My Father Was a Hero: The True Story of a Man, a Boy and the Silence Between Them by Cole Moreton
A terrifying and honest account of family tragedy and the effects of war. When Cole Moreton was growing up in London in the early 1970s his heroes leapt from the pages of the Victor Book for Boys. Moreton was part of the last generation to be brought up on the folklore of the Second World War and his grandfather, then in the blue-black uniform of the Salvation Army, certainly looked and sounded like a hero. However, beyond this child's excited imagination there was an unforgiving silence. What had happened to his family after the war and why would no one talk about it? In this moving account Cole Moreton attempts to break the family silence. In so doing he brings to life the reality of a poverty-stricken London of the 1940s and 1950s and uncovers the truth of his family's past.