Auntie's War

An engaging, balanced and thoroughly researched history. It is often a moving and amusing tale containing plenty of mavericks and colourful episodes. -- Lawrence James * The Times * Fascinating, complex and exhaustively researched ... This is a book that travels far beyond the bomb-scarred walls of Broadcasting House, bringing the reader as it did the 1940s listening public, the drama and immediacy of the war, and eventually the reality of a post-Nazi world, where Dimbleby's pared down description of the liberation of Belsen must be one of the most shattering pieces of ever broadcast. -- Juliet Nicolson * Spectator * This book captures how and why the BBC came to be trusted around the world so much that people like my grandparents - refugees from the Nazis - would hide in a cupboard every day with their short wave radio just to hear the truth as reported by the BBC. -- Nick Robinson The story of the BBC during the war has hardly been told though it is both fascinating and important. Edward Stourton's book is an engrossing account of this important time for one of our great institutions, perhaps to be read along side Penelope Fitzgerald's brilliant novel Human Voices. -- Chris Patten, Lord Patten of Barnes This engaging book about the BBC is full of astonishing incidents, truth versus propaganda and the unspoken heroism of correspondents. It tells how eyewitness reports gave a voice to everyone for the first time. * CHOICE *

Edward Stourton has worked in broadcasting for 38 years, and regularly presents BBC Radio Four programmes such as The World at One, The World This Weekend, Sunday and Analysis. He has been a foreign correspondent for Channel Four, ITN and the BBC, and for ten years he was one of the main presenters of the Today programme. Auntie's War is his seventh book.