A NEW book by Derby author Anton Rippon delves into how British people coped with the stresses and strains of living through the Second World War.
Anton, best known for his football writing, has now penned How Britain Kept Calm And Carried On.
The collection of stories from across the country recounts the memories of real people living through an extraordinary time.
Anton said: "I first made a call-out for stories about the war in 1978 through the national press and had letters from all over the country.
"At the time, I was very busy with work and the task of dealing with all these handwritten letters was just too great. So I put them all up in the attic, I even moved house with them once, before I mentioned to my agent about them.
"She thought that the 'keep calm and carry on' posters would be a good peg to hang it on."
So Anton's daughter, Nicola, took the letters and typed them up and edited the hundreds of stories. He said: "Thinking about it, it isn't really my book. All I did was bring it all together!"
Surprisingly for Anton, when the letters arrived, a great deal of them were not from soldiers but people back home in Blighty.
Anton said: "A lot of the people who sent me stories were from the Home Front – women who were here or men in the Home Guard or who were stationed in the UK.
"Some of stories are fantastic and I think it is the first book of its kind to have been produced."
It is also a book that would be impossible to write today.
Anton said: "I was lucky that I asked for the memories when I did because most of the people who sent them in are now dead.
"There are no veterans from the First World War and it won't be too long before there are none left from the Second World War.
"I know it is a cliche but people always say they wished they had asked their grandparents more when they were alive.
"It is important that we remember what happened during that time."
The book is a departure from Anton's usual subject of sport, football in particular.
However, the social history is something that has always interested him.
He said: "My next book is about sporting scams from the Victorian period up to present-day match fixing.
"But the social aspect of history is something that has appealed to me.
"I even wrote about it in my book, Gasmasks For Goalposts, which was about football during the war."
