Swansea's frontline kids, 1939-45 - Jim Owen

These are the memories of wartime kids, Swansea children from a variety of backgrounds whose lives were dramatically changed by the brutal strategic planning and waging of war. War that sought to terrorise and demoralise Swansea's civilian population, threatening and destroying all that is sacred to a child's feeling of security.In a narrative that will take you back to the pre-war bustle of a placid seaside town, through the comparative tranquility of the Phoney War and on into the graphic barbarism of the Blitz, you'll discover what kids made of it all. Their individual memories, still graphic in their recall, will help in understanding how rich a contribution children's voices can make to recorded social history.Join them as they recall their terror. Understand how in the midst of their fear they were caught up in the excitement of the deadly night-time spectacle. Feel the tensions and share the action of the three nights' blitz when, one moonlit night in the winter of 1941, the Luftwaffe unleashed hell on the quiet, snow-dusted town. Then, when all the bombing was done, how things changed. The sudden arrival of a great number of American servicemen; what they meant to kids; the social upheaval they caused and their sudden, spectacular departure bound for the carnage of the beaches of Normandy and world-changing D-Day.Observant, candid, rich in detail and epic in its sweep, these are the memories of children who tell it all as it was.