In 1920 Hetty was working in the Tin Box factory in the east end of London, her mother had falcified her birth certificate by two years so she was at a working age of fourteen, with a father who in his drunken rages would terrify her brothers and herself or even try to abuse her, at times she would hate him for the way he would beat her mother ,when he was killed in the docks where he worked all their lives were to change. When she got pregnant and married Harry who she thought she loved Hetty thought her life would be settled ,but when the baby died and left her bereft with pain,she couldn,t bring herself to feel anything ,so when Tom, Harry,s brother came home from the army and came into her life she fell deaply in love and would do anything to be with him even to the extent of leaving her two young daughters, With Tom she had found the life she wanted ,but with her young sister Florrie growing up into a beauty and hanging round Tom, she once again found her life uncertain, she couldn't take any more heartache , when the war started in 1939,Hetty had moved to the country with her children,with Tom away all week working on the black cabs in London Hetty became paranoid with the knowledge of him being so near to Florrie..But Hetty wasn't prepared to give up that easily.