Love001

FARRELL FARM (temporary name)

PROLOGUE I could hardly believe that it was only two years ago that i sat in the same seat on the same train going in the opposite direction, because it felt like a lifetime. I had barely lived up until then. In that time I found my home and my family, people who loved me, and in that time I'd lost them both. I couldn't say the war was a good thing, but good came out of it. If the war hadn't happened, then I wouldn't have been evacuated, and I wouldn't have learned what love was. Eventually over time, i probably would have turned into my mother - unloving, lonely and married to an unfaithful git. If the war hadn't happened, I wouldn't have had a chance to live, which is kind of ironic if you think about it.

I ran over the two years in my head and my eyes stung, more from nostalgia, but also because I was already missing home. I wondered if the reason for my leaving was so worth it, after all, now he was gone, and I would be lonely again. That first time I saw him, them, was September 1939, and I was only thirteen.

CHAPTER 1 I looked out of the window. Tree after tree zoomed past. Steam billowed by as the train turned a corner. There were several other children in the compartment, and yet, somehow I'd managed to barely converse with any of them. A woman appeared at the door and slid it open. "we'll be there soon," she said, and disappeared along the passage. And sure enough, very soon fields became less and houses more and eventually the train stopped in a station named Exeter. I grabbed my case from the rack and joined the Que waiting to depart from the nearest door. As I stepped down onto the crowded platform, I noticed a boy smile at me through the sea of people and steam. He was about my age, skinny, with slightly long blond hair. He pointed me out to the woman beside him - slightly plump with greying strawberry-blond hair and a kind face. They talked briefly to one of the assembling women and the three of them approached. "They're taking you." The lack of choice might have scared me, but these people looked friendly, and in fact any family would have been an improvement. "Hello... I'm Sophie," I said, timidly. "I'm Winnie," said the woman, warmly, "and this is Edward, my second-born." "Hi there," he said. He smiled, his eyes creasing as he did so. I could only smile in return. I followed them back to a group I hadn't realized they were with before. "This is my husband, Sean," she said, indicating the thirty-something man with a shock of dark brown hair. "And our four children; Liam, Edward whom you've met, Hugo and Erin... Everyone, this is Sophie." They all respectively shook my hand and Edward kissed me on the cheek in a mock-gentlemanly fashion. "Welcome to the family," said Sean.