Madeleine Bunting

1940. Guernsey is first bombed, then occupied, by the Germans. A year earlier, recently married Helene waves good-bye to her husband, who has enlisted in the British army. Protected only by her father and Nanna, Helene must carve out a life on the island for the length of the war. Forty years later, her daughter Roz begins a search for the truth about her father and stumbles into the secret history of her mother's life.

Though rarely remembered today, the Nazis occupied the British Channel Islands for much of the Second World War. In piecing together the fragments left behind – from the love affairs between island women and German soldiers, to the individual acts of resistance – Madeleine Bunting has brought this uncomfortable episode of British history into full view with spellbinding clarity.

England's seaside is made up of a striking variety of coastlines including cliffs, coves, pebbled shore, wide sandy beaches, salt marshes, and estuaries cutting deep inland. On these coastal edges England's great holiday resorts grew up, developed in the early eighteenth century originally as spas for medicinal bathing but soon morphing into places of pleasure, entertainment, fantasy and adventure. The author journeys clockwise around England from Scarborough to Blackpool to understand the enduring appeal of seaside towns, and what has happened to the golden sands, cold seas and donkey rides of childhood memory. 

After the death of her father, commentator Madeleine Bunting began to explore his passionate, lifelong attachment to a small plot of land in North Yorkshire. Delving deep into the rich history of this acre, she uncovers traces of its Neolithic inhabitants; she learns of medieval battles and considers the changing face of agriculture and leisure.