A rich account of the impact of the Second World War on the lives of people living in the farms and villages of Britain.On the outbreak of war, the countryside was invaded by service personnel and evacuee children by the thousand; land was taken arbitrarily for airfields, training grounds and firing ranges, and whole communities were evicted. Prisoner-of-war camps brought captured enemy soldiers to close quarters, and as horses gave way to tractors and combines farmers were burdened with aggressive new restrictions on what they could and could not grow. Land Girls and Lumber Jills worked in fields and forests. Food – or the lack of it – was a major preoccupation and rationing strictly enforced. And although rabbits were poached, apples scrumped and mushrooms gathered, there was still not enough to eat.Drawing from diaries, letters, books, official records and interviews, Duff Hart Davis revisits rural Britain to describe how ordinary people survived the war years. He tells of houses turned over to military use such as Bletchley and RAF Medmenham as well as those that became schools, notably Chatsworth in Derbyshire.Combining both hardship and farce, the book examines the profound changes war brought to Britain’s countryside: from the Home Guard, struggling with the provision of ludicrous equipment, to the role of the XII Corps Observation Unit. whose task was to enlarge rabbit warrens and badger setts into bunkers for harassing the enemy in the event of a German invasion; to the unexpected tenderness shown by many to German and Italian prisoners-of-war at work on the land. Fascinating, sad and at times hilarious, this warm-hearted book tells great stories – and casts new light on Britain during the war.

Our Land at War: A Portrait of Rural Britain 1939–45

Biographies & Memoirs

Hart-Davis, Duff

Leaders & Notable People

William Collins

A detailed, illustrated account of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games ranges from the early planning from 1933 on to all key events of the games themselves, and covers the political and ideological factors involved

Hitler's Games: The 1936 Olympics

Sports & Outdoors

Olympic Marketing Corp

Used Very Good, With d.j. Also With Signed Letter And Envelope From Author Included

Ascension - the story of a South Atlantic island

Constable

For the very first time, The War That Never Was tells the fascinating story of a secret war fought by British mercenaries in the Yemen in the early 1960s. In a covert operation organised over whisky and sodas in the clubs of Chelsea and Mayfair, a group of former SAS officers - led by the irrepressible Colonel Jim Johnson - arranged for a squadron of British mercenaries to travel to the remote mountain regions of the Yemen, to arm, train and lead Yemeni tribesmen in their fight against a 60,000-strong contingent of Egyptian soldiers. It was one of the most uneven running battles ever waged; the Egyptians fielded a huge, professionally-trained army. The British fought back at the head of a ragtag force of tribal warriors and, ultimately, won. Egypt's President Nasser described the battle in the Yemen as 'my Vietnam'. It's a fascinating, forgotten, and rip-roaringly entertaining pocket of British military history, much in the spirit of Ben MvIntyre's bestselling Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat.

The War That Never Was

Arrow

Peter Fleming: A Biography

Oxford Univ. Pr.

Peter Fleming: A biography

Jonathan Cape Ltd.

Fast Shipping from Amazon Warehouse. This item remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact, but may have aesthetic issues such as small scratches, and scuffs, yellowed pages, personal/date inscription inside.

End of an era: Letters and journals of Sir Alan Lascelles, 1887-1920

Lascelles, Sir Alan

Literature & Fiction

Hamish Hamilton

A practical encyclopedia of animals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects, both wild and domestic. It also provides a historic survey of when and how species were introduced and died out, and how they have flourished or declined. There are essays on their interaction with man, from outright exploitation to over-production. Social history, folklore, and legend are included to give the most magisterial survey of Britain's fauna.

Fauna Britannica: The Practical Guide to Wild & Domestic Creatures of Britain

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Orion Publishing

A first edition copy of John James Audubon's THE BIRDS OF AMERICA now sells for several million pounds. This narrative account is the first to concentrate on the crucial periods that Audubon, an American, but born illegitimate in Haiti, spent in England in the 1820s and 1830s and will tell how the world's most famous work of ornithological art came into being. It will describe the astonishing energy and persistence with which Audubon fought his 12-year battle in Liverpool, Edinbugh and London in a period of great political instability - and how his opponents tried to spike his guns. It will also explain the technical processes involved in the production of such large coloured engravings.
Duff Hart-Davis will draw on the archives of the families with whom Audubon stayed and worked and will fill out his own sketches of contemporaries whom he met and admired - Sir Walter Scott, the naturalist and engraver Thomas Bewick, and the leading English bird artist of the day, John Gould. 
PS: The Elephant in the title describes the dimensions of the original BIRDS OF AMERICA

Audubon's Elephant : The Story of John James Audubon's Epic Struggle to Publish the 'Birds of America

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

Philip de László (1869–1937) was born into a humble Hungarian family in Budapest and rose to become the preeminent portrait artist working in Britain between 1907 and 1937. He painted nearly 3,000 portraits, including those of numerous kings and queens, four American presidents, and countless members of the European nobility. “Has any one painter ever before painted so many interesting and historical personages?” asked his contemporaries. There has been no biography of him since 1939, and this new account of both his life and his work draws on previously untapped material from the family archive of over 15,000 documents, to which the author has had unrivaled access. It establishes the intrinsic importance of his art and re-positions him in his rightful place alongside his great contemporaries John Singer Sargent, Sir John Lavery, and Giovanni Boldini.

Philip de László: His Life and Art

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

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Books by Hart-Davis, Duff