There Was a Time - Softcover

White, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1473650437 ISBN 13: 9781473650435

Publisher: Hodder, 2019

Synopsis

On the day the Second World War broke out, Frank White was a 12-year-old schoolboy in Manchester. On the day it ended, he was serving on a Royal Navy warship in the Indian Ocean. In 2013, he started to write this novel.

'What I wanted to do,' he says, 'was to capture that feeling of those times and remind people of what the country went through.'

'Fabulous, often funny . . . the authentic, freewheeling atmosphere of a time when all bets were off' Daily Mail

As Churchill and the nation face their darkest hour in 1940, a Lincolnshire village wakes up to a glorious summer's morning.

Following Dunkirk, the fate of the whole war will soon rest with the RAF and their desperate effort to win the Battle of Britain. If they fail, Hitler's next step will be invasion.

And as the scene comes to life before us over the next six months, this shadow of war will not disappear.

From the pub to the church, struggling single mother to the lady of the manor, the paper boy to a traumatised bomb disposal volunteer, this superb jewel of a novel portrays a community of people and weaves together their stories with passion, betrayal, intrigue and suspense.

There Was a Time is a triumph of the storyteller's art.

This edition includes a new Author's Note and additional illustrations by the author.

About this title

About the Author:

Frank White, who was born in Manchester in 1927, now lives with his wife June in Lincolnshire, midway between Cleethorpes and Louth. He is a veteran of the wartime British Pacific Fleet. He has contributed essays and short fiction to numerous magazines and is the author of two novels and a short book on the First World War. Other work includes a dozen plays for stage and radio, and material for BBC television. In 2013, realising that the world was no longer full of people who could write at first-hand about the Second World War, he spent the summer working on There Was a Time.

Review:

There Was a Time vividly evokes life in a Lincolnshire village in 1940. Elegantly written and with beautifully-drawn characters, this absorbing story, amusing and poignant by turns, tells of the impact of the last War on a small, close-knit community.―Gervase Phinn

The book captures the anxieties, heightened emotion and community spirit that marked this epoch-defining chapter in the nation's long and colourful history.―Yorkshire Post

He writes beautifully - poignantly and with humour.―Telegraph & Argus

A wonderful read, packed with incident, colour and detail.―Telegraph

A tender evocation of a unique period in history―Sunday Mirror

These fabulous, often funny stories have the authentic, freewheeling atmosphere of a time when all bets were off.―Daily Mail

White depicts unique, worried, caring individuals who it is not difficult to warm to and who are memorable.―Lincolnshire Life

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1473650437
• ISBN 13: 9781473650435
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352