The Peoples War

Product Description

Once we thought of a frontline village as a heap of shattered ruins in a pockmarked earth bordering the tumbled wilderness of No Man's L&. Now there are hundreds of British frontline towns & villages along our coasts, in the shadow of the menace, but as yet preserved from the worst of war's ravages. No Man's Land is our own protecting element, the sea, where the Royal Navy rides & rules.' Leonard Marshall Gander, May 1940. The accounts that we are accustomed to hearing of World War II are those of fierce battles, lost relatives, horrendous voyages fraught with danger, & traumatic sights & experiences. But alongside that conflict, life at home had to continue with some sort of normality. With compelling first-hand accounts, letters & diary entries, & fully illustrated with many rarely-seen archive photographs, this is the moving story of the ordinary men, women & children who were left behind to fight the war on the home front. It is a tribute to the courage & human spirit of those who had to endure rationing, air raids, evacuations & tragedy, & also a celebration of the positive experiences that the war brought, liberating many & uniting communities with strangers. This is the story of the people's war.