The Secret History of the Blitz

The Secret History of the Blitz

Joshua Levine

Language: English

Pages: 368

ISBN: 1471131025

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The Blitz of 1940-41 is one of the most iconic periods in modern British history - and one of the most misunderstood. The 'Blitz spirit' is celebrated by some, whereas others dismiss it as a myth. Joshua Levine's thrilling biography rejects the tired arguments and reveals the human truth: the Blitz was a time of extremes of experience and behaviour. People werepulling together and helping strangers, but they were also breaking rules and exploiting each other. Life during wartime, the author reveals, was complex and messy and real. From the first page readers will discover a different story to the one they thought they knew - from the sacrifices made by ordinary people to a sudden surge in the popularity of nightclubs; from secret criminal trials at the Old Bailey to a Columbine-style murder in an Oxford college. There were new working opportunities for women and the appearance of unfamiliar cultures: whilst prayers were offered up in a south London mosque, Jamaican sailors were struggling to cross the country.Unlikely friendships were fostered and surprising sexualities explored - these years saw a boom in prostitution and even the emergence of a popular weekly magazine for fetishists. On the darker side, racketeers and spivs made money out of the chaos, and looters prowled the night to prey on bomb victims. From the lack of cheese to the decreased suicide rate, this astonishing and entertaining book takes the true pulse of a 'blitzed nation'. And it shows how social change during this time led to political change - which in turn has built the Britain we know today.

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Experience as a member of a stretcher squad had begun in earnest on the night of 8 September. As Joan Wyndham and Gerald Dougherty basked in their post-coital glow, as Viola Bawtree struggled with God, as Michael Bowyer prepared to throw beer bottles at the Wehrmacht, Irene was sent to deal with the effects of a bomb that killed fifty-six people in a shelter on Beaufort Street. She writes: The scene was of death and devastation. Huge slabs of concrete trapped poor mangled bodies beneath their.

Bombing was hastening some of the proposed changes into existence. The government’s unpreparedness for mass homelessness in London led to those progressive measures introduced by Conservative MP Henry Willink in October 1940. These measures – including the sweeping away of ‘poor law’ attitudes – were paving the way for the welfare state. Four months later, architect Donald Gibson’s plan for rebuilding Coventry was adopted. A local housewife, Mrs Adams, told the BBC that she was delighted by the.

Salvaging furniture. Meanwhile the London County Council would be responsible for providing the immediate necessities of life. The LCC and the local authorities would liaise closely with each other, and members of Willink’s staff would monitor the whole of London to ensure that his improvements were properly carried through. And in a forward-thinking move, a permanent staff of social workers – known as ‘welfare inspectors’ – would be employed to deal with individual cases of distress. Willink.

To keep going in terrible circumstances. Clearly the authorities had not anticipated trekking, and so closed their eyes to it. It was rigid and unsympathetic leadership, demonstrating, in the words of Tom Harrisson, ‘an inability to understand the needs of ordinary people in extraordinary times’. Indeed, the fact that people were willing to walk for miles, sleep in ditches, and still arrive at work the next morning hardly demonstrates a lack of morale. It shows, on the contrary, supreme.

Appear, and the unit became 55th (Sutton and Cheam) Battalion Home Guard. Once the Blitz had started, part of ‘B’ Company was very nearly wiped out while guarding the local hospital. Standing on the roof, the men watched a paratrooper descending towards them. But as the parachute came closer, they realised that slung underneath was not a man, but a large black cylinder. This was their first encounter with a parachute mine. The mine was coming down directly on top of them when a gust of wind.

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