A 1940s Childhood
From Bomb Sites to Children's Hour
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Narrated by:
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Alan Turton
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By:
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James Marsh
About this listen
Do you remember collecting shrapnel and listening to Children's Hour? Carrying gas masks or sharing your school with evacuees from the city? The 1940s was a decade of great challenge for everyone who lived through it. The hardships and fear created by a world war were immense. Britain's towns and cities were being bombed on an almost nightly basis, and many children faced the trauma of being parted from their parents and sent away to the country to live with complete strangers. For just over half of this decade the war continued, meaning food and clothing shortages became a way of life. But through it all, and afterwards, the simplicity of kids shone. From collecting bits of shot-down German aircraft to playing in bomb-strewn streets, kids made their own fun. Then there was the joy of the second half of the 1940s, when fathers came home and the magic of 'normal life' returned.
This trip down memory lane will take you through the most memorable and evocative experiences of growing up in the 1940s.
©2014 James Marsh (P)2022 W F HowesListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 1 hr and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
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Charming and Inspiring
- By David P on 09-05-22
By: Claire Keegan
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Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
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Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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Storming the Falklands
- My War and After
- By: Tony Banks
- Narrated by: David Monteath
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Tony Banks and his comrades of the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment were highly trained, but nothing could prepare them for the intensity and ferocity of fighting to liberate the Falkland Islands. Plunged into a war of night attacks and vicious close-quarters combat, Banks and his fellow soldiers' fierce bravery and determination saw them through the bloodiest conflict British troops had faced in decades. Seventeen men died at Goose Green, a hard-fought battle the paras came close to losing.
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Compelling memoir of the Falklands
- By Steve Adams on 08-08-18
By: Tony Banks
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On Hitler's Mountain
- Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood
- By: Irmgard A. Hunt
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Growing up in the beautiful mountains of Berchtesgaden - just steps from Adolf Hitler's alpine retreat - Irmgard Hunt had a seemingly happy, simple childhood. In her powerful, illuminating, and sometimes frightening memoir, Hunt recounts a youth lived under an evil but persuasive leader. As she grew older, the harsh reality of war - and a few brave adults who opposed the Nazi regime - aroused in her skepticism of National Socialist ideology and the Nazi propaganda she was taught to believe in.
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A rare and very much appreciated perspective.
- By tabounds on 12-28-17
By: Irmgard A. Hunt
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Owls Do Cry
- By: Janet Frame
- Narrated by: Heather Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography: 'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters.'
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well told but a wee bit depressing.
- By Muzza on 11-03-19
By: Janet Frame
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Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
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Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
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A Man's Got to Have a Hobby
- Long Summers with my Dad
- By: William McInnes
- Narrated by: William McInnes
- Length: 2 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
William McInnes' best-selling memoir, A Man's Got to Have a Hobby, takes us back to the long summer holidays of the 1960s and '70s and the last of the baby-boomer childhoods. William narrates with humour and affection about his family and especially his mum and dad, who talked to the TV set and enjoyed life in their house near the bay. William McInnes is a talented writer and a natural storyteller.
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Wonderful story
- By Dodie on 08-05-22
By: William McInnes
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A Russian Journal
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Steinbeck and Capa's account of their journey through Cold War Russia is a classic piece of reportage and travel writing.Just after the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune.
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Extremely Interesting
- By Jean on 12-04-14
By: John Steinbeck
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Invisible Jews
- Surviving the Holocaust in Poland
- By: Eddie Bielawski
- Narrated by: Norman Gilligan
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Eddie Bielawski was born in the town of Wegrow in Poland in mid-1938. Not a propitious time and place for a Jewish child to be born. As a young child, he sees the Nazi army marching toward Russia. Day and night they marched - soldiers, trucks, tanks, and more soldiers, in a never-ending line - an invincible force. One night, his father had a dream. In this dream, he saw what he had to do: where to build the bunker, how to build it, and even its dimensions. This would be their Noah's Ark, saving them from the initial deluge.
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Surviving not the camps, but being in hiding!
- By Logophile on 04-26-18
By: Eddie Bielawski
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The Clanlands Almanac
- Seasonal Stories from Scotland
- By: Sam Heughan, Graham McTavish
- Narrated by: Sam Heughan, Graham McTavish
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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From First Footing to Samhain, Fringe Festival follies to whisky lore, Sam and Graham guide listeners through a year of Scottish legends, traditions, historical and contemporary events, sharing personal stories and tips as only these two chalk-and-cheese friends can. As entertaining as it is practical, The Clanlands Almanac is a light-hearted education in Scottish history and culture, told through the eyes of two passionate Scotsmen. The perfect escapist guide, The Clanlands Almanac is intended as a starting point for your own Scottish discoveries.
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Sam & Graham!!!
- By Annie on 11-25-21
By: Sam Heughan, and others
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Anne Frank Remembered
- By: Miep Gies, Alison Leslie Gold
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than two years, Miep Gies and her husband helped hide the Franks from the Nazis. Like thousands of unsung heroes of the Holocaust, they risked their lives each day to bring food, news, and emotional support to the victims. From her own remarkable childhood as a World War I refugee to the moment she places a small, red-orange, checkered diary -- Anne's legacy -- in Otto Frank's hands, Miep Gies remembers her days with simple honesty and shattering clarity.
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A Fast Reading Could-Not-Put-It-Down book
- By Starlet on 03-07-10
By: Miep Gies, and others