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RATION BOOKS AND RABBIT PIE: Crust, Linda (Editor)

Review by Ray Carroll for Lincolnshire Past & Present, 2008

The result of a project undertaken by several members of the SLHA, this book brings vividly before us memories of the war at home in the county. Twenty contributors have given their accounts of what impinged most in their youth when faced with bombing, rationing and all sorts of other shortages and deprivations. Mrs Crust has skilfully woven all these differing voices into sequences, the topics covering|: the start of the war, local activities (airfields, PoWs, bombing), the effects of evacuation, the arrival of WAAFs and Land Army women, ARP, Home Guard units, fire watching and much more. A short final section concentrates on good times that also kept breaking through. It is all very readable though leaving in the family history in some people’s memories may puzzle readers.