It's driving me NUTS
Children’s book I read aged about nine. I think it was probably published in the 80s, but set in maybe the 50s/60s?
Main character is a girl aged about 11, I don’t think we know her name. Large family, poor, dad is a coal miner, they share beds, wash in a tin bath, brush teeth with soot and salt. She calls her parent Mam and Dad. She has brothers who tease her etc, she’s naughty. She has dance classes she hates and she calls the teacher ’Fancy Nancy’.
They get into trouble on ‘mischief night’ but I can’t remember what.
I think it might be a sequel or maybe it’s the same book, but she gets very ill (scarlet fever or tb, I don’t think we find out) and afterwards she’s sent to convalescence at an open air place in Kent ‘so she tells me where this place is and it turns out it’s in Kent. Hundreds of miles away..’
There are lots of other girls, characters - one’s always eating etc. There’s an incident where they’re supposed to be napping in the fresh air and they all roll over and the cots they’re on collapse. At some point a man comes with a magic lantern show.
Quotes (as accurate as I can remember them!)
‘Sharing a bed with my sister is like sharing with two feet full of razor blades’
‘If you .... I’ll shake you til you rattle like an empty tin can...’tin cans don’t rattle’....’they do if you kick them’
I might remember more as I continue racking my brain and gnashing my teeth, but if this triggers any memories for anyone I'd be so grateful, if only just to reassure myself that I'm not inventing things!!