When Daddy Came Home: How War Changed Family Life Forever - Softcover

Turner, Barry; Rennell, Tony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099591472 ISBN 13: 9780099591474

Publisher: Random House UK, 2014

Synopsis

Compelling and moving real-life accounts of the impact of the return of the troops at the end of World War II

Summer 1945: Britain was in jubilant mood. At last, the war was over. Soon the men would be coming home from the battlefronts of Europe and the Far East. Then everything would be fine: life would get back to normal. Or would it? Six long years of war had profoundly changed family life. In the absence of their menfolk, the wives had run the home. In the absence of their fathers, the children had ruled the roost in what were effectively one-parent families. For years, Dad had been a khaki figure in a photograph on the wall, a crumpled letter from overseas, an occasional visitor on weekend leave. Now he was here to stay, a stranger in a group that had learned to live without him—and was not always prepared to have him back. Most homecomings were joyful, never-to-be-forgotten moments of humor and hope. Others were hard. Welcomes were marred by rejection. Relationships were ruined forever. Divorce and delinquency, the twin horrors of post-war society, were set to soar. And there was no one to help, no one to offer advice, no one to deal with the tears and the trauma.

About this title

About the Author:

BARRY TURNER has written for television, radio and newspaper. He has had over twenty books published, including a bestselling biography of Richard Burton and a biography of Denham Elliot. His book And the Policeman Smiled, a moving account of ten thousand German refugee children who came to Britain in 1939, sparked an interest in post-war reconstruction and the problems of demobilization. He was a founding editor of The Writer's Handbook.

TONY RENNELL, a Cambridge history graduate, has been a journalist and writer for over twenty years, many of those with The Sunday Times.

Review:

"Fascinating." * Daily Mail *

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0099591472
• ISBN 13: 9780099591474
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416