To me, this showed that no matter how everyone else perceived the two, they truly had a strong bond - for Miss Dalgleish to leave everything to Lilli, she must have been much closer to Lilli than anyone else thought. In the end Lilli leaves everything behind to continue her travels - though it is not in disrespect of Miss Dalgleish, instead it is Lilli attempting to be herself, and do what she does best - be a Stubeck. .
Another issue that was encountered many times throughout the novel was poverty. Out of everyone in town it is certain that the Stubeck family was the worst off. They lived on the outskirts of the urban part of town, just near the river. The place they lived was called the "Point", the house was in ruins, it had no electricity for starters, and the Stubeck's filled it with furniture and items which were in worse condition than the actual house. The only food they ever got was things they had picked up from the trash, gotten as a result of begging someone for food, or perhaps stolen from someone's backyard. Only a few times had they actually bought food with the pittance that Matty Stubeck earned, which he made by selling firewood that he collected from around the house. In almost every chapter earlier on in the book, the Stubeck's would find themselves begging at someone's doorstep for food or money, and if not that, instead they would be stealing fruit from people's gardens. Or looking through bins for things which were still edible. In the town, there were a few people who didn't mind helping out the Stubeck's by giving up a small amount of what they had. Though at the same time, there were a lot of people who could care less what happened to the Stubeck's, and wouldn't ever even think about giving in to their begging. Poverty is a big issue in society today, and definitely back in the 1930s, and James Aldridge has depicted this perfectly in the novel.
Probably the biggest issue in the book is racism, and the way it was handled and dealt with in the 1930s.
