The Changing Day
Eve Phillips

252 pages
Paperback - ISBN: 978-0-9555778-3-3
Published: 2008 by Sagittarius Publications

Associated title: A Year Out of Time, All Shall Be Well, Matthew's Daughter, A Very Private Affair, Return to Falcon Field , A Very Artistic Affair , The Turning Point by Eve Phillips

Back Cover

The Changing Day begins in 1940, when a meeting between WREN Joanna Dunne and Navy Lieutenant Mark Eden is the start of a love affair that at first seems unlikely to stand the test of time. She is 22, single and an Oxford graduate; he is 36, married and in civilian life a country vet. She is attracted but not looking for romance, he is attracted but not looking for commitment and, as Joanna soon discovers, he is the black sheep of his family and has a very murky past.

Despite her initial mistrust and his resistance; against the backcloth of a war that ranges from a Hampshire port to the Cornish coast and from North Africa to Singapore, attraction deepens into love that in turn blossoms into a passionate affair.
But can their love survive five years of separations, misunder- standings, seemingly irreconcilable family conflict, tragedy and loss and the aftermath of war…?

Prologue

October 1939

Audrey Dunne stopped buffing her nails and stared at her daughter. She said, 'Would you mind repeating that; I think I must have misheard you.'
Joanna sighed. 'I said, I've applied and been accepted for the WRNS. I report to Greenwich on Monday.'

'You might have warned me, not presented me with a fait accompli - and why the hurry?'

'Oh, you know,' Joanna shrugged, 'Hitler. A little thing called a war; doing my bit.'

'And just what use do you imagine a first class honours degree in English Literature will be to the navy?'

'I've no idea.'

Her mother narrowed her eyes and struck home. 'You've always hated the "all girls' together stuff" as you call it. I should think that between school and university you would have had enough of female communal living to last a lifetime.'

Joanna thought about all the parties and dances, all the suppers in a chaps lodgings, the flirting and going to the flicks before being give a leg up over Somerville's wall by a couple of merry undergrads after lock-up. She repressed a smile; she hadn't actually done a lot of the "all girls' together stuff" since leaving school.

'You have a point there,' she said, 'but I daresay I'll survive.'

'What about the offer of that junior lectureship at Edinburgh?'

'I phoned the Dean yesterday. He said he quite understood and wished me well.' She gave her mother an affectionate, slightly exasperated smile. 'Come off it Aud,' she said, Audrey hated being called mummy or mother, too ageing she said, and quite outmoded once a child could blow its own nose, 'you joined the Red Cross almost before poor old Neville had finished announcing we were at war,' she hesitated then said, 'I think Dad would have been cheering me on.'

Audrey answered swiftly. 'I'm sure he would, but as he was an army man why are you joining the navy?'

Joanna grinned, 'As an army child don't you I think I need the change?'

'Hmm, I don't feel too happy at my daughter taking herself off to some dockyard full of sex-mad sailors.'

Joanna might have pointed out that quite a few mild - and one not so mild - dalliance with sex mad undergraduates had, she hoped, equipped her to deal with anything the navy might have on offer, but only replied peaceably, 'I daresay I'll survive those as well,' unaware that time would prove her quite so spectacularly wrong.

About the Author

Eve Phillips was born in London but, at an early age, moved to Epping Forest in Essex. She now lives in Hampshire, and has three children and six grandchildren.

Committed to combining creative fiction with strong factual backgrounds, Phillips has relied heavily on the resources of such venerable institutions as The Imperial War Museum, The Holocaust Museum and The Royal British Legion, to whom she is indebted for their support.

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