Pre WW1, around 1920s. Set in Lancashire, England around a toffee? factory. Read in 1970s. Spoilers.

[Michelle]

Hello,

I am desperately trying to identify this book that my mother read years ago so I can buy her it again. Any help you can give would be so gratefully appreciated.

Here is what I know about it....

pre WW1 in Lancashire and based around a toffee factory. The family that owned it and the boy who grew up in the Gatehouse of the Big House.

The boy defrauded the factory and with the money, bought a motorcar and was killed in a car crash.

The book uses the quote “from clogs to clogs in three generation”

It’s not a lot to go on, but I am hoping it may ring a bell with someone.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you can help identify the book.

[Rainbowheart]

Nobody's Child

When the Great War came. Matt volunteered to fight. He said: ‘One way of getting my own back on Father. He’ll have to look after the toffee factory for me while I’m away.’

‘Clogs to clogs in three generations. Isn’t that what they say?’ Matt asked, sitting up straight in his chair. ‘We Mortimers are running true to form.’

‘An accident in his car. Last night. At New Ferry toll bar.’ His voice went on unsteadily, telling her how Joey’s car had smashed through the plate glass window of Gallagher’s cake shop.

[Kris]

Rainbowheart's suggestion of Nobody's Child by Anne Baker sounds like your book.

Google Books preview:
https://books.google.com/books?id=w40...

[Kris]

No response, moving to Abandoned folder.

Michelle (OP) last posted in the group in August 2018.

[Michelle]

So sorry, I couldn't find my post. I am Still looking for this for Mum. The book kindly suggested was, I think written in 2012, however mum read her book in the 70s and believes it was set in 1920s because buying a car was a huge status symbol and was a sign of wealth, which is why the boy embezzled funds from the toffee factory, and why it was so poignant that he skidded on ice and crashed the car and died.

Is it possible to have this re-listed now I know how to search for it? please.

[Kris]

Thanks for the update, Michelle. I moved your request back to the "Unsolved" folder.

Is this fiction or non-fiction for adults?

What was the boy's job?
Does the boy's parents work for the family who owns the toffee factory?

Are these spoilers -- he defrauded/ embezzled the company? he was killed in the car crash?

[Michelle]

Yes. SPOILER ALERT!

[Rainbowheart]

Michelle, is your mom positive about the date she read it?

The first edition of Nobody's Child was published in 1994.

I can't imagine any other book hits all those same plot points, the toffee factory, the "from clogs to clogs" quote, and the guy who embezzles money dying in a car crash with the car that he bought with stolen money from the factory. Everything fits your mom's memory.

[Rainbowheart]

Why shouldn’t he open an account in the name of say Alan Anthony Evans, and get an ink pad and rubber stamp with A.A. Evans on it, to make sure there was no mention of Archibald Alfred on the cheques they received? He’d use an entirely different bank, of course, and preferably one without a branch too near the factory.

He headed straight for the National Bank and did it again, this time in the name of Paul Ogden Pendlebury. It would give him somewhere to move his money. Somewhere that had no connection with the business. He’d heard that some criminals went to prison and came out to find their money still intact. It would pay him to look after his very carefully.

He couldn’t boast to his fellow workers about owning a car, they'd all know he couldn’t afford one on the wage Evans’s paid him. He was careful to park it in a side street out of sight of the factory. He didn’t use it every day, so he could still be seen hanging around the bus stop with the others and pretend he relied on that for transport.

The car wouldn’t turn. He bumped up the pavement and headed straight into the plate glass window of the cake shop. ' The crash was deafening, the jerk painful. His head hit the windscreen. He knew the bags had jerked forward from the seat at the back and wage packets were hurtling round him. The last thing he was conscious of was the sound of tinkling glass and jangling coins.

His voice shook as he told her about the wage packets that had been found in the car with Joey. And about what had been happening at Evans’s.

[Michelle]

Hi Rainbowheart,

I understand what you are saying, the similarities are there however, she is adamant that this is not the same book.

She definitely read it in the 70's. It may have been written originally in the 30's. There was no mention of the Great War, and now she is not sure it was a toffee factory, but it was a factory.

She added.... the book starts with a young boy living with his family in the Gate House of an estate. She thinks the parent(s) may have worked for the owners of the Gate House. The owners were the owners of the factory. The Grandfather worked his socks off to build it up, it was inherited by his son, who worked less, and it was inherited by his son, who worked even less. It was at this point the boy was an adult and went to work there. There was no mention of how the frauds were committed, and he was never caught because I don't think anyone could work it out.

Do you have any guides for my own searching, as I am coming up with nothing, but you are able to come up with loads. Any ideas and help would be most appreciated.

Thank you :)

[Rainbowheart]

Well, I just don't know. If there is an earlier novel with these exact same plot points, it seems like Anne Baker must have plagiarized it.

Joey the embezzler in Nobody's Child was also raised in the gatehouse on the estate. His father worked on the farm on the estate.

[Rainbowheart]

The trouble was, Maisie had just had another son. She’d barely muddled through with Peggy and Joey. Now with baby Patrick to care for as well, she’d have no energy left to attend to a foster child.

Clarissa despaired of the O’Malleys. Maisie and Seamus were turning out to be feckless parents. Even worse, the gatehouse was dirty and overcrowded.

[Michelle]

Hi Rainbowheart,

I have to agree, the similarities are crazy. I have bought the book for Mum and when it arrives, I am keeping my fingers crossed that her recollection was a little off and this is it.

I would like to thank you so much for all your help with this, I would never have found it without you, so I am very grateful.

I think we can class this matter as closed, but will update as an when Mum has read the book, for the official conclusion to this :)

thanks again, and take care.
Michelle

[Rainbowheart]

No worries, happy to help out! Fingers crossed for your mom.