We'll Sing at Dawn: A family struggle to survive the Blitz

by VictorPemberton (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.25

  Islington, October 1940. As a German bomber pilot releases his deadly load overhead, the residents of Hornsey Road are singing their hearts out. Sheltering in a disused piano factory, men, women and children gather round Beth Shanks, who is belting out old favourites on an abandoned piano. But as Beth battles to keep up everyone's spirits she herself carries a terrible burden. The police know an Irish national has been passing secrets to the Germans, and they want Beth to keep an eye on her sweetheart, Thomas Sullivan. Beth is convinced they've got the wrong man, byt when evidence of Thomas's guilt mounts, she finds herself in a dangerous dilemma...

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $3.25

  In the cold nights of the Blitz, her music warmed their hearts...September 1940, Islington. The Blitz is taking its toll on Beth Shanks and her family. An aerial torpedo has recently devastated a complete block of flats and shops in Seven Sisters Road, and traumatised the whole neighbourhood. Beth works as a munitions worker at a factory in North Finchley and dodges falling shrapnel on her way to work. Her younger brother Phil is a teenage cyclist messenger in the Auxiliary Fire Service and he's been twice dug out of rubble as he carried important messages. Beth's father is away fighting and her mother Connie teaches piano lessons to children who've escaped evacuation. Connie despairs that Beth won't learn how to play the piano properly and will only play popular songs by ear, but when she hears Beth playing the piano to lift the spirits of local people trapped in an air raid, she realises there is much more to music than she ever realised.