Book
The Gunner Girl
First published 2015
Bea, Edie and Joan come from very different backgrounds, but the Second World War brings them together in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Posted to anti-aircraft duties in wartime London, they learn to operate within a military system in which women are taking on work previously closed to them. Air raids, family losses, romance and the strain of service test a friendship formed under conditions none of them had expected before the war.
Their experiences are set against the real expansion of women's military service on the British Home Front. Mary Churchill, later Mary Soames, appears in connection with anti-aircraft service, while Princess Elizabeth, the future Elizabeth II, is given a brief appearance reflecting her wartime training with the Auxiliary Territorial Service. These historical cameos sit within a fictional story concerned with class, independence, duty and the opportunities as well as the dangers created by total war.
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