My Turn to Make the Tea

Other boarders at No 5 Bury Road include the stage acrobat Maimie and her Japanese husband Tick Ling; Win and Connie who are looking for affluent husbands and who fill the bathroom with drying stockings and underwear; Margaret, who dies after a botched abortion, and Myra Nelson, an aspiring ballet dancer who tries to keep the fact she is married secret from her employer, dance instructor the Signora.

Her attempts at court reporting were not wholly successful with the editor, the middle-aged bachelor Mr Pellet, who is convinced that he knows what the Post's readers want.

After a murder scare at No 5 Bury Road and a night at the fair with Mr Pellet, Poppy eventually has to leave the paper after removing a small article from the press to protect her fellow lodger, Myra, because it reveals she is secretly married to an army deserter.

The glass roofed shopping arcade, stepped war memorial and market square mentioned in the book can still be found in Hitchin.

It featured Alice Hart as Poppy, Joanne Froggatt as Myra, Keith Barron as Mr Pellet, Stephen Critchlow as Victor and Annabelle Dowler as Maimie.