Kirjahaku

A gripping new history of London during the Blackout—revealing the violent crime that spread across the capital under the cover of darkness Fear was the unacknowledged spectre haunting the streets of London during the Second World War; fear not only of death from the German bombers circling above, but of violence at the hands of fellow Londoners in the streets below. Mass displacement, the anonymity of shelters, and the bomb-scarred landscape offered unprecedented opportunities for violent crime. In this absorbing, sometimes shocking account, Amy Helen Bell uncovers the hidden stories of murder and violence that were rife in wartime London. Bell moves through the city, examining the crimes in their various locations, from domestic violence in the home to robberies in the blacked-out streets and fights in pubs and clubs. She reveals the experiences of women, children, and the elderly, and focuses on the lives of the victims, as well as their deaths. This groundbreaking study transforms our understanding of the ways in which war made people vulnerable—not just to the enemy, but to each other.

For the nine months of the Blitz, London was subjected to a brutal and indiscriminate bombing campaign, aimed for the first time in history at shattering the resolve of a nation. The Nazi raids on night-time London provide some of the defining narratives of World War II: the 'blitz spirit', air raid shelters in Underground stations and all the horrifying reality of one of the world's most powerful and historic cities under violent attack. This book tells the epic story of a London under siege through the voices of those that lived it. Amy Helen Bell here uncovers the personal stories of hundreds of Londoners from all walks of life, who scribbled in diaries and notebooks from inside air raid shelters and bombed-out houses to record their experiences of the Blitz. Expertly weaving these together, drawing out themes of loss, courage and love, what emerges is a thoughtfully argued and beautifully composed commentary on Britain's collective memory of one of the great conflicts of modern times. By letting the warmth, despair and hope of these personal recollections speak, 'London Was Ours' becomes a collective testament to the resilience of a people and a meditation on the nature of a nation's history.

"London was ours from the hour the blacked-out night hid its beauty until the morning siren signalled the coming day." - Joan Bright Astley. The German bombing raids on London from September 1940 to May 1941 - the London Blitz - supply us with some of the most dramatic and mythologised stories from the Home Front of the Second World War. But often overlooked in historical studies of the Blitz are the narratives supplied by Londoners themselves. In shelters, in kitchens and in offices, they wrote about their daily lives under duress, scribbling into diaries, notebooks and on the backs of envelopes. "London was Ours" analyses over two hundred letters, diaries and memoirs written by those citizens who endured the Blitz, restoring the forgotten voices of ordinary individuals to the collective memory of the Blitz and World War II. Their writings reveal widely varying points of view, often at odds with official wartime narratives and subsequent histories, making this a vital contribution to the social history of wartime Britain.