George Bunting, businessman, husband and father, lives a quiet life at home in Laburnam Villa in Essex, reading about the progress of the war in his trusty Siren newspaper and heading to work every day at same the warehouse where he has been employed for his entire adult life. Viewed with an air of slight amusement by his three children, Mr Bunting’s war efforts comprise mainly of digging for victory and reluctantly erecting a dugout in the garden. But as the Second World War continues into the summer of 1940, the Battle of Britain rages in the skies and the bombs begin to reign down on London, this bumbling ‘everyman’ is forced to confront the true realities of the conflict. He does so with a remarkable stoicism, imbuing him with a quiet dignity.
This reprint of a 1941 classic includes an introduction from IWM putting the work in historical context and shedding a light on the wartime experiences of the quiet ‘everyman’ and his family on the British Home Front: He was not brilliant, nor heroic, but there was one thing he could do – endure. He could stick it out right to the end. It was the one thing he was good at, and it happened to be almost his sole duty.