It Came to Our Door

It Came to Our Door PDF Author: H. P. Twyford
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Plymouth (England)
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description

It Came to Our Door

It Came to Our Door PDF Author: H. P. Twyford
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Plymouth (England)
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description


We Can Take It!

We Can Take It! PDF Author: Mark Connelly
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317869842
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
`We Can Take It!' shows that the British remember the war in a peculiar way, thanks to a mix of particular images and evidence. Our memory has been shaped by material which is completely removed from historical reality. These images (including complete inventions) have combined to make a new history. The vision is mostly cosy and suits the way in which the Britons conceive of themselves: dogged, good humoured, occasionally bumbling, unified and enjoying diversity. In fact Britons load their memory towards the early part of the war (Dunkirk, Blitz, Battle of Britain) rather than when we were successful in the air or against Italy and Germany with invasions. This suits our love of being the underdog, fighting against the odds, and being in a crisis. Conversely, the periods of the war during which Britain was in the ascendant are, perversely, far more hazy in the public memory.

Evacuees

Evacuees PDF Author: Mike Brown
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752495720
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
As the last days of peace ebbed away in 1939 and the outbreak of the Second World War appeared inevitable, a massive exodus took place in Britain: nearly two million civilians, most of them children, were taken from the cities, industrial towns and ports to the relative safety of the British countryside. For many of these bewildered children this was the first time away from their families or even their own home town. But for overseas British nationals evacuacted to the mother country from the Channel Islands and Gibraltar, the shock of the upheaval was great indeed. Carrying pitifully few belongings, they had no idea where they were being sent - for many it was the beginning of a great adventure, for some a nightmare. Mike Brown combines factual narrative with contemporary eyewitness accounts and oral history extracts to investigate the phenomenon of evacuation in Britain during the Second World War. Illustrated with a variety of contemporary photographs and ephemera, Evacuees provides a fascinating, amusing and sometimes disturbing glimpse of how children and adults coped with the trials and tribulations of evacuation. It will appeal to anyone who is interested in reading about life on the Home Front during the Second World War, and especially to anyone who was an evacuee.

Blood, Sweat, and Toil

Blood, Sweat, and Toil PDF Author: Geoffrey G. Field
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191623555
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Blood, Sweat, and Toil is the first scholarly history of the British working class in the Second World War. It integrates social, political, and labour history, and reflects the most recent scholarship and debates on social class, gender, and the forging of identities. Geoffrey Field examines the war's impact on workers in the varied contexts of the family, military service, the workplace, local communities, and the nation. Extensively researched, using official documents, diaries and letters, the records of trade unions and numerous other institutions, Blood, Sweat, and Toil traces the rapid growth of trade unionism, joint consultation, and strike actions in the war years. It also analyses the mobilization of women into factories and the uniformed services and the lives of men conscripted into the army, showing how these experiences shaped their aspirations and their social and political attitudes. Previous studies of the Home Front have analysed the lives of civilians, but they have neglected the importance of social class in defining popular experience and its centrality in public attitudes, official policy, and the politics of the war years. Contrary to accounts that view the war as eroding class divisions and creating a new sense of social unity in Britain, Field argues that the 1940s was a crucial decade in which the deeply fragmented working class of the interwar decades was 'remade', achieving new collective status, power, and solidarity. Employing a contingent, non-teleological conception of class identity and indicating the plural and shifting mix of factors that contributed to workers' social consciousness, he criticizes recent revisionist scholarship that has downplayed the significance of class in British society.

British Civilians in the Front Line

British Civilians in the Front Line PDF Author: Helen Jones
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719072901
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This is the first full-length study of the behavior of British civilians and their reactions to air raids during the Second World War. It unravels the day-to-day influence on people at these times of great danger, risk and uncertainty, and challenges the traditional image of civilians as passive shelterers under attack. It uncovers Churchill and his government's desperate attempts to persuade key workers to continue with their work once the air raid siren had sounded, and reveals the complex reasons why so many workers were willing to run such risks.

Child's War

Child's War PDF Author: Mike Brown
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752475908
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, it came as no surprise to the children of Germany: the Nazis had been preparing them for a war ever since they had come to power in 1933. To British children it was an altogether different matter. Children all over Britain were deeply affected by the war: many were separated from their parents by evacuation or bereavement; all had to 'make do and mend' with clothes and toys; and some even died while contributing to the war effort at home. In this moving and often amusing account, Mike Brown describes what life was like on the Home Front during the war from a child's point of view. His fully illustrated narrative includes details of evacuation, rationing, coping with gas masks and air raids, entertainment and the important - and often dangerous - roles of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. This photographic history pays tribute to the generation of girls and boys who grew up under the shadow of the Second World War.

Sean O'Casey

Sean O'Casey PDF Author: Christopher Murray
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773586156
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 639

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Book Description
Se?O'Casey was the quintessential Dublin playwright. In critical works that include his Dublin Trilogy - The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars - he portrayed the traumatic birth of a nation and delved into the Irish national character. Christopher Murray's Se?O'Casey: Writer at Work takes a fresh look at the last of the great writers of the Irish literary revival.

Britain and 1940

Britain and 1940 PDF Author: Malcolm Smith
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415240765
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
1940 was the most significant year in European history this century, this book examines what it meant for the people of Britain then and now. Malcolm Smith details the resultant influences that have constructed our national consciousness.

The Blitz and its Legacy

The Blitz and its Legacy PDF Author: Peter J. Larkham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351893890
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
Triggered in part by contemporary experiences in the Balkans, the Middle East and elsewhere, there has been a rise in interest in the blitz and the subsequent reconstruction of cities, especially as many of the buildings and areas rebuilt after the Second World War are now facing demolition and reconstruction in their turn. Drawing together leading scholars and new researchers from across the fields of planning, history, architecture and geography, this volume presents an historical and cultural commentary on the immediate and longer-term impacts of wartime destruction. The book's contents in 14 chapters cover the spread of themes from experiencing the war to reconstruction and its experiences; and although many chapters draw upon the UK experience, there is deliberate inclusion of some material from mainland Europe and Japan to emphasise that the experiences, processes and products are not London-specific. A comparative book tracing destruction to reconstruction is a relative rarity, and yet of the utmost importance in possessing wider relevance to post-disaster reconstructions. The Blitz and Its Legacy is a fascinating volume which includes war experiences of destruction, architecture, urban design, the political process of planning and reconstruction, and also popular perceptions of rebuilding. Its findings provide very timely lessons which highlight the value of learning from historical precedent.

Devon at War, 1939–45

Devon at War, 1939–45 PDF Author: Derek Tait
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473855764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
When war was declared on 1 September 1939, the people of Devon pulled together in a way that they hadn't done since the Great War of 1914–18. This book covers the people of Devon's contribution to the war effort, from the commencement of the conflict in September 1939, to its end in September 1945. It features many forgotten news stories of the day and looks at the changes to civilian's everyday lives, entertainment, spies and the internment of aliens living within the area.Devon became vital as a base for troops and as a dispatch point for the many men who left to fight in Europe. Several RAF bases were also established within the county to repel German attacks. Air raid shelters were erected in gardens and at public places and many children living in larger cities were swiftly evacuated to the countryside, as Plymouth and Exeter both suffered greatly from German bombing, with much of Plymouth being obliterated. Carrying a gas mask, rationing, the make-do-and-mend culture and the collection of scrap metal all became a generic way of life.Many of the jobs left open by men fighting abroad were taken up by women on the Home Front. The Women's Voluntary Service assisted with the evacuation of mothers and children to the country, carried out civil defense duties and provided food and clothing for the many refugees from occupied Europe.During the buildup to D Day, American troops were trained and stationed within the county before leaving for the beaches of Normandy. Slapton Sands, Dartmoor and Woolacombe were all used as training grounds with tragic loss of life at Slapton.Devon played a truly vital role in the war and its people contributed greatly to bringing the world changing conflict to an end.