Blossom in Winter - Frost in Spring

This book is the sequel to `Oh for a Ha'porth of Tar', which followed the seafaring career of Bertie Bannister.

This story starts in April 1948 and the Second World War had been over for two and a half years. Britain was trying to return to normality, despite food and clothes still being rationed and in very short supply and almost every street in London having its own bomb site which the children often played in. Unemployment was high and life was very difficult and hard for everyone.

One ex-serviceman's life was much like another's; glad to be alive and free, but beset by guilt and sadness for everything that happened to them in the war and filled with bitterness about the way they had been treated since it ended.

Arnold Smith is just a typical soldier, who eventually came home from abroad, but could not settle back into the old routine, although he had tried hard to, for the last two years. When his sweetheart gave him the bad news that she had found someone else, it was the final straw, so he packed a few things in a bag, got a bus to London's, Paddington railway station and bought a ticket for the next train out. He was not even too sure of where it was going, but he was just pleased that it was taking him, somewhere new!

The story follows Arnold's journey to a new life with new people, but the past has a funny way of catching up with him. Whilst romance and adventure are present, they simply give Arnold and his friends the opportunity to live life to the full and put the past behind them; or to allow grief and self pity to blind them to whatever new opportunities it had in store for them.

When Arnold and Bertie Bannister became friends, their lives became linked in a most surprising way!

The book does not contain bad language, gratuitous violence or sex scenes, but it is an interesting story of people you can identify with, that will make you laugh and also make you cry.

Dettagli