These books written by Nigel Fountain also contains an audio CD that sound designer Mike Thornton created using excerpts from the Imperial War Museum’s sound archive that has collected first hand testimony from people who were there, interweaved with contemporary music and sound effects to tell the story in a truely engaging manner.
The review of the book….
This really is a superb book. Beautifully presented, full of photographs, copies of war posters and the accounts of the women themselves. It deals with World War 1 and World War 2 and it is a truly stunning social history of this time, telling how perceptions of these women were received and treated during the war by their fellow male workers, their own families and neighbours. They tell tales of tales of sadness, tales of fun and laughter, of how life was, how the war affected them and what they did.
The Imperial War Museums sound archive was used both to reference from and also to produce what really made the book all the more unique and special for me, an audio CD of almost 70 minutes of the women’s stories in their own words and voices. It is one thing to read of these stories, words on print no matter how moving the stories may be, but quite another to hear the women tell the tales themselves. This book is truly superb, and excellent value for a hardback accompanied by an audio CD. It really brought the subject to life, made it a reality for me as it was for these brave and enduring women who lived through those times. The best book about women’s lives during the war that I have ever read.
By June 1940 Britain faced the enemy across the English Channel with an anxious sense that very little kept her from being subjugated by the overwhelming might of the Nazi forces. What rescued the country was the Royal Air Force’s triumph in the Battle of Britain, and the encouragement and endurement of the people who lived, worked and suffered under the Luftwaffe’s Blitz which, almost nightly from September 1940 until May 1941, rained destruction upon London and other major cities – only to do so again in later campaigns that culminated in the launching of the Nazis’ V1 and V2 ‘revenge weapons’. Based on eyewitness reminiscences, The Battle of Britain and the Blitz relives those desperate times in the words of pilots, ground crew and other airmen and airwomen, firefighters, air-raid wardens, radar operators, spotters, anti-aircraft gunners, Red Cross, YMCA and other voluntary workers, and civilians – old and young, male and female – who between them helped to ensure that Britain survived to fight another day and, ultimately, to win.
Reviews of the book….
An absolutely beautiful book which also includes 1 hr audio cd of actual eyewitness accounts.
Authentic voices of the people who lived through Britain’s fight for survival… a remarkable work of oral history
World War II, the most catastrophic conflict in history, was the first truly ‘total war’, and the first in which, in many countries, civilians faced dangers every bit as great as those endured by the combatants. When it ended, more than 70 million people across the globe were dead, among them some 400,000 Americans and more than half a million citizens of Great Britain or the British Commonwealth and Empire. It can be easy to forget that the war was fought and won by ordinary men and women whose experiences collectively form the truest recollection of these vast events.
WWII: The People’s Story combines text based largely on eyewitness accounts from major archives in the US and Britain, with audio CDs that use actual recordings from the same archives. Comprehensively illustrated in colour and monochrome, the narrative draws on the reminiscences of servicemen and civilians, men, women and children who lived through the most momentous years of the twentieth century. The accompanying recordings feature the voices of veterans and survivors as they actually describe events, bringing to life the human experience of those years, fraught with danger, terror and grief, Before the light of memory is stilled for ever, it is only fitting to recall that the Allied victory of 1945 was bought, at great cost, by ‘ordinary’ people, who, when called upon to show extraordinary faith, courage, endurance and, above all, humanity, did not fail either their fellows, or their descendants.
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Seven radio producers – all based in the north of England – have joined forces to launch a new co-operative venture – ‘Radio Wizards’. It’s equally remarkable that their aim now is to work together on every kind of sound production... except radio!
"It’s taken over a year to get to this point," says ‘wizard’ Mike Thornton, "but now we’ve got a viable business plan, we’ve launched our website and we’re already starting to attract commissions. As a facilities provider we decided to facilitate this partnership and set them up with a web site to help kickstart this excellent partnership."
