07/05/2026
“Hemyock Memories of World War Two 1939-45, Complete Edition” book. With over 75 eyewitness stories (in their own words) of life during WWII it is now available worldwide from Amazon in Kindle, paperback, & hardback. The latest version, completely revised, re-organised, re-edited & updated, marks the final chapter of this thirty year project. Our book project is finally complete.
All royalties go to the Hemyock's Blackdown Support charity.
We have a few special price "review" copies on sale at our Hemyock Castle Open Days: Next one: Bank Holiday Monday, 25th May 2026, 2-5pm.
I hope people find these fascinating eyewitness stories interesting. They show how a complete cross-section of ordinary people from a small rural village rose to the challenge to do extraordinary things, at home & overseas: From the freezing Arctic, all across the UK, Europe & North Africa, to the steamy jungles of Burma & the Far East. Many people served on until 1946 & beyond before being able to return to families, look for work, housing & restart their lives.
Collected from initially often reticent elderly participants, to mark the 50th anniversaries of VE & VJ-Days in 1995, we printed & sold several hundred copies of their stories & photos, in aid of the Royal British Legion. That original book created using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, scissors & glue, printed by a friendly local printer, is now out of print.
Twenty years later, having agonized about the wealth of personal information people had supplied during a simpler pre-Internet age, I eventually released a revised Kindle version to mark the 70th anniversaries of VE & VJ-Days. Several special editions followed.
See the HemyockCastle.uk website.
