by Simon Schama
The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940, by Charles Cundall, 1940.
Londoners shelter in the comparative safety of the London Underground, 1940.
During the war, George Orwell broadcast to India over the BBC Eastern Service.
Churchill inspects the damage in Battersea, south London, 1940.
Churchill watches a Boeing B-17 ‘Flying Fortress’ manoeuvre over an RAF airfield, 1941.
Churchill cheered by the crowds on his way to the Commons on VE Day, 8 May 1945.
Women and children on the new county council estate at Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, 1954.
Anti-bomb protesters march from Trafalgar Square, London, to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, Reading, 1958.
Royal Marines march towards Port Stanley during the Falklands War, June 1982.
A sea of flowers laid in tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, outside Kensington Palace, London, 1997.
The village of Corton Denham, Somerset, with views across the Dorset countryside.
PICTURE CREDITS
BBC Books would like to thank the following for providing photographs and for permission to reproduce copyright material. While every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge all copyright holders, we would like to apologize should there have been any errors or omissions.
Section one
1 British Library; 2 Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery; 3 Tate Gallery, London; 4 private collection; 5 British Library; 6 private collection; 7 Bridgeman Art Library/British Library; 8 Bridgeman Art Library, New College, Oxford University; 9 National Portrait Gallery; 10 courtesy Dove Cottage, Wordsworth Trust; 11 National Portrait Gallery; 12 National Portrait Gallery; 13 National Portrait Gallery; 14 National Library of Ireland, Dublin; 15 Royal Collection; 16 Tate Gallery; 17 Manchester Central Library Local Studies Archives; 18 private collection; 19 Mary Evans Picture Library; 20 National Portrait Gallery
Section two
1 Royal Collection; 2 Royal Collection; 3 private collection; 4 Royal Collection; 5 Bridgeman Art Library/Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection; 6 John Parker; 7 National Portrait Gallery; 8 The National Trust Photographic Library/Geoffrey Frost; 9 Royal Archives; 10 Hulton Getty; 11 Victoria & Albert Museum; 12 Victoria & Albert Museum; 13 Bridgeman Art Library; 14 Hulton Getty; 15 Hulton Getty
Section three
1 Corbis/Graeme Goldin/Cordaiy Photo Library; 2 British Library; 3 Corbis; 4 National Portrait Gallery; 5 Hulton Getty; 6 Victoria & Albert Museum; 7 Patrick Acum; 8 Michael and Jane Wilson Collection; 9 National Portrait Gallery; 10 Royal Collection; 11 Hulton Getty; 12 Hulton Getty; 13 Bridgeman Art Library; 14 Hulton Getty; 15 Corbis; 16 Knebworth Estates; 17 Corbis
Section four
1 National Portrait Gallery; 2 Bridgeman Art Library/Chartwell Manor, Kent; 3 Getty Images; 4 Corbis; 5 Hulton Getty; 6 Hulton Getty; 7 Art Archive/Imperial War Museum; 8 Hulton Getty; 9 Hulton Getty; 10 Art Archive/Imperial War Museum; 11 Hulton Getty; 12 Hulton Getty; 13 Hulton Getty; 14 Hulton Getty; 15 Hulton Getty; 16 C.Phillippe Halsman/Magnum
Section five
1 Hulton Getty; 2 Hulton Getty; 3 Art Archive/Imperial War Museum; 4 Hulton Getty; 5 George Orwell Collection/University College London/BBC; 6 Hulton Getty; 7 Corbis; 8 Illustrated London News Picture Library; 9 Hulton Getty; 10 Hulton Getty; 11 Imperial War Museum; 12 Corbis; 13 Getty Images
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As the project A History of Britain entered its fourth year, I incurred even more debts to all the many colleagues, collaborators and friends. At BBC Worldwide it’s been a pleasure to work with Sally Potter, Belinda Wilkinson and Claire Scott; many thanks also to Linda Blakemore and Esther Jagger, and to Olive Pearson, Vanessa Fletcher and John Parker.
At BBC Television I have been extraordinarily lucky to have been a member of a brilliant team dedicated to making A History of Britain something special in broadcasting as it has been in the lives of all of us who have been part of it: in particular Martin Davidson, Liz Hartford and Clare Beavan, without whom none of this would have happened in quite the way it did, or for that matter at all; the directors of the Victorian programmes, Jamie Muir and Martina Hall; our indestructible, imperturbable, incomparable genius behind the camera, Luke Cardiff, and our regulars on the crew, Patrick Acum, Patrick Lewis and Mike Sarah; thanks also to our Assistant Producers Helen Nixon, Ben Ledden and Adam Warner, and to Venita Singh Warner, Mark Walden-Mills, Georgia Moseley and Dani Barry for helping me get through the ups and downs of the shoot. Susan Harvey of BBC Factual invested her friendly genius in promoting the series. Laurence Rees, Glenwyn Benson and Jane Root have been such passionate champions of the project that I hope both the programmes and the book repay some of the debt owed to their enthusiasm and faith. Alan Yentob has, from beginning to end, been a warm-hearted supporter, accomplice and advocate. Greg Dyke’s son (so he says) and Janice Hadlow both liked it, which is all that matters really. John Harle, our composer, has been a wonderful friend and gifted colleague without whose music the programmes would have lost an entire dimension.
I am grateful to those who read drafts of the chapters and made suggestions, helpful criticisms and/or encouraging noises on command, especially John Brewer, Jill Slotover, P. J. Marshall and John Styles; thanks also to Peter Davison, David Haycock, Suzanne Fagence Cooper and Peter Claus. My agents and dear friends, Michael Sissons and Rosemary Scoular, as well as James Gill and Sophie Laurimore, have had to put up with a lot, namely myself, in various states of hysteria, decomposition and tantrum, and have not only never flinched from the ugly job of getting me back on the rails, but have given every impression that it seemed worth it. I hope it still does. Terry Picucci kept me, literally, from getting bent out of shape and Alicia Hall has triumphed heroically over the day-after-tornado hell that was my office. Many friends have contributed to what cool I have managed to keep, especially Andrew Arends (through whom I became an hon. Crescit), Lily Brett, Tina Brown, David Rankin, Mindy Engel Friedman, Eliot Friedman, Jonathan and Phyllida Gili, Alison Dominitz, Geraldine Johnson, Nick Jose, Claire Roberts, Janet Maslin, Stella Tillyard and Leon Wieseltier. Augustus T. Box Sunshine has always been there.
Nearests and dearests always get the ritual dose of gratitude for forbearance and support, but no family which has not endured a husband and father in two sets of simultaneous delirium – television and literary – quite knows the meaning of the term ‘long-suffering’. For Ginny, Chloe and Gabriel, who have borne with all this and still given me unreasonable love, I return it with interest and with all my heart.
There is one old friend, Roy Porter, who, unhappily, will not be reading this book and giving it the benefit of his great-hearted, inordinately generous judgement. But if there was anyone to whose storytelling skills and human insight this volume owes any of its qualities it was Roy, to whose absence I will never quite be reconciled, and to whose memory it is dedicated.
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Abbreviations BM Press – British Museum Press; CUP – Cambridge University Press; OUP – Oxford University Press; UCL – University College, London; UP – University Press
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