ReadFest 2025: BLITZ KIDS with Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

When the Second World War began, there were 10 million children living in Britain. Many of them fled to the relative safety of the countryside, but others stayed behind and witnessed the Blitz close-up in cities around the UK. 

In their new book, BLITZ KIDS, Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, authors of the Sunday Times bestseller The Sugar Girls, tell the true stories of 15 boys and girls who endured the terrors of the German bombing campaign.   

From Jewish East Ender Kitty, who ran away from school in Hertfordshire because she missed her home in Spitalfields too much… to Liverpudlian Chris, whose father went missing presumed dead at sea… to little Irene, who saw the American troops depart from Southampton on D-Day.   

In this event, Duncan and Nuala share all their stories and more, looking over the fruits of a research journey which took them all over the country, to meet with more than eighty Blitz survivors.   

A testament to a generation that spent their formative years sheltering in cold, cramped air-raid shelters, hearing the rumble of planes and the crash of bombs overhead, this event is not to be missed.   

Click here to purchase BLITZ KIDS

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