Memories of a war that saw boys become men
THIS month marks the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War. On the morning of Sunday, September 3, 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sombrely announced to the nation on BBC radio that Britain was at war with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
For the next six years, the conflict would rage across the globe, turning the accepted world order upside down.
After the hard-fought victory was finally achieved in 1945, things would never be the same again.
But behind the sweep of the wider narrative, there were millions of smaller stories to be told of the people who fought in the war or lived in its dark shadow.
Hilary Carter has written a book, compiling war letters written by her late father who lived in Rowlands Gill, Gateshead.
Peter Carter was a 15-year-old pupil at Hookergate Grammar School when the Second World War broke out in September 1939.
The intention had been to finish school and go on to university.
The war put paid to those plans and at the age of 18 he joined the RAF as a wireless mechanic. By the age of 19 he found himself in North Africa, a far cry from village life in Rowlands Gill, where his father ran the local estate agents and auctioneers.
He wrote to his mother every week during the war and the following extracts from his letters and diaries capture some of his experiences.
■ A selection of Peter Carter’s letters have been published in the book Coming Of Age In World War II, by Hilary Carter. The book is available on Amazon.