In one fully illustrated volume, Sixty Years On provides a vivid day by day account of the astonishing events from 1 January 1944 until 11 November 1945, the first Remembrance Day to honour the Fallen of the two World Wars that blighted the Twentieth Century.
Laced with scores of previously unpublished eyewitness stories from veterans, civilians and people who grew up in wartime, Sixty Years On provides a mirror image of a period when great sorrow, unbridled joy and the simple relief of surviving through such dangerous times were everyday emotions experienced by millions. Sixty Years On includes paintings by distinguished artists such as Frank Wootton and David
Shepherd and hundreds of colour and black and white photographs from the war years. Some 60 pieces of original artwork for wartime Ministry of Information posters are also reproduced to give a unique extra dimension to a book that's full of fascinating facts and detail from a time within the living memory of so many.
With over 320 pages in case–bound A4 format printed on quality paper, Sixty Years On also features several pages on parchment paper where people can paste their own wartime memories and photographs and turn Sixty Years On into a very special family memento.
The day–by–day diary section concludes on 11 November 1945, the first post–war Remembrance Day. The book will be officially launched on Friday 11 November 2005 at Newhaven Fort, East Sussex.
Dame Vera Lynn has contributed the foreword to the book.
Sixty Years On began as a series in Motoring & Leisure, the magazine of the Civil Service Motoring Association, Britain’s biggest private motoring club with some 380,000 members. The first instalment appeared in the January 2004 edition and immediately proved of immense interest to readers. The series sparked a deluge of submissions of letters and stories from readers keen to share their personal experiences of wartime. Stories also came in from sons and daughters (and in some instances the grandchildren) of servicemen and women and very quickly the series Editor, David Arnold, realized he had tapped into a unique and rich vein of history that is still very much within living memory of many people.
As new material appeared in the series lots of coincidences occurred and connections made. For example, a photograph of Forces Sweetheart, Vera Lynn, in the Burma jungle surrounded by British soldier concert–goers elicited responses from no less than three of the men who appear in the 1944 picture. As a result they were united with Dame Vera at a special ‘We’ll Meet Again’ combined concert and air show held at Glynde Place, East Sussex, in May 2005.
Another picture published in the series in July 2005 showed a party of WAAFs arriving in Ceylon in 1945; two of the women have subsequently come forward.
Very early in the series, the demand began from readers for the series to be published in omnibus format and it is the fulfilment of this demand that has led to the book Sixty Years On. David Arnold says that preparing the book gave him the opportunity to update material where new information was supplied or previously unknown facts came to light. He has also included around a third more stories and accounts of the war than could be accommodated in the series.
Following contact with the Public Records Office, Sixty Years On will carry reproductions of the original artwork for a number of wartime posters and paintings that have never been seen in print before. These alone make Sixty Years On unique.
Permission has also kindly been given for the book to include paintings by the distinguished artists Frank Wootton and David Shepherd and their works add considerable value to the book.
On this website we include several examples of the kind of articles and photographic material that appear in Sixty Years On.
