Showing A Sense of Occasion: the Chelmsford stories by Elizabeth Woodcraft (Author) & Christine Wilkinson (Illustrator)

Chelmsford Essex in the Sixties – boom town, Marconi, Milk Bars, Mods and Rockers.

As Alan Price moans ‘I’ll Put a Spell on You’ and Tommy Tucker puts on his ‘Hi-Heel Sneakers’, Marie meets Bill, Deirdre yearns for Mick, and Sandra and Linda leave for a wild walking holiday on the Isle of Wight. The Orpheus coffee bar becomes the setting for a special gift, while a dance at the Corn Exchange leads to the baking of a birthday cake, and a Ban-the-Bomb march ends with a Fray Bentos pie for dinner.

This interlinked collection of short stories describes life from a perspective never seen before – mod girls living on a working class estate – and shows how the Sixties made them into the people they became.