of lavender handed to her by a strapping uniformed man over six feet tall with shoulders almost as wide. He kissed her softly on the forehead while she tried to hold in her tears. Since Chamberlain’s declaration of war less than a month earlier, there had been a rush of weddings in the town. Barton’s, the bakery Audrey ran with her husband Charlie, had had more orders for wedding cakes than she’d known what to do with. Now some of those young newlyweds would begin their married life wrenched apart, unsure of when, or if, they would meet again. Audrey’s throat ached with the emotion of it all.

She swallowed hard and, glancing at her pocket watch, began to panic. She had arranged to meet her brother William before he left, but he was nowhere in sight. Though she was privately terrified by him joining the British Expeditionary Force, she could not let her fears be known. What good would that do to anyone? Besides, William could think for himself and had never been swayed by anyone else’s view.

‘Sis!’ said William, appearing beside her. ‘I couldn’t see you in all the faces. Is Elsie with you?’

William was tall, slim and had long limbs that had earned him the ‘gangly’ name tag at school but that he’d grown into as a twenty-one-year-old, giving him the easy elegance of Jimmy Stewart. He had a heart-shaped face, pronounced by his wavy hair combed back from his forehead and the fine vertical line that ran between his eyes, almost as if drawn on with a pencil. He had been courting Elsie for a year, and they made the most handsome, head-turning couple.

‘I thought she’d be with you,’ Audrey answered, standing on tiptoes to look for Elsie in the throng. ‘Gosh, where is she? Maybe Beales wouldn’t let her out. Her boss in the Needlework Department rules with an iron fist.’

‘You don’t think she’s had doubts about me?’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m not as good at the mouth harp as I’d like to think.’

William’s harmonica was as much a part of him as his arm or leg. Where most men could be seen cradling a cigarette to their mouths, William’s habit was playing the harmonica. During his breaks at the bakery, where he’d worked as an apprentice baker until now, he’d perch on one of the huge sacks of flour and play tunes that rivalled the songbirds.

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘That’s one of the reasons she fell for you. She says your heart beats to a Larry Adler tune. I’m going to miss listening to you play and…’

Words failed her, as she battled not to tell him how desperately worried she was about him going. She hugged him tight instead. William grinned, dipped into his pocket and handed Audrey the battered red case of his M Hohner harmonica.

‘Can you give her this?’ he asked. ‘Inside there’s… well, it’s not the most original thing… and it’s not exactly a rock. I wanted to give it her myself and do things properly and take care of her like a husband should, but there’s not enough time and the war won’t wait…’

For a moment, despite his stature and dashing good looks, William seemed lost, like a five-year-old boy on his first day at school. Audrey felt suddenly fiercely protective of him, and held his face in her hands.

‘William,’ Audrey said. ‘I’ll make sure she gets the ring. There’s something I want to give you too.’

She placed the threepenny bit in his palm. ‘Can you remember when Mother used to put this in the plum pudding at Christmas? You bit into it one year and broke your tooth! It was supposed to bring us luck. Not that our mother has brought us much luck over the years, quite the opposite, but I’ve always kept this coin…’

The thought of their mother, and the fact she wasn’t there to wave William off like the dozens of other mothers on the platform, infuriated Audrey. She smiled ruefully and William laughed gently, tucking the coin into his breast pocket. He put his arm around her and she resisted the temptation to cling onto his coat and not let him go.

The trainmaster blew his whistle and there was a sudden push towards the train doors, puffs of steam billowing into the rafters and scattering pigeons.

‘It’ll be over by Christmas,’ William said, jumping onto the train and pulling shut the door. ‘And I’ll join you for plum pudding!’ he called out above the din. ‘And tell my Elsie I’ll marry her when I come home, if she’ll have me.’

‘I will,’ said Audrey. ‘Farewell William!’

‘Farewell Sis!’ he called, raising his palm.

As the train moved off in a cloud of steam, a rousing chorus of male voices singing ‘Homeland, Homeland when shall I see you again…’ burst through the windows. Audrey waved until her body swayed with the force of it, not just at William but at all the young men leaving their lives in Bournemouth for an uncertain future. Tears escaped her eyes and she swiped angrily at them. She mustn’t let William see her cry.

Now, with the train gone, the station was eerily quiet and Audrey walked slowly to the front of the building, lined with sandbags, with a heavy heart.

‘AUUUDREY!’ she heard Elsie yell. Audrey turned to see Elsie running towards her, overcoat hanging off her shoulders, stockings ripped at the knee and with one of her smart work shoes in her hand. Her cheek and forehead were oil-streaked and her breathing, as she stopped running and bent over to rest against her knees, was ragged.

‘Goodness, Elsie,’ Audrey said, gently pulling a green leaf from Elsie’s shiny dark curls. ‘What on earth has happened?’

‘My bicycle!’ she said. ‘The wretched chain fell off. I came flying off, bent a wheel and then lost my shoe in the road under a wheel of a bus. I tried to get the chain back on, but my fingers were shaking so badly I couldn’t do it! I ran all the way here and now… now I’ve missed him, haven’t I? The train’s gone, hasn’t it! That wretched bike, it’s as useless as a chocolate teapot!’

Elsie looked at the sky and growled in exasperation. A moment later, hand shielding her eyes, her small frame shook with angry sobs.

‘Oh Elsie, you poor girl,’ Audrey said, hugging Elsie and glancing at the harmonica box. ‘Come on. Wipe your eyes and let’s go home. I’ve got something to tell you that might help heal your heart.’

Elsie’s lovely face – hazelnut eyes, peachy cheeks, lips painted in ‘Theatrical Red’, with deep dimples like full stops either side of her mouth – turned towards Audrey. She managed a watery smile and breathed in, visibly pulling herself together. Audrey handed her a cotton hanky and she blew her nose noisily. Together they walked away from the station as William’s train rumbled towards Southampton docks.

While the girls linked arms, William stood in the corridor of the packed train watching the town that he so loved blur and eventually disappear, the threepenny bit in his breast pocket, close to his pounding heart. And so it all began.