𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 | Roger Taylor/Queen

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞

London, April 1971

Evie Bright stood on the platform inside the busy tube station, waiting for her delayed train to arrive. Around her were frustrated looking commuters, their Monday morning made worse by the notoriously unpredictable London Underground. Evie leant against the brick wall behind her, book in one hand and cigarette in the other as she squinted her eyes in light of the dimly lit platform, immersed in the history of Christian Dior's revolutionary 'New Look'. Scanning over the pages, she was in her own little world; and had it not been for the sudden sea of people spilling out onto the platform she almost missed her train when it finally arrived. Quickly putting her book away and extinguishing her cigarette on the ground, Evie held her garment bag under her arm and made her way towards the train. Jumping on board, the small girl managing to squeeze herself into a gap in the overcrowded carriage without drawing attention to herself before the doors slid shut slowly behind her.

As the train sped off into the tunnels under the streets of London, Evie sighed quietly. She didn't care much for the Underground, despite having lived in the city her whole life. There was something about being compacted into a deafening box under the surface of the earth with people you didn't know that had never sat right with her...

'Oi, miss. You ain't got a spare 3 pence for the bus down to Brentford, do you?' a rather rough looking, middle-aged bloke suddenly appeared in front of her.

And it looked like Evie was about to have a reason why.

The dark-haired girl swallowed thickly, her heart already thumping in her chest as she pulled the garment bag in her arms closer to her, 'No, sorry.'

Rolling his eyes, the man grunted before brushing past her and staggering off into the crowd again, probably to ask someone else the same question. Evie exhaled in relief - taking the tube was never a relaxing journey. She'd lost count of how many times she'd been pick-pocketed or harassed since she'd started using it more frequently. But regardless of its downsides, she knew it was the quickest way across London, especially during the morning rush hour when she needed to be at her destination on time.

Minutes later the train came screeching to a halt at the station Evie was disembarking at. As soon as the doors opened, she stepped out onto the platform along with several dozen other commuters and made her way to the escalators which would take her above ground. Standing patiently on the moving staircase, the sound of traffic and people became louder as Evie got nearer to the entrance of the station. Once she was at the top, she checked her wristwatch before walking out onto the sunlit streets again to catch her last bus that would take her to university.

Evie was a third-year Fashion Design student at Ealing Art College. The fashion industry was the only industry she'd ever seen herself with a career in, and this course was another step closer to making her dream of being a successful designer a reality. She'd learnt a lot since she began studying at Ealing, but actually making and repairing clothes was a skill she'd taught herself long before university, starting out as more of a necessity rather than a hobby.

It was safe to say Evie hadn't had the easiest of childhoods. Growing up in south-east London, life was tough to begin with, but it was when Evie's mother walked out on her and her father when she was eleven years old that her family faced their hardest times. With her dad often having to work seven days a week to make ends meet, Evie quickly became 'the woman of the household', teaching herself how to cook, clean and most importantly - sew. Evie and her dad couldn't afford new clothes, so using her mum's old sewing kit, Evie would mend her school uniforms and sew buttons back onto her father's shirts. Although these small tasks seemed like a chore, slowly but surely Evie's love for clothes started to grow, just as London was becoming the epicentre of British fashion and the birthplace of the 'Swinging Sixties' revolution.