Wartime Entertainment by Anton Rippon
It might have ended 80 years ago, but we still have a warm, nostalgic relationship with the Second World War, due in no small part to the love we have for the entertainment from those turbulent times. Singers like Vera Lynn – the ‘Forces Sweetheart’ – Gracie Fields, Anne Shelton, and the Andrews Sisters, bandleader Glenn Miller whose fate is still a mystery, films like _Gone With The Wind_, _Casablanca_, _Mrs Miniver_, _In Which We Serve_, _Goodbye Mr Chips_, and morale-boosting radio programmes like _ITMA_, _Music While You Work_ and _Hi Gang!_ all helped Britain to stay calm and carry on as it sheltered from the bombs, worked long hours in munitions factories, and prayed that its menfolk fighting on land, sea and in the air to bring about victory would one day return home safely. _Wartime Entertainment: How Britain Kept Smiling Through the Second World War_ relives the wartime years, looking at the songs and the singers, at the role that the BBC – ‘Auntie’ – played not only in entertaining the nation but also in keeping it informed, at how West End theatre survived the Blitz, and at the bands that played both the big dance venues and the village halls to raise spirits and, for a few hours at least, lighten the mood of those dark and dangerous days. The book considers the work of the Crown Film Unit that made short information and documentary films as well as longer drama-documentaries and even a few straight drama productions for the public in Britain and abroad, and at ENSA – the Entertainments National Service Association – that provided entertainment for British armed forces personnel both at home and abroad.
ANTON RIPPON is an award-winning newspaper columnist, journalist and author of some 50 books including Britain 1940: The Decisive Year on the Home Front; Gas Masks for Goalposts: Football in Britain During the Second World War; Hitler’s Olympics: The Story of the 1936 Nazi Games; Gunther Plüschow: Airmen, Escaper and Explorer; How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On – True Stories from the Home Front. NICOLA RIPPON is an author and newspaper and magazine feature writer. Her book The Plot to Kill Lloyd George: Alice Wheeldon and the Peartree Conspiracy for Pen & Sword was described as ‘a fascinating story, well-researched and expertly told’. She has appeared on a number of BBC television programmes as an expert interviewee.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781399034845 |
| ISBN 10 | 1399034847 |
| Title | Wartime Entertainment |
| Author | Anton Rippon |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Pen & Sword Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2024-09-23 |
| Number of pages | 224 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |