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Keep Calm and Read On

Following the success of my book, Cardiff and the Valleys in the Great War , the publishers commissioned a follow up to be entitled Cardiff at War 1939 - 1945. As you can imagine the book requires a lot of careful research and recently while going through news archives I found a newspaper article from January 1940 that I'd like to share here.

It seems that during the early years of the war there was a spike in reading - I'm not sure if this was nationwide but Cardiff library found itself incredibly busy. So much so in fact that the library collected together its data and told the South Wales Echo of its most popular titles.

Black Out Makes Cardiff Read More, the newspaper headlined. which means there must have been a lot of candles burning behind those black out curtains. Though as of yet I've not found an article on the spike in candle sales  - Escapist fiction was understandable extremely popular, as was Richard Llewellyn's beautiful How Green was my Valley - apparently people who saw the hardships of the coal mining industry first hand also enjoyed reading about them. The public were also very keen to educate themselves on the background of the crisis in Europe and books about Germany and Hitler in particular were hired out often. Hitler' s Mein Kampf was eagerly read, as was Hitler Speaks which reproduced a lot of the mad little Charley Chaplin impersonator's speeches.


There was also a revival in classic literature and Wuthering Heights was particularly popular.

As a book lover myself, a constant reader I took great pleasure from reading the article, and it's nice to think of all those people hunched over a book in the dimness of the black out - I wonder what they would have thought of the Kindle Paperwhite?

Cardiff and the Valleys in the Great War (Pen and Sword Books) is available now in both print and electronic formats. Check it out by CLICKING HERE

Cardiff at War 1939 - 1945 is scheduled to be published December 2018.

How Cardiff and the surrounding valleys faced the dreaded might of the Nazis.

Today I got the first proof of my forthcoming book, Cardiff and the Valleys At War 1939 - 1945. It's due to be published this November from Pen and Sword Books.

 I love this stage of the book production - of course the indexing can be a bit of a slog, but I enjoy the polishing. It is at this stage that I get to see how the work is going to look as a finished book, and I get to tease out any edits that may have escaped the proofreading team. Though, believe me the proofreaders know the business, and without fail they kick my humble scribblings into shape.

The JPG left shows the PDF proof currently on my desktop - I'm reading through it at the moment, have taken a few minutes to bash out this blog post. I may also have a coffee and some chocolate chip cookies before getting back to the grindstone. Hey, that's the writing life!

My association with Pen and Sword Books is something I'm very proud of - my two previous titles for the company - Cardiff and the Valleys During the Great War and the true crime study, Dark Valleys are doing well for me, and only this week I signed a contract to write another title for 2019 publication; this one will be another true crime study - entitled, A Date with the Hangman it looks at the history of capital punishment in the UK.

Not bad for a snobby nosed kid with little if any formal education!

Check out Dark Valleys

Check out Cardiff and the Valleys in the Great War


Cardiff and the Valleys at War 1939 - 45, looks at the Home Front during the dark years of WWII,

and once again I was left feeling amazed at the way ordinary people faced up to the hardships of war, at the way they stood firm against everything the enemy threw at them - this was a time when death could and frequently did come without warning. The blitz was something that spread terror not just in Wales but across the UK - These ordinary people faced all that and in return stuck two fingers up to Adolf Hitler.

Of course the book also contains stories of incredible humour, of people pulling together - there are darker stories of the black market but even so there are heart warming tales within these pages. I was left feeling humbled and deeply proud to do my little bit to preserve these stories for future generations.

The people who lived through this war have often been called the greatest generation, and after researching this book I am inclined to agree with that assessment.

Cardiff and the Valleys at War will be available from December 2019
Find Pen and Sword Books HERE

Rest in Peace Sweet Lady - how one woman became a cultural icon

I spent the best part of last year working on the book, Cardiff and the Valleys at War 1939-1945, which will be published later this year from Pen and Sword Books. The book, like the previous volume Cardiff and the Valleys During the Great War, concentrates on the Home Front during those dark wartime years.

WWII was very much a people's war - with both Britain and Germany waging total war - in other words every man, woman and child did their bit for the war effort. Those not serving in the military carried out essential war work, raised funds for the war effort. And make no mistake about it - World War II was indeed a total war - The conduct of WWII by both sides provides many examples of mass mobilization of industry and civilians into the war effort, and the deliberate infliction of civilian casualties, targeted destruction of civilian property, infrastructure, food, supplies, etc.

Now in one section of the book I look at the way the government used posters to encourage not only recruitment into the armed services but also into many of the civilian organisations needed to ensure the country was able to sustain itself during the long war. There are many examples of these posters in the book, but one that is now particular poignant is an American poster, designed to urge women into the factories during the conflict.

Known as Rose the Riveter, it became a cultural icon of the war years and continues to be so into the modern day. The reason for its poignancy is that the woman who inspired the poster, a California waitress named Naomi Parker Fraley, passed away in January of this year at the age of 96.

Rosie the Riveter became the subject and title of a song and a Hollywood movie during WWII.

Over the years, a welter of American women have been wrongly identified as the model for Rosie, the war worker of 1940s popular culture who became a feminist touchstone in the late 20th century, but it was Mrs. Fraley who staked the most legitimate claim of all. But because her claim was eclipsed by another woman’s, she went unrecognized for more than 70 years. And it wasn't until 2016 that she was officialy recognised as the woman behind the iconic image.

“I didn’t want fame or fortune,” Mrs. Fraley told People magazine in 2016, when her connection to Rosie first became public. “But I did want my own identity.”

Mrs. Fraley, right, in September 2016 with her younger sister, Ada Wyn Parker Loy

The article, published in the People magazine,  brought journalists to Mrs. Fraley’s door at long last.

“The women of this country these days need some icons,” Mrs. Fraley said in the People magazine interview. “If they think I’m one, I’m happy.”

Interviewing Mrs. Fraley in 2016, The World-Herald asked her how it felt to be known publicly as Rosie the Riveter.

“Victory!” she cried. “Victory! Victory!”

Victory indeed for even today the poster continues to inspire and is reproduced over and over- used to promote cause after cause - maybe feminism being the most obvious, but it is heartening to think that in these days of instant fame, quite often underserved, that people like Naomi will eventually be recognised for the role they played. The cultural importance of Rose the Riveter can not be overstated.


THE STORY OF THE SEARCH FOR THE REAL ROSE

Below are more iconic wartime posters.