Rippon, Anton/Rippon, Nicola Wartime Entertainment. How Britain Kept Smiling Through the Second World War

It may have ended 80 years ago, but we still have a warm, nostalgic relationship with the Second World War, not least because of our love of entertainment from that turbulent time. Singers like Vera Lynn - the "Forces Sweetheart" - Gracie Fields, Anne Shelton and the Andrews Sisters, bandleader Glenn Miller, whose fate is still a mystery, films like Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Mrs Miniver, In Which We Serve, Goodbye Mr Chips and morale-boosting radio shows like ITMA, Music While You Work and Hi Gang!" helped the British stay calm and carry on while they sheltered from the bombs, worked long hours in the munitions factories and prayed that their men, fighting for victory on land, sea and air, would one day return home safely. "Wartime Entertainment. How Britain Kept Smiling Through the Second World War" revisits the war years and takes a look at the songs and singers, the role the BBC played not only in entertaining but also informing the nation, the way the "West End Theatre" survived the Blitz, and the bands that performed in both the big dance halls and the village halls to lift spirits and brighten up the dark and dangerous days, at least for a few hours. The book looks at the work of the Crown Film Unit, which made short information and documentary films as well as longer dramatic documentaries and even some feature-length productions for the public in Britain and abroad, and ENSA - the Entertainments National Service Association - which provided entertainment for the British armed forces at home and abroad.