Don't You Know There's a War On?

‘A wonderful act of respect for a generation, now too often sidelined, who have within them stories to make you hair curl’ Times Educational Supplement Don’t You Know There’s a War On? is a uniquely personal portrait of a nation fighting to keep going, seen through the eyes of 35 men and women who experienced life on the home front in Britain during the second world war. They talk eloquently to Jonathan Croall about the deprivations and suffering as well as the exhilaration and community spirit they experienced, in city and countryside, in homes, schools and offices, and on the land. In a world of rationing, blackout, bombs and ‘making do’, many offer vivid descriptions of shattered family lives, of interrupted schooling, of the perils of evacuation, of the vital work done by women, and of the extraordinary pressures they faced simply to survive. Others tell what it was like to be out of step with the majority and, for conscientious objectors, to go to prison for their beliefs.‘…will give younger generations a vivid sense of what the experience of those years might have been like…’ Angus Calder, author of The People’s War ‘…gem-like interviews…’ Peter Martin, The Times