History through the eyes of children.

Oh Laurie Lee, and Lark Rise to Candleford bring a time and a place to life in a way that no history book ever could.
Also- Judith Kerr's When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit ..
All of these fulfil, for me, the aim of a good book " A walk in someone else's shoes"

Great series "The Mafia only kills in summer"

Through the eyes of a young boy.
Fiction but with reality woven in.

Found it on 4 in the "world drama" section.

I am just re-reading The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien. It is the wonderfully, evocative coming of age account of growing up in rural Ireland.

I recently returned from Amsterdam but I didn't visit Anne Frank's house. The Diary is perhaps the saddest piece of writing from WWII written by a child.

I nominate "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas". A really powerful film. Yes I know its fiction but for me it highlights something which psychologists call "the banality" of evil. People involved in the Holocaust. on a day to day basis were kind to their children and pets. It is a frightening study in how people can compartmentalise their lives. I remember the trial of Eric Eichman. Such a boring banal little man.

There's Empire of the Sun with a very young Christian Bale. Also Goodnight Mister Tom with John Thaw. I love them both.

biglouis

I nominate "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas". A really powerful film. Yes I know its fiction but for me it highlights something which psychologists call "the banality" of evil. People involved in the Holocaust. on a day to day basis were kind to their children and pets. It is a frightening study in how people can compartmentalise their lives. I remember the trial of Eric Eichman. Such a boring banal little man.

Actually I saw a documentary about the children of Nazis and one man lived in a house attached to the camp and it was exactly the same set up. His father was the Nazi running the camp and they had a normal family life with the camp on the other side of the wall. He was haunted by his memories and deeply guilty although he was only a child and knew nothing about the horrors going on. They took him back to the house and he walked around the garden, then stood and looked through an iron gate in the wall which he had never been allowed to go through as a child. Then they opened it for him and let him go through. It was closure for him after all those years.

Indigo8

I am just re-reading The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien. It is the wonderfully, evocative coming of age account of growing up in rural Ireland.

I recently returned from Amsterdam but I didn't visit Anne Frank's house. The Diary is perhaps the saddest piece of writing from WWII written by a child.

I must read that again!
A quote I’ve always remembered is ‘She was my best friend, and I hated her.’ (Baba)

Witzend I intend to re-read the two sequels at some point The Lonely Girl and Girls in Their Married Bliss.

I was only 15 when I read TCG for the first time. I was surprised at how much I remembered.

I also loved Billy Elliot about a working class boy who wants to learn ballet. His father opposes him because he feels dancing is for "queers" (1980s terminology). It reminds me of my own father who opposed his daughter having a higher education because it "gave them ideas above their class".

Yeah, right!

I loved reading Alison Uttley's The Country Child at junior school and have re read it many times since. Semi autobiograhical written about a Derbyshire farmer's daughter in the late 1800s about the farming seasons of the year. A lovely gentle read and very much their life in her eyes.

Has anyone watched 'Changing Ends'? Although it is not strictly History with a capital H, it is an humorous take on Alan Carr's childhood in the 1980s.

The boy who plays young Alan is brilliant.

Yes, I love all these stories. Strangely I was not aware of Edna O'Brien until this weekend, when a friend of mine who is an author, posted a video of her (Edna O'B) being interviewed by Queen Camilla. (Duchess of Cornwall at the time.) It was fascinating and now I am anxious to read her books. Her latest (probably last) book ~Girl~ was about girls abducted in Nigeria by Boko Haram. Quite harrowing, and she actually went to Nigeria on her own, quite elderly, to research the story.

I loved Nigel Slater’s ‘Toast,’ his autobiography as seen through food! A boy growing up in ‘60’s suburbia. So much of our own social history is there.

It was also made into a TV drama.

My long gone paternal granny once told me that she vividly remembered the death of Queen Victoria - she was about 6. The church bells were tolling, and her father said - in very dramatically sombre tones - ‘The Queen is dead!’

And my poor little GM thought the world must be coming to an end if the Queen was dead!

Indigo8

Witzend I intend to re-read the two sequels at some point The Lonely Girl and Girls in Their Married Bliss.

I was only 15 when I read TCG for the first time. I was surprised at how much I remembered.

Another thing that stayed with me (TCG) was how terrified the main character was, on the night after her mother had drowned, that her ghost would appear. She longed so much so have her mother back, but was petrified of seeing her ghost.

Having had a terror of ghosts for years as a child and young teen, I could really identify with that.

read and enjoyed most of the quoted books, do any of you remember Dennis Potters Blue Remembered Hills? Still love my books and enjoy reading them rather than having a kindle or whatever.

My aunt gave me several Miss Read books one Christmas. Gentle stories about a country teacher in the 40s / 50s, I believe

I’ve just finished reading Shoes for Anthony, or maybe Anthony’s Shoes by Emma Kennedy, which was a lovely story about an eleven year old boy living in a Welsh coal mining village set in WW2. Such hardships, but also quite funny in parts.

Indigo8

Has anyone watched 'Changing Ends'? Although it is not strictly History with a capital H, it is an humorous take on Alan Carr's childhood in the 1980s.

The boy who plays young Alan is brilliant.

I have watched it. I enjoyed it and you’re right the boy playing Alan as a youngster is hilarious.

madeleine45

read and enjoyed most of the quoted books, do any of you remember Dennis Potters Blue Remembered Hills? Still love my books and enjoy reading them rather than having a kindle or whatever.

I remember seeing that film. Jennifer Agutter starred in it about a young girl and her brother lost in the Australian bush and their adventures, sometimes with the help of an Aboriginal boy on the way to meet up with their father.
Absolutely brilliant film.

HippyChick

I think the film you are thinking of is ‘Walkabout’, not ‘Blue Remembered Hills’ though.

JamesandJon33

My aunt gave me several Miss Read books one Christmas. Gentle stories about a country teacher in the 40s / 50s, I believe

Lovely books and I think of one particular bit when I wash the floors.
Miss Read had to tell the cleaner how to wash the floor, by going backwards, not forwards as she did it. The cleaner was walking over the parts she'd just washed.

Edmund Gosse's autobiography 'Father and Son' about his strict upbringing in a Plymouth Brethren household.

Calendargirl

HippyChick

I think the film you are thinking of is ‘Walkabout’, not ‘Blue Remembered Hills’ though.

Yes it is. They recited the poem “Blue Remembered Hills” at the end of the film.
Thank you for reminding me Calendargirl.