Sadie was a lady - Joan Jonker

Beautiful, blonde-haired Sadie Wilson suffers abuse from her slovenly mother and lecherous father in order to protect her younger siblings from a similar fate. The neighbours avoid her parents like the plague and Sadie has no friends to turn to for help. But when Harry, the kind-hearted boy next door, sees Sadie crying because her father has lost all their money, he offers to pay her sixpence for a kiss. With coins in her pocket, Sadie goes to Paddy's market to buy underclothes she so desperately needs and it is there that she meets Mary Ann and a lively bunch of Liverpudlian stallholders who are to be her salvation. Even though she is rescued by Mary Ann's friends and starts a new life, Sadie's thoughts still return to her brothers and sisters back at home. And no matter how many admirers she has, there's a place in her heart for just one lad whose kisses she can't seem to forget...