The
Crystal Palace
Foundation

By Doris Pullen

Some time ago I felt a strong urge to gather material on the 1939-45 war­ - one which I had lived through myself - and so I decided to ask various people I knew if they would kindly allow me to publish some of their personal stories. Many of them replied that they felt sure that nothing they could remember would be of the slightest interest to anyone, and others said, "What a good idea!" and promptly proceeded to write out their memoirs. Consequently, small articles have been coming in to me all the year, and now there are enough ompiled to make a book.

I wish to thank the contributors - G.V.R. (John) Pullen, George Holley, Josephine Birchenough, Muriel V. Searle, Brigadier C.E.F. Turner, lain Orr, Air Commodore N. Hyde, C.T. Randall, John Sheppard, Eric Lukeman, G. Evans, Lydia White, I. Cropper, Olive Aing, Edna Antrobus and Lewis Blake for allowing me to use their very individual experiences.

The snippets taken from newspapers show events that were occurring at the beginning of the war, and again during the last weeks. I felt these stories might give the readers an idea of life as it was then, and they would see how there was no escape for the ordinary 'man in the street'. We were dragged into the war and everybody had to play their part and make the best of it. I hope the feeling that we did not really want to fight comes through, but when the country is at war, we faced up to situations we certainly did not like. It was not easy, but we lived through it and thanked God when it was over. So this book of memories is produced 'forty years on', with the object of spreading hope in a depressed world.

Paperback 162 pages 4 illustrations