From the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Secret Life of Bletchley Park
When Churchill made one of the most inspiring speeches of the 20th century - 'we will fight them on the beaches' – he was giving thanks for the miracle of deliverance, the harrowing and breathless evacuation of over 338,000 troops from the beaches and harbour at Dunkirk.
Churchill was determined it shouldn’ t be labelled a victory. He was already too late. Hours later, broadcaster JB Priestley was to call it ‘ an absurd English epic’ .
Those days of Dunkirk are still invoked now whenever the nation finds itself in any kind of crisis. But there is a wider story too that involves a very large number of civilians - from nurses to racing enthusiasts, trades union leaders to dance hall managers, novelists to seaside café owners.
And even wider yet, a story that starts in September 1939: of young civilian men being trained for a war that was already 25 years out of date; and the increasing suspense – and occasional surrealism - of the Phoney War. The ‘ absurd epic’ of Dunkirk – told here through fresh interviews with veterans, plus unseen letters and archival material – is the story of how an old-fashioned island was brutally forced into the modernity of World War Two.
