Wartime Entertainment
eBook - PDF

Wartime Entertainment

How Britain Kept Smiling Through the Second World War

  1. 218 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Wartime Entertainment

How Britain Kept Smiling Through the Second World War

About this book

It might have ended 80 years ago, but we still have a warm, nostalgic relationship with the Second World War, due in no small part to the love we have for the entertainment from those turbulent times. Singers like Vera Lynn – the 'Forces Sweetheart' – Gracie Fields, Anne Shelton, and the Andrews Sisters, bandleader Glenn Miller whose fate is still a mystery, films like Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, Mrs Miniver, In Which We Serve, Goodbye Mr Chips, and morale-boosting radio programs like ITMA, Music While You Work and Hi Gang! all helped Britain to stay calm and carry on as it sheltered from the bombs, worked long hours in munitions factories, and prayed that its menfolk fighting on land, sea and in the air to bring about victory would one day return home safely. Wartime Entertainment: How Britain Kept Smiling Through the Second World War relives the wartime years, looking at the songs and the singers, at the role that the BBC – 'Auntie' – played not only in entertaining the nation but also in keeping it informed, at how West End theater survived the Blitz, and at the bands that played both the big dance venues and the village halls to raise spirits and, for a few hours at least, lighten the mood of those dark and dangerous days. The book considers the work of the Crown Film Unit that made short information and documentary films as well as longer drama-documentaries and even a few straight drama productions for the public in Britain and abroad, and at ENSA – the Entertainments National Service Association – that provided entertainment for British armed forces personnel both at home and abroad.

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Yes, you can access Wartime Entertainment by Anton Rippon,Nicola Rippon in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Modern British History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Pen and Sword
Year
2025
eBook ISBN
9781399034883
Edition
0

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Book Title
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. Chapter 1 This Country is at War…
  6. Chapter 2 Here is the News…
  7. Chapter 3 This is the BBC Forces Programme
  8. Chapter 4 It’s That Man Again
  9. Chapter 5 Mr Wu’s an Air Raid Warden Now
  10. Chapter 6 More Than One Forces’ Sweetheart
  11. Chapter 7 Sing As We Go and Let the World Go By
  12. Chapter 8 Great Symphonies and Concertos
  13. Chapter 9 Soft Lights and Sweet Music
  14. Chapter 10 In the Mood
  15. Plates
  16. Chapter 11 Over the Rainbow
  17. Chapter 12 Now Showing – Target for Tonight
  18. Chapter 13 No Better National Service
  19. Chapter 14 Tonight and Every Night
  20. Chapter 15 I’ll Be Home for Christmas
  21. Chapter 16 Smiling Through Coupon Monday
  22. Chapter 17 Holidaying at Home
  23. Chapter 18 A Sporting Life
  24. Chapter 19 A Land of Begin Again…
  25. Sources
  26. Index
  27. Back Cover