My Father Was a Hero: The True Story of a Man, a Boy and the Silence Between Them

by Cole Moreton (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $5.80

  A terrifying and honest account of family tragedy and the effects of war. When Cole Moreton was growing up in London in the early 1970s his heroes leapt from the pages of the Victor Book for Boys. Moreton was part of the last generation to be brought up on the folklore of the Second World War and his grandfather, then in the blue-black uniform of the Salvation Army, certainly looked and sounded like a hero. However, beyond this child's excited imagination there was an unforgiving silence. What had happened to his family after the war and why would no one talk about it? In this moving account Cole Moreton attempts to break the family silence. In so doing he brings to life the reality of a poverty-stricken London of the 1940s and 1950s and uncovers the truth of his family's past.

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $5.20

  Cole Moreton was a part of the last generation to be brought up on the folklore of the war. His grandfather fought in it, while his father was brought up by his mother alone, during the blitz in London. Their individual experiences had so scarred them that they had stayed strangers to one another and neither ever spoke about their experiences. Then Cole Moreton persuaded both men to tell their painful and harrowing stories. The result is My Father Was a Hero a tender memoir brimming with questions about how families connect and carry their own conflicting histories: a book about war and heroes, fathers and sons.