Title: The man on the mantelpiece
Description: On the first day of World War Two, Jim begins a diary. An ardent eighteen-year-old pacifist, nothing will persuade him to fight. Seventy years later, his daughter discovers his writing. After a month, the entries cease until, two years later, he begins again. Now he is a married man and has volunteered for RAF Bomber Command. Janet has a mystery to solve. Why did he change his mind? What happened to the man she has only known as the young hero in his photo on the mantelpiece? Following in his footsteps throughout his training and first bombing raid, Janet compares the diaries with her own impressions of life then and now. In the twenty-first century when Jim's generation is all but gone, she traces her father's struggle and finds the reason she never knew him ...
Subjects: Diaries, Family, World War, 1939-1945, British Aerial operations, British Personal narratives, Social conditions, Guerre mondiale, 1939-1945, Opérations aériennes britanniques, Récits personnels britanniques, Conditions sociales, Families, Aerial Military operations, British
Places: Great Britain, Grande-Bretagne
People: Samuel James Gaywood, Janet Denny
Time periods: 20th century, 20e siècle