Blitz Kids (book)

{{Short description|Book by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi}}

{{Infobox book

| name = Blitz Kids

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| image = Blitz_Kids_(2025)_book_cover.jpg

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| author = Duncan Barrett, Nuala Calvi

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| country = United Kingdom

| language = English

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| subject = Second World War, The Blitz

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| publisher = Headline

| pub_date = 24 April 2025

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| pages = 336 (paperback)

| isbn = 978-0749575205

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Blitz Kids: True Stories from the Children of Wartime Britain is a book by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, co-authors of The Sugar Girls. It was published in April 2025 as part of the commemorations for the eightieth anniversary of VE Day on 8 May that year.{{cite web |last=Barrett |first=Duncan |date=8 May 2025 |title=Blitz Kids: celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day |url=https://historiamag.com/blitz-kids/ |website= Historia |access-date=19 May 2025 }}

The book tells the stories of fifteen individuals who were children during the Second World War. Researching it, the authors spoke to more than eighty so-called Blitz Kids, before choosing a representative sample of stories.{{cite book |title=Blitz Kids |last1=Barrett |first1=Duncan |last2=Calvi |first2=Nuala |year=2025 |publisher=Headline|location=London |isbn=9781472285973 |page=xvi-xvii}} These include Maureen Donovan, who was bombed out of her home in Bromley by Bow,{{cite news |title=The Children of the Blitz |first=Helen |last=Garston |newspaper=Yours |date= 28 April 2025 |page=18-19}} Liverpudlians Christopher Munro, whose father was missing presumed dead in the Merchant Navy, Frances Izzard, who was evacuated to Haslington in Cheshire, and Clare McGann, mother of the actors Paul McGann, Stephen McGann, Mark McGann and Joe McGann,{{cite news |title=Liverpool's 'Blitz Kids' more than 80 years on as nation marks VE Day |url= https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/liverpools-blitz-kids-more-80-31588029 |first=Jess|last=Molyneux|newspaper=Liverpool Echo |date=8 May 2025}} Irene Brown, who saw the troops departing on D-Day in Southampton,{{cite news |title=Blitz Kids tells story of Southampton Blitz survivor |url= https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/25144474.blitz-kids-tells-story-southampton-blitz-survivor/ |first=Kieran |last=Wiggs |newspaper=Southern Daily Echo |date=8 May 2025}} Doreen Cadden, who survived Operation Moonlight Sonata in Coventry,{{cite news |title=Coventry woman whose home was flattened in Blitz shares twist of fate reason she survived |url=https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/coventry-woman-whose-home-flattened-31539889 |first=Priyanka|last=Patel|newspaper=Coventry Telegraph |date=5 May 2025}} Doreen McBride, who helped her father smuggle meat from Dublin to Belfast,{{cite news |title=Nothing to Declare |first=Helen |last=Garston |newspaper=Take a Break |date= 30 April 2025 |page=13}} Brian Ingram, who spent his free time collecting shrapnel near his home in Birmingham,{{cite news |title=Generation Blitz |url= https://www.express.co.uk/news/history/2050056/child-survivors-blitz-experiences-second-world-war |first=Nuala |last=Calvi |newspaper=Daily Express |date=3 May 2025}} Betty Peachy, who was buried alive during a raid in Filton, on the outskirts of Bristol, and John Le Page, a Guernsey evacuee living in Halifax, West Yorkshire.