The Blitz Kids: Duncan Barrett & Nuala Calvi in Conversation

‘Betty heard the scream of bombs falling and the terrifying thud of explosions. Suddenly, there was a deafening bang, and her mother was thrown across the shelter. For a moment everything was lit up by a blood-red light. Then they were plunged into darkness…’

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

Blitz Kids tells the remarkable true stories of children who spent their nights in cold, cramped air-raid shelters, hearing the rumble of planes and the crash of bombs overhead. Many woke up in the morning to find their homes and schools destroyed, their favourite toys buried beneath rubble, their pets lost and, in some cases, their families shattered. Yet amid the turmoil and tears, they found a way to enjoy their childhoods, collecting steaming-hot shrapnel, turning bombed-out houses into adventure playgrounds, and chasing American GIs for chocolate and chewing gum.

From headstrong East-Ender Kitty to quick-witted Liverpudlian Christopher – and little Doreen, who survived the devastation of Coventry – Blitz Kids brings together the moving true stories of a remarkable generation now passing into history.

Duncan Barrett is a writer and editor, specialising in biography and memoir. He grew up in London and studied English at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 2010 he edited the First World War memoirs of pacifist saboteur Ronald Skirth, published as The Reluctant Tommy.

He is co-author, with Nuala Calvi, of a trio of Sunday Times Top 10 bestsellers: The Sugar Girls, which was ranked second in the history bestsellers of 2012, GI Brides, which was also a New York Times bestseller in America, and The Girls Who Went to War.

Nuala Calvi grew up in London and trained as a journalist at London College of Printing, before writing for the Times, the Independent, the Guardian, the BBC and CNN.