Posted in Wartime: Letters Home From Abroad

By Richard Knott

The Second World War saw many people consigned to long periods of exile, far from home. How did the exiled keep in touch with home? Why were some exiles silent when others wrote frequently and at length? Posted in Wartime explores the nature of such exile and considers what could be written in diaries and letters, given that letters were censored and diaries were, at best, frowned upon. At the book’s heart are the stories of three very different exiles: a Liberty Ship captain; a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps; and an airman in Iraq and Palestine. Set alongside those are the experiences of a number of celebrated wartime exiles whose diaries and letters are both extensive and detailed, and whose stories loosely connect with the journeys of the three main protagonists; they include the travel writer Freya Stark, the photographer Cecil Beaton, and the playwright Noël Coward.

* Exhibition of Cecil Beaton photography (of the Duchess of Devonshire and her set) at Chatsworth, March 2016 to January 2017

.* The reopening of the British Postal Museum & Archive as The Postal Museum in London in 2017

* 100th anniversary of the Imperial War Museum, London, 2017

*75 years since the release of Noel Coward’s film about the Navy at war, In Which We Serve (1942)

* 75 years (on 15 April) since the author’s father sailed to the Middle East in Winston Special convoy WS18

* 100 years (in November 2017) since the Balfour Declaration (Middle East)

* 70 years since Indian independence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Mar 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473884410

Richard Knott

RICHARD KNOTT is a historian and English teacher. He has written several books on the Second World War and articles for the Independent and The Times Educational Supplement. He has long been fascinated by how our view of warfare is shaped by art.