Letters to Hannah looks at WWII on the Home Front through the eyes of those who lived in Hastings and South East England, from September 1939 to December 1945. It also enlarges on the historical background covered in its companion book, Letters from Lavender Cottage.


Letters to Hannah visits the lives of ordinary people, who endured extraordinary times. Among many others is the account of a Battle lad, born in a cottage beside the famous 1066 battlefield. Aged fifteen he enlisted as a Home Guard, the youngest member in the country at that time, a Hastings, wartime milk delivery girl details her working and family life under fire and a young first aid volunteer highlights the horrors of bomb and machine gun attacks on civilians.

Letters to Hannah is rich in anecdotes and information on food rationing and shortages, the blackout, air raids, population evacuation and civil defence. The book provides a moving and factual account of wartime Hastings, the town which features in the ITV detective fiction series, Foyle’s War.

I link this, my second WWII social history, with a series of autobiographical letters to the future, describing my war-troubled childhood to my newborn, 21st century granddaughter, Hannah. Extracts from Letters to Hannah were included in the BBC Radio 4 history series, The Archive Hour, in July 2003.


Letters to Hannah is available now, via this website or from local outlets. I am grateful to all my contributors for allowing me to recount their personal and often very moving stories