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Young Voices

British Children Remember the Second World War

» Lyn Smith

Penguin
Paperback : 04 Sep 2008

Synopsis

For British children the Second World War was a terrifying time of deprivation, uprootings and separation. But many also endured intense air raids or found themselves, shockingly, caught up in the action.

Young Voices tells how British children across the globe lived in the days before and during the fighting. Meet nine-year-old Jean Greaves, whose father was taken by the Nazis for helping Jewish people; schoolboy Derek Bech who clung to a raft in heavy seas after his ship was torpedoed; baker's boy Ron Hurford in occupied Guernsey who stole German flour for his family; teenager and messenger Peter Izard who dodged a falling doodlebug; Manila internee Jacqueline Towell who couldn't walk for malnutrition; and many others who survived adversity and danger.

Through the breathtaking stories of over one hundred contributors, Lyn Smith has written an extraordinary history of the war as seen through child's eyes.

Reviews

Interview

What is ‘Young Voices’ about?
It tells the story of the Second World War through the voices of British children of the time. It gives the full complexity of children’s wartime experience, covering, not only experiences of those on the home front, but British children trapped abroad when war started, many enduring enemy occupation and internment.

What made you interested in oral history?
From an early age, I’ve always been interested in listening to people talking about their lives and experiences, perhaps I’m nosey!  I started interviewing professionally about thirty years ago – it is the very stuff of history -  the human side.

What is your strongest memory of the Second World War?
Seeing a beautiful bluebell wood, in which we played, destroyed by a doodlebug, the fields around littered by dead cows, some with their legs in the air. It seemed more horrific than the frightening crash itself just a field away from our home.

What are you reading at the moment?
The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al Aswany and The Night in Question, by Tobias Woolff (latter short stories for snatched reading)

Which author do you most admire?
There are so many, but I think Alexander Solzhenistsyn, for his courage in exposing his gulag experience, opening our eyes to the full extent and horrors of the Soviet camp system.

What is your greatest fear?
That my children and grandchildren could be seriously harmed

How would you like to be remembered?
As someone who did their bit for oral history

Have you ever done something you’ve really regretted?
Usually it’s the things I haven’t done that I regret and there are many examples. The one that still rankles is not interviewing, or even asking, my father about his First and Second World War experiences which included the battle of Jutland in the First War, and the Atlantic and Arctic convoys in the second.

What is your favourite book
There are so many…

Who, or what, do you turn to in a crisis?
The appropriate member of my family, or a good friend

What makes you angry?
The lies that politicians tell – especially those related to the Iraq War and ongoing occupation

Which foreign country would you most like to visit?
Burma (Myanmar) but after regime-change there

How do you relax?
A good drink, listening to music, reading and walking

What are you proudest of?
My grown-up kids: they’ve turned out decent, independent and very interesting individuals

Where do you write?
In my son’s old bedroom, now my study, it has good vibes

Which is your favourite city and why?
New York, for its fantastic dynamism

One wish: what would it be?
That there should be peace on earth

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