The BBC during the Second World War

Auntie's War

A BBC R4 Book of the Week for 2018, Edward Stourton vividly recounts the story of the BBC during WW2 and in doing so gives a remarkable portrait of a unique institution, an entirely fresh perspective on the war, and a new insight into broadcasting culture today.

An engaging, balanced and thoroughly researched history. 
It is often a moving and amusing tale containing plenty of mavericks and colourful episodes.

Fascinating, complex and exhaustively researched ... This is a book that travels far beyond the bomb-scarred walls of Broadcasting House, bringing the reader as it did the 1940s listening public, the drama and immediacy of the war, and eventually the reality of a post-Nazi world, where Dimbleby's pared down description of the liberation of Belsen must be one of the most shattering pieces of ever broadcast.

This book captures how and why the BBC came to be trusted around the world so much that people like my grandparents - refugees from the Nazis - would hide in a cupboard every day with their short wave radio just to hear the truth as reported by the  BBC.

The story of the BBC during the war has hardly been told though it is both fascinating and important. Edward Stourton's book is an engrossing account of this important time for one of our great institutions, perhaps to be read along side Penelope Fitzgerald's brilliant novel Human Voices.

This engaging book about the BBC is full of astonishing incidents, truth versus propaganda and the unspoken heroism of correspondents. It tells how eyewitness reports gave a voice to everyone for the first time.

Highly readable. Auntie's War captures the peculiar mix of establishment conservatism and technocratic progressivism that shaped the BBC during its first decades, and demonstrates the huge reward in soft power that Britain reaped from its broadcasts to occupied Europe . . . He successfully brings out the craft that enabled the best radio performers to enthral their listeners.

Must read: an affectionate and finely researched look at the BBC's inner workings during this critical period.

Broadcaster Ed Stourton's history of the BBC during the war is rich in incident and character and almost makes you fall in love with the old girl again.

The BBC had a "good war". It generally gave a high-minded moral tone to Britain's war effort, entertained the people during dark and uncertain days and won their affection and confidence. In this engaging, balanced and thoroughly researched history, Edward Stourton, a veteran broadcaster, reveals how and why this occurred. It is a moving and amusing tale full of colourful episodes.

Edward Stourton has worked in broadcasting for 38 years, and regularly presents BBC Radio Four programmes such as The World at One, The World This Weekend, Sunday and Analysis. He has been a foreign correspondent for Channel Four, ITN and the BBC, and for ten years he was one of the main presenters of the Today programme. Auntie's War is his seventh book.

"An engaging, balanced and thoroughly researched history. It is often a moving and amusing tale containing plenty of mavericks and colourful episodes." (Lawrence James, The Times) 
 
Auntie's War is a love letter to radio. 
 
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British institution unlike any other, and its story during the Second World War is also our story. This was Britain’s first total war, engaging the whole nation, and the wireless played a crucial role in it. For the first time, news of the conflict reached every living room – sometimes almost as it happened; and at key moments: 
- Chamberlain’s announcement of war 
- The Blitz 
- The D-Day landings 
- De Gaulle's broadcasts from exile 
- Churchill's fighting speeches 
 
Radio offered an incomparable tool for propaganda; it was how coded messages, both political and personal, were sent across Europe, and it was a means of sending less than truthful information to the enemy. 
 
Edward Stourton is a sharp-eyed, wry and affectionate companion on the BBC’s wartime journey, investigating archives, diaries, letters and memoirs to examine what the BBC was and what it stood for. Auntie’s War is an incomparable insight into why we have the broadcast culture we do today. 
 
A BBC RADIO 4: BOOK OF THE WEEK

Escaping Hitler Across the Pyrenees

Cruel Crossing

The secret history of the WW2 escape routes through the Pyrenees from France to Spain: personal stories of endurance, betrayal and remarkable bravery.

This is a very shocking book. It recaptures the adventure and the horror as it brilliantly conjures up the voices of the past.

Charming but astute, Stourton captures not only the extraordinary courage of the escapers and the passeurs, or guides, who helped them, but the sense of danger and excitement as they evaded their pursuers.

A moving retelling of some of the war's most heroic episodes

Stourton's richly rewarding research into the wartime journeys across the Pyrenees reminds us of so many dramatic stories of courage, tragedy, endurance and survival.

Stourton writes evocatively and with sensitivity... an engaging collection of tales.

Fascinating... vivid, detailed and dramatic

An extremely moving book full of wartime heroism and sacrifice

These are gripping stories that make you ask "what would I have done" if faced with an escapee needing help?

Honest, astonishing and emotional... a mesmerising work on the Second World War's overlooked heroes.

Edward Stourton’s portrayal of the escape lines across the Pyrenees – the courage and endurance of those involved and above all, the heroism in one man (or woman) risking their life for another – is rich in detail and a remarkable testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. A compelling read.

Heart-breaking and breath-taking, and a vivid tribute both to all those who escaped from France into Spain as well as those who helped them. A thoroughly moving and very readable book.

Simon Mawer, author of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky

Escaping the Nazis across the Pyrenean mountain trails became one of the most extraordinary acts of spontaneous resistance of World War Two. In Cruel Crossing, Ed Stourton straps on his backpack and takes to the escape lines himself, reflecting as he treks on the courage and self-sacrifice of the escapers and evaders who went before him - many of them young women, whose remarkable stories are told here often for the first time. Stourton has produced both a compelling history and a unique mountain guide, telling his story with his familiar humour and journalistic verve.

Sarah Helm, author of A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE

An important book packed with poignant stories, remarkable characters and uncomfortable truths.

Clare Mulley, author of The Spy Who Loved and The Woman Who Saved The Children

Cruel Crossing is an accomplished account of an overlooked part of the Second World War. Using wide-ranging research and an impressive number of eye-witness accounts, Stourton tells the story of the escape lines across the Pyrenees, and of the wartime history of southwest France in all its muddied complexity. The gripping escape stories he narrates are sometimes harrowing, often moving, and above all, full of variety and surprises. There is suffering, extraordinary bravery, friendship and even humour; but there is also treachery, betrayal and villainy. A fitting memorial to how war brings out the best and worst in people.

Matthew Parker, author of The Battle of Britain

Enthralling stories ... a moving retelling of some of the war's most heroic episodes

Edward Stourton is the author of six books. He is writer and presenter of several high-profile current-affairs programmes and documentaries for radio and television, and regularly presents BBC Radio Four programmes such as The World at One, The World This Weekend, Sunday and Analysis. He is a frequent contributor to the Today programme, where for ten years he was one of the main presenters.

The mountain paths are as treacherous as they are steep – the more so in the dark and in winter. Even for the fit the journey is a formidable challenge. Hundreds of those who climbed through the Pyrenees during the Second World War were malnourished and exhausted after weeks on the run hiding in barns and attics. Many never even reached the Spanish border. 
 
Today their bravery and endurance is commemorated each July by a trek along the Chemin de la Liberté – the toughest and most dangerous of wartime routes. From his fellow pilgrims Edward Stourton uncovers stories of midnight scrambles across rooftops and drops from speeding trains; burning Lancasters, doomed love affairs, horrific murder and astonishing heroism. 
 
The lives of the men, women and children who were drawn by the war to the Pyrenees often read as breathtakingly exciting adventure, but they were led against a background of intense fear, mounting persecution and appalling risk. Drawing on interviews with the few remaining survivors and the families of those who were there, Edward Stourton’s vivid history of this little-known aspect of the Second World War is shocking, dramatic and intensely moving.

Time spent following a lead

Diary of a Dog-walker

Edward Stourton muses on the meaning of life and all things canine as he walks his dog Kudu.

Utter magic. Edward Stourton is civilized, charming, and writes like an angel. The dogs all spring to life but this is a gorgeous book for everybody - not just for dog lovers. I love it

The sort of book that might convert even a cat-lover to the charm of canine company

Delightful... [a] charming and thoughtful book

Diary of a Dog-walker is a delight, combining gossipy politics and shaggy dog stories adroitly

After a career setback at BBC radio, Edward Stourton took stock of his life with these imaginative meanders with Kudu his English springer spaniel, who seemed to have an angst-free life. This is the world conceived on a canine level, interpreted with intelligent humour and human interest by his affectionate owner

A thoroughly enjoyable ramble through a diverse selection of topics which range from dogs of war and dog fighting to presidential pets and choosing the right name... In turn serious, funny, sad and light-hearted; it's a perfect mixture which is just right for the bedside table

Stourton is a genuinely warm and engaging writer who clearly loves his canine companion, despite his (relatively few) faults, and this little book is a tasty treat for dog owners and dog lovers

Edward Stourton is a newpaper columnist and the author of five previous books. He is writer and presenter of several high-profile current affairs programmes and documentaries for radio and television and regularly presents BBC Radio Four programmes such as The World at One, The World this Weekend, Sunday and Analysis. He is a frequent contributor to the Today programme where for ten years he was one of the main presenters.

‘If you are accompanied by a dog you can talk to anyone, and anyone can talk to you – about anything …’ And they do. Edward Stourton’s walks with, Kudu, his dog, become an opportunity for wonderfully unlikely encounters, and reflecting on the world from the dog-walker’s perspective proves remarkably illuminating. Ed and Kudu’s small trips to the park offer up big insights into romantic attachment, honour and heroism, guilt and depression, our sense of duty, beauty and the hard facts of life’s pecking order. Diary of a Dog-Walker is witty, wise and will be utterly irresistible to any man or woman with a dog.

Edward Stourton

The quiet confessions of a Radio 4 gent ... You can't help hearing the familiar tones of the author speaking the words ... Entertaining ... nicely self-mocking ... I'm glad to have his civilised and ever-optimistic voice in my ear.

A searingly honest insight into the life of one of our great journalists. Hugely entertaining too.

A model of its kind. Calmly, bravely written, infused by his Catholic upbringing, and intriguingly haunted by the posh question ... filled with qualities that are the marks of a good life: candour and courage, deployed with generosity and modesty, all of them here in spades.

A wonderful, poignant memoir - fluent, compelling and full of adventure.

A clear-eyed and compelling account of a life, told with honesty and much wry humour.

A book brimming with surprises and insight. I have known Edward Stourton for fifty years, but there have been adventures in his life of which I knew nothing whatever until I read this fascinating memoir. He has led a Life in Full - and has the brainpower to analyse it all with wit and perspective.

Fascinating. Much more than a series of swashbuckling journalistic yarns, Confessions also describes the "awokening", as Stourton puts it, of someone born to privilege who has come increasingly to question the assumptions of his caste. He retains a kind of shaken, chastened faith, and a moral passion which he has, on the right occasions, allowed to break through the mask of journalistic impartiality.

A stonkingly good read - wise, informative and very funny.

One of our most thoughtful and well-travelled journalists, Stourton manages both to educate and entertain with the inside track on a reporting career in the world's hotspots, and also to dig deeper to examine the role of memory in shaping our life stories.

Ed Stourton's book is not only a gripping personal saga of the professional life of one of our top broadcasters, it is a valuable social document of an era of rapid media transformation. Brilliantly written, witty, searingly honest, his many fans will be delighted. A must read for every aspiring journalist.

What an enviably beautiful story teller  Ed Stourton is!  But having acknowledged that 'tradition was seductive,'  it is Ed's willingness to reflect, to re-assess and to embrace new ways of doing and of thinking that makes this book so unforgettable.

Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake and A House Full of Daughters

Confessions is a moving reflection on 40 years adventures in journalism and a lifetime of religious faith (and doubt). It is refreshingly clear-sighted and unsentimental and above all, energised by an engaging desire to reach the ever-elusive heart of the matter.

An original and insightful memoir - and an exorcism of ghosts.

Rich in personal and profession insights.

If you value the perspective and judgment of one who has covered, often from the frontline, the major events of the past four decades, then snap up a copy.

Thoughtful, witty, occasionally comic, often effortlessly profound - not a conventional journalistic memoir.

I have worked with many journalists during my sixty years in the trade and Edward is among the very best. He is untainted by the cynicism that infects so many of us, deeply thoughtful and committed to telling the truth. This important book reflects all that. And it's great fun too. 
Short version:

Brought face to face with the author of his obituary and his own inevitable mortality, Edward Stourton is prompted to reflect on the life he has led and the events that have shaped him. 
 
Ed was born into a life of privilege: the son of expat parents in colonial Nigeria, he was sent back to Britain to be educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth, at the time when, it was latter revealed, the school and monastery were the setting for serial abuse cases. He then went up to Cambridge, where his life as an undergraduate gave him access to a network of future ministers, judges and newspaper editors. As a young journalist he reported first from party conferences and picket lines and then from war zones, witnessing the events making international headlines, from Haiti to Hong Kong, before returning home to join the infighting on BBC Radio 4's Today. 
 
During this time, the Empire has given way to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, men-only clubs have been replaced by Me Too, and instead of a choice selection of voices on a handful of radio and television channels, we have millions of voices on YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok. 
 
The world has changed, and so has Ed. In Confessions, he describes this remarkable journey with candour, humour and the insight that only forty years' experience of writing and reporting can provide.

Edward Stourton

Praise for Confessions

The quiet confessions of a Radio 4 gent ... You can't help hearing the familiar tones of the author speaking the words ... Entertaining ... nicely self-mocking ... I'm glad to have his civilised and ever-optimistic ...

A searingly honest insight into the life of one of our great journalists. Hugely entertaining too.

A model of its kind. Calmly, bravely written, infused by his Catholic upbringing, and intriguingly haunted by the posh question ... filled with qualities that are the marks of a good life: candour and courage, deplo ...

The quiet confessions of a Radio 4 gent ... You can't help hearing the familiar tones of the author speaking the words ... Entertaining ... nicely self-mocking ... I'm glad to have his civilised and ever-optimistic ...

A searingly honest insight into the life of one of our great journalists. Hugely entertaining too.

A model of its kind. Calmly, bravely written, infused by his Catholic upbringing, and intriguingly haunted by the posh question ... filled with qualities that are the marks of a good life: candour and courage, deplo ...

The quiet confessions of a Radio 4 gent ... You can't help hearing the familiar tones of the author speaking the words ... Entertaining ... nicely self-mocking ... I'm glad to have his civilised and ever-optimistic ...

A searingly honest insight into the life of one of our great journalists. Hugely entertaining too.

A model of its kind. Calmly, bravely written, infused by his Catholic upbringing, and intriguingly haunted by the posh question ... filled with qualities that are the marks of a good life: candour and courage, deplo ...

Books by Edward Stourton

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