This witty, caustic yet compassionate novel explores the meeting of two unlikely young people in 1923: Amos Bell, the train driver of the Flying Scotsman train, and an opera singer, Madame Neil-Gregory. This is a true story.
Their Northern erratic love story takes place in cities around Britain, as Alice Neil-Gregory (her birth name) builds her career as a coloratura, eventually singing dressed as Elizabeth 1 for George V at the new Wembley Park in London. The couple struggles with changes in society after World War 1, and try to embrace becoming ‘Bright Young Things’ in a world of jazz music, silent movies, and women’s emancipation. These people break with the conventions of their working class parents, but the burning question, which keeps the reader wanting more, is ‘Will Alice ever marry Amos?’
