Felicity Goodall – författare

During the First and Second World Wars thousands of men and women refused the call to arms. Reviled, starved and beaten, theirs was a battle of conscience. In the First World War, seventy-three conscientious objectors died as a result of their treatment, and hundreds more were imprisoned. During the Second World War, many conscientious objectors performed other, non-combatant duties with great heroism, including bomb disposal, and joining the fire service and ambulance crews. Unable to turn a blind eye to the dark realities of war, these men and women, who came from all classes and backgrounds, wrestled with their moral values, and their struggles, motivations and stories are brought together in this moving and challenging history of war’s outcasts.

‘I’m in love with May Chalmers and I don’t know what to do about it.’It was a bold, unexpected confession, scribbled in a diary by one of the few female reporters in Fleet Street during the Second World War – and it sent Felicity Goodall on a journey that led to places she could never have imagined.Mea Allan was a star reporter on Britain’s biggest-selling daily paper, the first woman on a Fleet Street news desk and to be permanently accredited to the British Army as a war correspondent, and the only woman to report from newly liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and cover the subsequent trials. She was once so famous that her name was used to advertise Horlicks – and yet she has all but disappeared from history.Seeking Mea Allan interweaves past and present as we travel from London to Glasgow, from Paris to Hamburg and beyond, to answer the questions that still linger: was Mea written out of history because of her sexuality? Or was something more subtle at work?

Devon’s colourful past may still be visible in its street names and pub signs, but in fact much of the region’s history has been obliterated – through necessity, social change and the demands of the outside world. The traditional occupations of farming, fishing, pottery, copper and tin mining, wool production and quarrying have all seen change over the past several hundred years. Many of these industries are now lost, replaced instead by ever-expanding tourism.Although many historic buildings have been preserved and are now protected properties, a large number of houses, ecclesiastical ruins and settlements such as Hope Cove, a coastal village once renowned for its tough fisherwomen, have tragically vanished. The county’s coast is also peppered with ruined pillboxes once manned by the Home Guard to watch for invaders; Devon has played a significant military role in the past, from acting as a mooring place for prison hulks in the Napoleonic wars to being the location of a training camp for spies in the Second World War.Superbly illustrated with photographs, paintings, maps and etchings from the county’s museums and art collections, Lost Devon provides a fascinating insight into Devon’s history, as Felicity Goodall explores what little remains of the past and discusses the events which have formed the county as it is today.