The Spitfire Kids: The generation who built, supported and flew Britain's most beloved fighter
Alasdair Cross · BBC Worldwide
May 2021 · Headline · Narrated by Alex Wingfield, Beth Eyre, Esther Wane, Gareth Armstrong, Julie Teal, Luke Thompson, Michael Fenner, Nicky Diss, Simon Slater, and Thomas Judd
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8 hr 34 min
Unabridged
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Eligible
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About this audiobook
'An inspirational read celebrating the incredible young people who gave so much for this iconic British aircraft'. John Nichol, bestselling author of Spitfire: A Very British Love Story
Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just twenty years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger.
Based on the hit BBC Radio podcast Spitfire: The People's Story, we use contemporary diaries and memoirs, many of them previously unpublished, to tell the story of the Spitfire through the voices of the teenagers who risked everything to design, build and fly her. This isn't a story of stiff-upper lips, stoical moustaches and aerial heroics; it's a story of love and loss, a story of young people tested to the very limits of their endurance. Young people who won a battle that turned a war.
(P)2021 Headline Publishing Group Limited
Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just twenty years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger.
Based on the hit BBC Radio podcast Spitfire: The People's Story, we use contemporary diaries and memoirs, many of them previously unpublished, to tell the story of the Spitfire through the voices of the teenagers who risked everything to design, build and fly her. This isn't a story of stiff-upper lips, stoical moustaches and aerial heroics; it's a story of love and loss, a story of young people tested to the very limits of their endurance. Young people who won a battle that turned a war.
(P)2021 Headline Publishing Group Limited
About the author
Alasdair Cross (Author)
ALASDAIR CROSS is a successful radio and TV producer with the BBC. Brought up in the Orkney Islands, an annual summer treat was Britain's smallest air show, once memorably visited by a powder pink Spitfire. He has worked on BBC's Coast and Countryfile and his radio series include BBC Radio Four's Terror Through Time with Fergal Keane and Neil Oliver's Iron Curtain as well as the BBC World Service podcast Spitfire: The People's Plane.
Historical Advisor: David Key runs the Supermariners website which researches and reconstructs the stories of the men and women who designed and built the Spitfire.
ALASDAIR CROSS is a successful radio and TV producer with the BBC. Brought up in the Orkney Islands, an annual summer treat was Britain's smallest air show, once memorably visited by a powder pink Spitfire. He has worked on BBC's Coast and Countryfile and his radio series include BBC Radio Four's Terror Through Time with Fergal Keane and Neil Oliver's Iron Curtain as well as the BBC World Service podcast Spitfire: The People's Plane.
Historical Advisor: David Key runs the Supermariners website which researches and reconstructs the stories of the men and women who designed and built the Spitfire.
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