Her blonde hair is waved; she wears carmine lipstick and a chunky hand-knitted sweater as she poses smiling, in elegant profile, at the wheel of a tractor. What image could more strikingly sum up the potent mix of grit and glamour of World War II’s Land Girls? The photo on the cover of Picture Post magazine … Read more
We will not be able to dance a conga or enjoy a street party — let alone flock to Buckingham Palace, as millions did back on May 8, 1945. Tomorrow, 75 years on, it is going to be an unavoidably subdued anniversary of the day that the UK finally celebrated Victory in Europe. Nonetheless, we … Read more
How do you follow your heart during wartime? This remarkable treasure trove of letters gives a unique insight into home-front life and romance Eileen and Gershon on their wedding day, 1944 Eileen Alexander was a brilliant scholar, graduating from Cambridge in 1939. Her academic career derailed by the war, she lived in London with her … Read more
Heartwarming footage has captured residents at a coronavirus-hit care home where 14 people have died amid the coronavirus crisis being sung classic wartime songs to raise their spirits. Vera Lynn tribute act Deborah Taylor-Smith, known as the Geordie Sweetheart ‘Wor Vera’, sang a selection of morale-lifting songs such as ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘White Cliffs … Read more
Donald Trump says he’s a ‘wartime president’ as he uses special defense powers to ramp up medical equipment production to tackle ‘unseen enemy’ President Trump told reporters Wednesday that he considered himself a ‘wartime president’ taking on the ‘unseen enemy’ of the coronavirus Trump was asked if he considered the country to be on ‘wartime … Read more
This is war. Make no mistake, for my generation, the COVID-19 coronavirus is the biggest threat to civilian life that we will have experienced since World War 2. The disease has smashed its way out of China, where it started, and begun to wreak deadly havoc all over the globe. And it represents a particularly … Read more
Here We Are Graham Swift Scribner £14.99 Rating: Way back in 1983, Graham Swift wrote the novel – Waterland – that made him famous, or at least almost famous, as he is the Invisible Man of English Letters, rarely signing books at literary festivals or holding forth on Newsnight. Waterland was about the way human … Read more
The Secret Guests B W Black Viking £8.99 Rating: Over the past few years, an increasing number of novels have included real-life members of the Royal Family as characters. Sue Townsend’s comic novel The Queen And I is set in a republican Britain, reducing Queen Elizabeth to living in a two-bedroom semi-detached, under the supervision … Read more