{"title":"Books by Melody Foreman","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781399092821","title":"Dad’s Army Goes to War","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor decades the classic, evergreen BBC comedy Dad's Army has entertained millions of viewers around the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the farcical antics of Walmington-on-Sea’s bumbling Home Guard platoon camouflage the true military service of some of the actors themselves. Despite their light-hearted appearance, many of the cast saw active service in one, or even both, of the world wars – and much of it far from humorous.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe inspiration behind the sitcom was the experiences of one its writers, Jimmy Perry, who, as a young 16-year-old wannabe comedian, was still waiting for his call up papers when he joined the eager warriors of the Home Guard in 1940. Little did he know how decades later that ribald group of men in the Watford battalion would provide the inspiration which put his name up in lights. Indeed, was it Perry’s own goofy gullibility as a teenager that helped form the character of Private Pike?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlso, admitted Perry, the affable Lance Corporal Jones – in real life Clive Dunn, a former prisoner-of-war who served in the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars – was partly based on an old soldier Perry knew who had served in the Sudan. This veteran recalled being told by a CO to ‘piss on your rifle’ to cool it down. Perry went on to serve in India in the Royal Artillery and then later with Combined Services Entertainments.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a twenty-year-old British Army officer, David Croft was stationed in North Africa when a raft of comical events, including his struggles with a Bofors gun, went on to shape the calamities which befall the Dad’s Army troopers!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheatre-mad Derbyshire lad Arthur Lowe, who played the redoubtable Captain Mainwaring, was thin with knobbly knees when he was seconded to the No.2 Field Entertainment Unit in Egypt. Meantime languid, good mannered actor John Le Mesurier reported for duty with the Royal Tank Regiment complete with golf clubs in his car boot. By 1943 he was ironically enduring life in Deolali (Doolally in India), when he ‘had a captaincy thrust upon him’ until being demobbed in 1946.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe astonishing bravery of actor and playwright Arnold Ridley, who was denied a DSO and a Military Medal for his actions during the First World War, makes for heart-rending reading. His creation of dear old Private Godfrey won him millions of adoring fans.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe classical actor John Laurie – Private ‘We’re all doomed’ Frazer – was also a hero of the trenches. Always dry-witted he once made everyone laugh on set when he remarked: ‘I’ve played every part in Shakespeare, I was considered to be the finest Hamlet of the 1920s and I had retired, and now I am famous for doing this crap!’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat each man, including the mocking Laurie, helped turn Dad’s Army into everlasting success will never be forgotten. And why? Well, in reality they had seen war and knew war, and yet always completely realised and understood how the power of laughter is the ultimate triumph.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":56298272129397,"sku":"9781399092821","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57682890424693,"sku":"9781399092869","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781399092821_e830a87b-200f-4707-a61d-8b23dee7e9f3.jpg?v=1792511743"},{"product_id":"9781399021753","title":"The Wreck Hunter","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs long ago as 1961 a young Terry Parsons, then still in his twenties, began his long search for lost aircraft and memories of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. What he discovered over the decades that followed went far beyond the tangled wreckage of military aircraft, both fighters and bombers. For with each of the thousands of RAF and Luftwaffe artifacts he unearthed, came the intricate weave of life stories linking the valiant and the brave, the living and the dead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIncluded among the items he has recovered from the many wreck sites he has investigated, was a mud-cloaked control column from a Spitfire with its gun button still switched to firing mode, a piece of Dornier Do 17 fuselage bearing the fatal bullet holes which led it to crash to the of earth of south-east England, a pilot’s waistcoat once used to stop the drafts and rattles in a Hurricane cockpit, blood-stained maps from a Luftwaffe bomber, and a buckled tail fin from a Me 110 bearing the unmistakable symbol of the swastika.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow in this exclusive biography, created from Terry’s original notes and photographs stretching back almost seventy years, we learn not only about the historical significance of his own story as a wreck-hunter but the importance of remembering the lives of the men who fought in the skies above Britain in those desperate days of the Second World War. Indeed, this book shows us how one man’s pioneering commitment to aviation archaeology ultimately serves as a unique tribute to thousands of young souls both lost and found of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56298331144565,"sku":"9781399021753","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781399021753_f97b4cea-89c8-41ba-aa65-0e25742eb10a.jpg?v=1786019854"},{"product_id":"9781526756619","title":"A Spitfire Girl","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe visualize dashing and daring young men as the epitome of the pilots of the Second World War, yet amongst that elite corps was one person who flew no less than 400 Spitfires and seventy-six different types of aircraft and that person was Mary Wilkins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer story is one of the most remarkable and endearing of the war, as this young woman, serving as a ferry pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, transported aircraft for the RAF, including fast fighter planes and huge four-engine bombers. On one occasion Mary delivered a Wellington bomber to an airfield, and as she climbed out of the aircraft the RAF ground crew ran over to her and demanded to know where the pilot was! Mary said simply: I am the pilot! Unconvinced the men searched the aircraft before they realized a young woman had indeed flown the bomber all by herself. After the war she accepted a secondment to the RAF, being chosen as one of the first pilots, and one of only three women, to take the controls of the new Meteor fast jet. By 1950 the farmer's daughter from Oxfordshire with a natural instinct to fly became Europe's first female air commandant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this authorized biography the woman who says she kept in the background during her ATA years and left all the glamour of publicity to her colleagues, finally reveals all about her action-packed career which spans almost a century of aviation, and her love for the skies which, even in her nineties, never falters. She says: I am passionate for anything fast and furious. I always have been since the age of three and I always knew I would fly. The day I stepped into a Spitfire was a complete joy and it was the most natural thing in the world for me.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303269904757,"sku":"9781526756619","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526756619_ac0e5dc1-db33-4f56-aa21-9bc5e93d2e1a.jpg?v=1786022544"},{"product_id":"9781526737717","title":"From the Battlefield to the Big Screen","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Richard Todd played the part of Major John Howard in the 1962 epic The Longest Day, he was reliving his own wartime experiences as one of the first British officers to parachute into Normandy on D-Day to capture Pegasus Bridge.  Among the many familiar figures of TV and cinema who fought for their country are Sir Dirk Bogarde, who arrived at a secret location in Normandy just after D-Day to carry out vital aerial photographic interpretation exercises with the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Audie Murphy, who lied about his age to enlist after the attack on Pearl Harbor and went on to become America‘s most decorated soldier of the war.  We have all admired the stars for the pleasure they have brought to our lives, but the true stories of these people we know so well are far more evocative than any part they played on the silver screen.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":56312555929973,"sku":"9781526737717","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57682765545845,"sku":"9781399024228","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526737717_0800edf8-b7a5-45e8-8e5b-e09afaa5d2c6.jpg?v=1792511644"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-melody-foreman.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}