Author: Arthur Smith
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472146271
Category:
Page: 288
View: 823
My Dad was there, along time back, Four bleedin' years he spent, Marching, fighting, eating tack, And came back home without a cent! I tell you mate – he did HIS whack! I've done mine too, I reckon mate, I've done my bloody whack!
Author: Jack Champ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9781760852153
Category: History
Page: 320
View: 985
Colditz Castle was Nazi Germany’s infamous ‘escape-proof’ wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to escape from the massive floodlit stronghold, by any means necessary. In this riveting account – by turns humorous, heartfelt and tragic – historian Colin Burgess and Lieutenant Jack Champ, from the point of view of the prisoners themselves, tell the story of the twenty Australians who made this castle their ‘home’, and the plans they made that were so crazy that some even achieved the seemingly impossible – escape! ‘A stirring testimony of mateship . . . We are often on tenterhooks, always impressed by their determination, industry and courage’ Australian Book ReviewFrom our kitchen on the third floor we could see across to the tops of great ships being loaded and unloaded by towering ... a trick inspired by the celebrated (failed) escape attempt made by one of my dad's colleagues in Colditz.
Author: Arthur Smith
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 9781409061892
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 416
View: 671
'My name is Arthur Smith, unless there's anybody here from the Streatham tax office. In which case, I'm Daphne Fairfax.' This has been Arthur's opening line at hundreds of stand-up comedy performances. In fact, he is neither Daphne nor Arthur. Friends and family know him as Brian. One of the 'alternative comedians' who shook up light entertainment in the eighties and nineties, Arthur (and Brian) is also a broadcaster, an opening bat for Grumpy Old Men, a West End playwright (his plays include An Evening with Gary Lineker) and a guest on innumerable radio and TV panel shows. In My Name is Daphne Fairfax he reflects on the nature of comedy and his days as a scruffy kid on the bombsites of Bermondsey, a wild-haired undergraduate, a roadsweeper, an English teacher, a failed rock star, a boozed-up sexual adventurer and an intensive care patient who has been told never to drink again. Hilarious, scandalous and rude, his memoir incorporates a tender tribute to his parents and a vigorous account of the peculiar business of being alive.The Red Cross letter said nothing about him being hurt.” When my father came in for lunch, my mother gave him the news. He did not seem too concerned about the move. “Dad, do you know where Colditz is? I couldn't find it in the atlas.
Author: Y.M. Masson
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN: 9781457569074
Category: History
Page: 244
View: 184
Recipient of the Florida Writers Association Royal Palm Literary Award When Paris Was Dark The story of a young French boy during the WWII German occupation. When five-year-old Alain, a little boy living in Paris, is strafed by German planes at the onset of the German invasion in 1940, his world is instantly turned on its head. During the next four years, like the children who fight to survive today’s many conflicts around the world, he grows up fast and must be mentally strong and alert to stay safe. With limited parental support, Alain and his young friends face increasing deprivation, devastating hunger, and constant fear of the occupying Germans soldiers, with their intimidating rules and random street blockades and checkpoints. He also dreads the Allies’ air raids, although he knows the bombers are on his side. After being silent for four years, one day all the churches of Paris ring their bells to celebrate the end of the occupation, and Alain welcomes the American GIs who fought bravely to liberate him. His story—of fear and courage, despair and determination—is laced with the realism only an author who lived through the occupation himself can provide, bringing this bittersweet, beautifully rendered novel to vivid life.I couldn't take my eyes off your cleavage. ... You were talking to my dad about Colditz, the television programme. ... She looked down at the table, remembering that evening now; and also remembering Malcolm, her first boyfriend, ...
Author: Jonathan Coe
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307428265
Category: Fiction
Page: 384
View: 209
The characters of The Rotters’ Club–Jonathan Coe’s beloved novel of adolescent life in the 1970s–have bartered their innocence for the vengeance of middle age in this incisive portrait of Cool Britannia at the millennium.The first one was called Escape from Colditz Castle and was designed by an eighteen-year-old schoolboy named Adrian ... Or your dad. I mentioned Colditz to a Chilean friend of mine. As soon as he heard the name Enrique's eyes lit up.
Author: Harry Pearson
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 9780349139739
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 256
View: 588
This is a book about men and war. Not real conflict but war as it has filtered down to generations of boys and men through toys, comics, games and movies. Harry Pearson belongs to the great battalion of British men who grew up playing with toy soldiers - refighting World War II - and then stopped growing up. Inspired by the photos of the gallant pilot uncles that decorated the wall above his father's model-making table, by Sergeant Hurricane, Action Man and Escape from Colditz, dressed in Clarks' commando shoes and with the Airfix Army in support, he battled in the fields and on the beaches, in his head and on the sitting-room floor and across his bedroom ceiling. And thirty years later he still is. ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND! is a celebration of those glory days, a boy's own story of the urge to play, to conquer - and to adopt very bad German accents, shouting 'Donner und Blitzen' at every opportunity. This is a tale of obsession, glue and plastic kits. It is the story of one boy's imaginary war and where it led him.With my dad. My dad could get in and out of Colditz without breaking sweat. I play with Ciara in the infield till it is time to go. My dad tells me he loves me – but I knew that when he smuggled Ciara in here somehow!
Author: Sonia O'Sullivan
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9780141900063
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 240
View: 563
Sonia O'Sullivan is one of the greatest sporting figures Ireland has ever produced. In a career which saw her competing at the highest international levels for over a decade, she turned in world-class times in events ranging from the 1,500 metres to the marathon, capped by World Championship gold in the 5,000 metres in 1995 and Olympic silver in the same event in 2000. But her performances on the track are only part of the story of this passionate, sometimes fragile, and always compelling athlete.Now, Sonia tells the full story of her life for the first time - from her childhood in Cobh, Co. Cork, through her early successes on the track, to the highs of 1995 and 2000 and the low of the 1996 Olympics. Whether in triumph or in tears, Sonia has always been a uniquely fascinating - and mysterious - figure. This frank autobiography takes us behind the scenes of international athletics and behind the mask of a brilliant, vulnerable sportswoman. 'As a story of dedication and perseverance finally rewarded, it's inspirational' Sunday Business Post 'A cocktail of thrills, spills, heartache, near-things, personal tumult, and devastation. This is a book written from the heart' Irish Catholic 'The candid nature of the book alone makes it a must-read for any Irish sports buff' Belfast News LetterMy father's own story came out pristine, having been locked away untold for nearly sixty years. ... the Dam Busters, Colditz, Dad's Army—I'd assumed, in my English, island-dweller way, that my father was home and dry when he got to ...
Author: Meg Jensen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 9781443808606
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 280
View: 664
In our age, self-publishing, self-broadcasting, and telling stories about our own lives and the lives of others are all-pervasive. This is also the age of the witness, the age of testimony in which first-hand accounts, personal experience, life change and evolution are valued, for good or ill, over distanced reflection. What are we to make of all this telling of lives? The essays collected in Life Writing: The Spirit of the Age and the State of the Art from writers and academics associated with the Centre for Life Narrative Studies at Kingston University in London, begin to address this very question, and in doing so demonstrate the fluidity and diversity of life writing itself. The remit of the Centre for Life Narratives is to rise to the challenge poised to writers, teachers and researchers alike by this very fluidity and diversity in our discipline and is exemplified here with contributions from academics, curators, editors and biographers, including Neal Ascherson,Victoria Glendinning, Professor Kathryn Hughes, Hanif Kureishi, Blake Morrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This collection of essays from CLN offers the reader our founding contribution to the debates that surround this era-defining genre and as such presents both the state of the art and the spirit of our age.After he was captured Upham eventually ended up in Colditz, as the Germans rather unsurprisingly regarded him as too much of a handful. ... Upham insisted that the medals weren't his and should go to his 213 WATCHING WAR FILMS WITH MY DAD.
Author: Al Murray
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 9781448150038
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 320
View: 512
Al Murray's (AKA The Pub Landlord) musing on his childhood where his fascination with history and all things war began. Have you ever watched a film with someone who, at the most dramatic scene, argues that the plane on screen hasn't been invented yet? Or that the tank rumbling towards the hero at the end of the film is the wrong tank altogether? Al Murray is that someone. Try as he might, he can’t help himself. Growing up in the 1970s, Al, with the help of his dad, became fascinated with the history of World War Two. They didn’t go to football; they went to battlefields. Because like so many of his generation whose childhood was all about Airfix, Action Man and Where Eagles Dare, he grew up in the cultural wake of the Second World War. Part memoir, part life obsession, this is Al Murray musing on what he knows best. And he’s sure to tell you things about history that you were never taught at school.Pinewood Studios seemed to release a Trojan Horse or Colditz Castle every second month back then. My mother recalls my father phoning from the garage where he worked, sadly saying, 'They got George Wilder, Ona.
Author: John Kerr
Publisher: Kerr Publishing
ISBN: 9781925281200
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 256
View: 937
'There is a history with this gentleman of, shall we say, a reluctance to stay in custody.' - Detective Inspector Aldo Lorenzutta On a sunny Thursday morning, in a helicopter near Silverwater Prison Complex, a woman pulled a gun from a shopping bag and said 'This is a hijack.'The pilot, options running out, dropped into the prison and lifted John Reginald Killick, armed robber and escapee, to freedom. This book charts the pathway to that extraordinary act, and its devastating consequenced for those charged. It unfolded in prison visits, correspondence, police stations, pubs and cafes, parks, private homes, courtrooms, libraries and legal offices for the most part. The author's journey has been a revelation to him. Much of what he found was grim by any standard. Hideous things.But he also found there was a lot of love and friendship abroad in the world as well. Heaps.