Yours Cheerfully

 

 Yours cheerfully by a. J. Pearce

     If you read Dear Mrs. Bird you will be well acquainted with the people in Yours Cheerfully because this is a continuation of the Emmeline Lake Chronicles. In fact it hardly skips a beat. In Dear Mrs. Bird young Emmy took a job at Women’s Friend magazine helping Mrs. Bird with the correspondence from readers. Her job, initially, was to sort the mail into approved topics, you know, the innocent questions that could be answered simply. But Emmy found that there were far more pressing concerns from readers and she crossed a couple of lines in reaching out to the readers. In the end she became the “new” Mrs. Bird with the parting of Henrietta Bird.

Yours Cheerfully picks up with Emmy becoming more of a journalist than just an advice columnist. The War Ministry needs workers in the factories and the men are all gone. It’s up to the women to take up the tasks and they are more than willing to pull up their overalls and do whatever it takes to bring their men home. The Ministry needs help recruiting women so they turn to the women’s magazines to spread the word.

Emmy thinks a good slant on this would be to tell readers just what working in a factory is like – in the words of the women already doing the work. And she’s right, but as she gets closer to the women as they tell their stories she discovers it isn’t as easy as the men in charge make it sound. If the women are working long shifts what are they to do with their children?

Emmy is back in full force with Bunty, Charles, her editor Mr. Collins and the rest of the Women’s Friend staff showing us that things really haven’t changed all that much. If you enjoyed Dear Mrs. Bird you will welcome the company again in Yours Cheerfully, a new installment in the Emmeline Lake Chronicles.