The Man With A Nose

Florence was born in a colliery village on the East Coast of Durham in 1940.  The story spans her life from 1944 to 1960, when lads left school at 15 years old on a Friday and started work at the pit on the following Monday. Girls took a job in either a shop or a factory until they married a miner. 

Florence and her friends grew up with childhood escapades, becoming young adults in the social setting of this traditional pit village, from the days of rationing to the birth of TV and space travel.

Florence is clever, imaginative and different from most of her friends. She doesn’t want to turn into Auntie Florrie or Flo, so when entering grammar school, she changes her name to Rencie.  Rencie,  just like her friends, is on a quest to find her true place in society.  

A coming-of-age story demonstrating the challenges of growing up in a mining village and a young girl’s determination to find a better life — refusing to be anything but ordinary!