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National Service

Colin Shindler

Permission to speak, Sah!

In the aftermath of the Second World War, over two million men were conscripted to serve in Britain's armed services. Some were sent abroad and watched their friends die in combat. Others remained in barracks and painted coal white. But despite delivering such varied experiences, National Service helped to shape the outlook of an entire generation of young British males.

Historian Dr Colin Shindler has interviewed a wide range of ex-conscripts, from all backgrounds, across all ranks, and spanning the entire fourteen years that peacetime conscription lasted, and captured their memories in this engrossing book. From them, we experience the tension of a postwar Berlin surrounded by Russians, the exotic heat and colour of Tripoli in 1948, the brief but intense flashpoint of the Suez Crisis, and the fear of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. But we also hear about the other end of the scale, the conscripts who didn't make it outside the confines of their barracks, or in one case, beyond his home town.

Through these conversations we learn as much about the changing attitudes of servicemen as war became more of a distant memory as we do about the varied nature of their experiences. We see, too, the changing face of British society across these pivotal years, which span everything from the coronation of Elizabeth II, to the birth of rock 'n' roll, to the beginning of the end of the Empire. The stories within these pages are fascinating. And they deserve to be told before they are lost forever.

  • Classification : History
  • Pub Date : MAY 10, 2013
  • Imprint : Sphere
  • Page Extent : 352
  • Binding : PB
  • ISBN : 9780751546200
  • Price : INR 799
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Colin Shindler

Colin Shindler was born and raised in Manchester educated at Bury Grammar School and Gonville & Caius College Cambridge and has worked as a writer and a producer in film television and radio.  He has written two novels and presented history programmes on radio and television.  In addition to the books and articles he has written on sport and British and American social and cultural history he also lectures on film and history at Cambridge University. In recent years he has never been happier than when he saw Lancashire win the County Championship in 2011.

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