I'm writing today to celebrate the publication of my second book on Leeds, my home town, in the world wars. This is Leeds at War 1939-1945, and it includes material on my own family's participation in the war. It's a strange feeling, after writing so much about a more distant past, that I was very nearly a child of that awful war, being born in 1948. British people had endured so much, and in 1947 they had the high and the low side by side, with the royal wedding followed by that horrendous winter.
When I see images on film or photos of my parents' generation in the midst of that Blitz and theatres of war in distant lands, I marvel at their true grit. I suppose there was no choice but to grin and bear it all.
I'd like to use this space to validate and take joy in that growing library of books that, like mine, remind us now of that 'old school' toughness. There are more smiles and songs than moans and whines from them. It was all so close, that I feel its sound and smell even now, from family stories.