Fai clic su di un'immagine per andare a Google Ricerca Libri.
Sto caricando le informazioni... World's End: A Memoir of a Blitz Childhooddi Donald James Wheal
Nessuno Sto caricando le informazioni...
Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. This written account of being a boy in the war is written to a much higher standard than most. It is humourous in places and has a feel for the wider picture - probably because the author writes professionally. ( ) This account of growing up during the Second World War in World's End, Chelsea, needs a far more serious, 'literary' cover to do the subject and the author justice. Truly! I was interested in reading about that part of London anyway, but when my copy arrived at the library, I thought, 'Here we go: another lightweight, 'family saga'-style self-published memoir', but no, Donald James makes this a truly emotional read. Perhaps because he's a 'proper' author, and not just an amateur spinning a cathartic tale, James' account is amusing, poignant, rewarding and endlessly interesting. I love how he describes his supportive parents, 'good' and 'bad' grandmothers, and the many other real life 'characters' from the World's End, with such fond memories that the reader almost believes that they knew these people too. Far from a series of personal vignettes, however, James' story is paced like a fictional adventure, with downed German planes and the air raid which wiped out a good section of his community. Even the history of Cremorne Gardens is fascinating to read! (Surely there must be more accounts of this 'infamous' London pleasure garden?) Having lived through the Blitz, or even living in London, is thankfully not a requirement for enjoying Donald James' captivating memoir - thanks to the author's vivid descriptions and engrossing narrative, anyone can imagine the hardship, heart and heroism of World's End. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Best-selling author Donald James grew up in World's End, Chelsea during the Blitz years. Just on the edge of a fashionable middle class world, his childhood experience was in stark contrast to the privileged, bourgeois lifestyle glimpsed a few hundred yards away. He grew up in stark poverty and depredation, a hard existence yet shot through by the humour and courage of his family and neighbours. This was a now vanished world of grimy factories and generating plants, coal drays, flat caps and boozers, betting shops, dog tracks, 'Piccadilly girls', Guinness Trust buildings and bare foot children. World's End was a melting pot of the working class labourers who flooded to London in the previous century to make their fortunes. labourer who came to London from Essex, married a combative woman who regarded the small enclave as her personal bailiwick. Donald's great grandfather on his father's side was a Victorian bare knuckle fighter, and his great grandmother one of the lady's of easy virtue who made their living in the notorious Cremorne pleasure gardens. His grandmother on that side, born in the 1870s, learned to read and write at the Ragged School in World's End and wore wearing black dress coat and boater all her life, even to bed. The story tells of the feud between Donald's two grandmothers which meant that though they only lived a few yards away from each other, for a dozen years they never acknowledge one another avoiding even at Donald's parent's weeding, Christmases or birthday celebrations. Donald was eight. The radio carried news of impending war and then the declaration of war, difficult to believe in the Indian summer of the 1939. But soon Donald's world would be torn apart by school drills with gas masks and evacuation plans, evacuation itself then an uneasy return to London just as the Blitz itself began and the nights were spent in terror as bombs rained down through the Black Out. Then came the night that Donald's world, did literally end and with it his childhood. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
Discussioni correntiNessunoCopertine popolari
Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)942.134084092History and Geography Europe England and Wales London West LondonVotoMedia:
Sei tu?Diventa un autore di LibraryThing. |