One Boy’s War – an illustrated talkby Terry EmeryAuthor Terry Emery

On September 3rd 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared ‘We are at War with Germany’, when Terry was four years old.When WW2 ended in 1945 he was ten, and all his formative childhood years were coloured by the wartime experience.We often hear the reminiscences from an adult perspective but few from the child’s point-of-view. The familiar scenario of many families with the absent father off to the Armed Forces for five of those years with only the occasional visit; and the mothers and children at home (those who weren’t evacuated), surviving on wartime rations, apprehensively tuning in to daily news bulletins, never quite sure if their husbands/fathers would ever return. Conversely, Terry also recalls many fun times and lighter moments amidst all the unsettling circumstances.