Luckpenny Land

Luckpenny Land

Life is hard for Meg Turner. She lives on a lonely farm in the bleak but beautiful mountains of the Lake District with a bully of a father and a brother who resents her. They want to keep her stuck at home, but Meg knows there’s more to life than the kitchen sink and she’s determined to find it.

Meg wants to be a sheep farmer - unusual for a woman - and life in this man’s world proves tougher at times than she expected. For love and comfort she turns to her best friend Kath, and to Lanky Lawson, who’s more of a father figure to her than her own will ever be. But it’s Lanky’s son, Jack, with his dark good looks, she loves and hopes to marry one day. Loyalties are threatened as World War Two approaches and Meg gradually realises that the only thing she can really count on is her passion for the haunting land she loves so much.

'An entertaining saga'

'paints a vivid picture of life on the fells during the war. Enhanced by fine historical detail and strong characterisation it is an endearing story...'
Westmorland Gazette

1938

'Anyone would think I was asking to go on the streets.'
            The stinging slap sent the honey gold hair swirling about her face, enveloping her burning cheeks in a wash of colour that for a brief moment lit up the shabby kitchen.
            Any ordinary face would have been hardened and cheapened by the cold light of the single Tilly lamp, but not this one.   The girl's face was arresting, alive with the urgency of her request. There was a strength in the way she firmed the wide mouth, resolution in the sweeping arch of the brow, in the smoke grey of the eyes fringed by a crescent of dark lashes above cheek bones that would hold their beauty long after time had wrought its damage.
            But there was no one to be captivated by Meg Turner's youthful beauty here, certainly not her uncompromising father. Even her two brothers had withdrawn from the scene to a safer distance the moment supper was over, Dan to check the flock for any new lambs, Charlie reluctantly to clean out the sheds.
            The remnants of the kitchen fire fell together with a small hushing noise. There was no other sound in the room, save for that of the rain that beat against the window. Outside, great waves of it washed down the hillsides from the high mountain tops, gushed into the overfilled beck and pelted onwards to the River Kent and the distant sea. They were used to rain in Lakeland and paid little heed to it, and the glowering skies seemed eminently suited to her mood. Meg wished she was out in it, letting it wash over her face and limbs, cleansing the pain and frustration from her as it so often did. The wind was rising, she could hear it whining in the great ash trees that lined the track to the farm and gave the name Ashlea to the place that had been her home for all of her nineteen years.
            Inconsequentially, she remembered leaving a blanket loose on the line. She’d have to search for it in the bottom field come morning. Nothing that wasn't battened down would survive the helm wind that scoured these high fells. Though the wind could not penetrate the walls of the farmhouse, which were four feet thick; solid enough to withstand the worst mountain weather, and keep her within, like a prisoner, Meg thought with resentment.
            She started to clear the table with a jerky, angry movements, swallowing up the bitter tears of disappointment that threatened to choke her. She supposed the slap was no more than she deserved. She shouldn't have dared to repeat the rebellious statement she had made to Dan earlier when he’d caught her pulling pints at the Cock and Feathers.
            ‘Get your coat on,’ he’d bluntly told her. ‘You're coming home with me.’
            She hadn't been able to believe her bad luck, having deliberately chosen the inn because it was far from the market area of town where her father conducted his business. Not for one moment had she considered the possibility of her own brother choosing to drink there. But losing her temper, she knew from experience, would get her nowhere. Hadn’t she discovered so a dozen times?
            Nevertheless, since it had taken her weeks to find this job, she wasn't for giving in easily. ‘I'll not,’ she'd said, continuing to pull pints, feeling the excitement of defiance in the pit of her stomach.
            When she tossed back a ragged abundance of honeyed curls from slender shoulders, an unconsciously sensuous act, not a man in the room would not have willingly championed her.

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