The Men of Operation Pied Piper

 

One of my favorite things about being part of Coffee Pot Blog Tours is meeting new authors and being introduced to tidbits of history that I might not have learned about otherwise. Today, Keith Stuart is my guest with some insight into his new book, Pied Piper.

Welcome, Keith!

~ Samantha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Men's Health in Pied Piper

Guest Post by Keith Stuart

As the Pied Piper story arc unfolded and developed, two key events shaped the narrative through which I was going to explore my two principal themes – the nature of close male friendship and the issue of mental health in men. The latter is an increasingly significant contemporary topic but, of course, it’s not new and I wanted to consider how it might have manifested itself at a time when men were even less open in their expression of emotions than they might be now.

To explore both issues, as triggers, two events in the story took me into matters relating to health care – simple, physical health care, not mental health care. At the time of the story, mental illness was either denied or treated with contempt and care was either non-existent or crude and cruel. I had two events where illness or injury had real significance: they are key to the main character’s story.

In 1939 there was, of course, no national health service. Never mind the absence of mobile phones, few had a phone in the house from which to call for help. The 999 service was only introduced in London in 1937 but not for an ambulance. There was no A&E to offer painkillers, swift diagnoses, and treatment. All these historical details were good for my story but managing it, and getting the facts right, required some research. How were certain conditions treated in 1939 (I’m desperately trying to avoid spoilers here!) and what facilities were available? What is now ‘free’ was either simply not available or incurred a direct and immediate cost. What happened when someone couldn’t meet such costs?

I didn’t need minute detail but did need to get the broad picture right: I didn’t want any to have the story’s credibility destroyed for a lack of accuracy. The story isn’t about health care in the 1930s or the establishment of the NHS which, after all, didn’t come for another ten years after my story is set, but what wasn’t available, what couldn’t be done for someone sick or injured, was significant to the story.

It is really hard to imagine the grief that was experienced during the two World Wars. Few if any families will have been untouched by grief and the scale and duration of events is impossible for subsequent generations to grasp. I can’t. The COVID crisis of 2020/21 has given me the closest idea in my lifetime of the sense of national anxiety, fear of losing those closest to you, of the care available to us and of our resources generally being overwhelmed and exhausted. The quantity and quality of support for mental health issues have been questioned for some time and are now seen to be woefully inadequate. They are going to be sorely tested and likely overwhelmed in the coming months and years, as the consequences of the pandemic unfold. But what happened in 1939, when there were none, when there was little understanding of grief and anxiety and no expectation of anything more by way of help than “Pull yourself together” and “Move on”?

As I did not need fine detail, internet searches regarding access to and types of treatment were enough and I do hope that no one with far more historical or, indeed, medical knowledge finds errors. There’s poetic licence but there is a duty to get it fundamentally right, I think. The historical backdrop to Pied Piper provided the canvas on which to paint issues that I wanted to explore.

Pied Piper by Keith Stuart

In September 1939 the British Government launched Operation Pied Piper. To protect them from the perils of German bombing raids, in three days millions of city children were evacuated - separated from their parents.

This story tells of two families: one whose children leave London and the other which takes them in. We share the ups and downs of their lives, their dramas and tragedies, their stoicism and their optimism. But. unlike many other stories and images about this time, this one unfolds mainly through the eyes of Tom, the father whose children set off, to who knew where, with just a small case and gas mask to see them on their way.

Available on Amazon US, Amazon UK,

Amazon CA, Amazon AU

FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

Connect with Keith

Keith Stuart (Wadsworth) taught English for 36 years in Hertfordshire schools, the county in which he was born and has lived most of his life. Married with two sons, sport, music and, especially when he retired after sixteen years as a headteacher, travel, have been his passions. Apart from his own reading, reading and guiding students in their writing; composing assemblies; writing reports, discussion and analysis papers, left him with a declared intention to write a book. Pied Piper is ‘it’. Starting life as a warm-up exercise at the Creative Writing Class he joined in Letchworth, it grew into this debut novel.

Connect with Keith on Facebook and Instagram.

Life Between World Wars

My guest today has written about the same era as my novel, Luminous. The 1920s and 1930s fascinate me. How little did people realize that they were living between two World Wars. Their everyday life was making history. Author Liz Harris shares some great insight into what it was like to live at that time. Check out her newest book, The Lengthening Shadow, to experience the building suspense as the world began to realize that another war was approaching.

Welcome, Liz!

~ Samantha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life Between the Wars

Guest Post by Liz Harris

The 1920s, the first modern decade, was the most exciting of periods. In this decade, there was not only economic growth, but also a boom in consumer goods. By the end of the decade, women’s lives had been transformed, and women had a voice at last!

At the start of WW1, when the men left the fields and the factories to go off and fight in the war, women stepped in to take their place. No longer was a woman limited to being someone’s wife, domestic servant or governess. The war had opened up to them the world of opportunity. And by the time that the war ended, they’d tasted freedom, and they’d liked it.

When the men returned from war, a large number of women were fired to make way for the men. But many women didn’t want to go back to domestic work, and didn’t. Shop work paid better than domestic work, for example, and gave them more free time. This had a profound effect on society.

So, too, did the fact that in meeting the needs of the war, the developments in technology had come on in leaps and bounds.

Take the changes in housing, for example. There’d been a shortage of housing before the war, and the destruction in the war had added to the shortage. The 1920s, therefore, saw a massive amount of house building, mostly suburban and privately financed. These new houses reflected the changed social situation. There was no longer a need for servant’s quarters as far fewer families had servants. And for the first time, houses were fitted with electric light and electric power, and with an inside toilet and hot running water.

Becontree housing estate built in the 1920s

And with servants being so difficult to get, the woman who, before the war, would sit at the table with the family and wait for the cook to serve the dinner, now found that she had to go into the kitchen and make the meals herself.

So the kitchen started to assume a far greater importance. They became brighter, less cluttered and more stream-lined, making them more pleasant for the woman who now spent a large part of her day in the kitchen. They were much more like kitchens today, in fact.

The larder, too, was the beneficiary of the demand for greater ease in producing meals. Technological advances aided the production of convenience food, to use a modern term, and throughout the decade, there was an increase in volume and variety of food, both imported and also home-produced.

If you opened the larder door in 1920, you’d see Cadbury Milk Tray, Bisto, Saxa Salt, Bird’s Custard and ketchup. And this was the decade of the first frozen peas. Later in the decade, you’d see Jaffa Cakes, potatoes in tins, and Smiths’ Salt & Shake crisps. Corn Flakes arrived from the US in 1924, and the British love of cereals at breakfast was born.

Cadbury’s Milk Tray

There was also a demand for a less fussy way of cooking. Pyrex arrived in the middle of the decade, streamlining the cooking and serving of food, and reducing the number of dishes involved. One-pot meals became very popular, such as fish steamed on top of a saucepan of boiling potatoes. The simplicity of boiled eggs and toast made it a favourite for breakfast.

Fish & Chips’ shops thrived. They were no longer popular solely with the working class, middle-class families, too, would take them home and serve them, still wrapped in newspaper, accompanied by ketchup and pickled onions.

Magazines soon caught on to women’s interest in their house interiors, and to their desire for advice with cooking now that they no longer had servants. The Daily Mail Cookbook appeared in 1920, to be followed two years later by Good Housekeeping. And the Co-op started giving away recipe cards in cigarette packets.

It wasn’t just the foodstuffs that fed the family in the 1920s that changed—there was a post-war spike in alcohol consumption. This was the decade of cocktails. American style cocktails were particularly popular, such as the gimlet, bourbon and the Bloody Mary. New bars and gentlemen’s clubs sprang up throughout the towns. The drinks’ trolley made an appearance in homes, and Bucks Fizz became popular at breakfast.

Accompanying cocktails were canapés. These were the years of egg mayonnaise sandwiches, tomato and salmon paste, smoked mackerel canapés, and salty crackers. People no longer always sat down to eat – food and drink might be passed around.

Some of this may have been influenced by America. Increasingly, people now had a ‘wireless set’, which brought world events and entertainment into the sitting room for the first time. The BBC was founded in 1922. The cinema industry was booming, dominated by Hollywood, which gave a glimpse of a glamorous world across the ocean.

Around 1920, radio broadcasting started to become popular.
A group of women gathered around the radio at the time.

There was a change in social attitudes, too. Social barriers were slightly breaking down, and the way the family lived was altering. It was becoming less formal. The pre-war parlour became the dining room, and the family had a sitting room, in which a chaise longue was frequently seen, as was anaglypta wallpaper, rugs, and standard lamps with a fringe.

It wasn’t just within the house that changes were reflected. Fashions changed, too. Knee-length dresses came into vogue, shoulder-bare dresses and tops, loose cardigans, cloche style hats. But women still wore gloves.

Actress Louise Brooks, with short bobbed hair beneath her cloche hat.

Hair was shorter, and wavier. Think ‘Flappers’ and ‘Roaring Twenties’. Bar and nightclubs thrived, and the taste was for jazz, fast and furious, and American Dixieland music.

I’m going to end by mentioning three Acts which benefited women in the 1920s, and which influenced greatly the lives of all women in the years that followed.

After the Sex Discrimination (Removal) Act, 1919, gave women access to professions such as Law, in 1919, a woman took up a seat in Parliament for the first time. That was Nancy

Astor. From October 1920, Oxford University for the first time admitted women to full membership of the University.

The second Act related to the reform of the Divorce Law. The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1923, put women on an equal footing with men.

Prior to 1923, men could ‘petition the court’ for a divorce on the basis of their wife’s adultery, which would have to be proved. But a woman who wanted a divorce would have to prove not only her husband’s adultery, but also an aggravating factor such as rape, incest or sodomy. The 1923 Act said that a woman no longer had to prove an aggravating factor. It would be sufficient to prove adultery. Of course, I might add, she could still lose the right to her children and also the property she’d brought to the marriage, but it was a step in the right direction.

The third milestone for women with the Equal Franchise Act, 1928, which gave the vote to all women over 21. Prior to this Act, only women over 30, who owned property, had been allowed to vote. The Act also brought equality in inheritance rights and unemployment benefits.

By the end of the 1920s, women had a voice! I think that’s a pretty good achievement for a decade, don’t you?

The Lengthening Shadow by Liz Harris

When Dorothy Linford marries former German internee, Franz Hartmann, at the end of WWI, she’s cast out by her father, Joseph, patriarch of the successful Linford family.

Dorothy and Franz go to live in a village in south-west Germany, where they have a daughter and son. Throughout the early years of the marriage, which are happy ones, Dorothy is secretly in contact with her sister, Nellie, in England.

Back in England, Louisa Linford, Dorothy’s cousin, is growing into an insolent teenager, forever at odds with her parents, Charles and Sarah, and with her wider family, until she faces a dramatic moment of truth.

Life in Germany in the early 1930s darkens, and to Dorothy’s concern, what had initially seemed harmless, gradually assumes a threatening undertone.

Brought together by love, but endangered by acts beyond their control, Dorothy and Franz struggle to get through the changing times without being torn apart.

Available now on Amazon UK and Amazon US!

Connect with Liz

Born in London, Liz Harris graduated from university with a Law degree, and then moved to California, where she led a varied life, from waitressing on Sunset Strip to working as secretary to the CEO of a large Japanese trading company.

A few years later, she returned to London and completed a degree in English, after which she taught secondary school pupils, first in Berkshire, and then in Cheshire.

In addition to the nine novels she’s had published, she’s had several short stories in anthologies and magazines.

Liz now lives in Oxfordshire. An active member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Historical Novel Society, her interests are travel, the theatre, cinema, reading and cryptic crosswords. To find out more about Liz, visit her website at: http://www.lizharrisauthor.com

Website • Twitter • Instagram • Facebook

The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

I'm excited to participate in another great blog tour! Today, we get a sneak peek at The Road to Liberation, a collection of stories exploring the trials and triumphs of World War II. Marion Kummero, one of the authors included in this anthology, is here to talk about the inspiration for this book.

Welcome, Marion!

~ Samantha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Inspiration Behind the Anthology

A Guest Post by Marion Kummero

I write WWII fiction because it’s important to remember the past, and especially the ugly times, to prevent us from making the same mistakes again.

Through my stories, where I put my main characters deep into a moral dilemma, I want the reader to reflect on pat events and ask themselves, “How would I react in such a situation? What would I do?”

It was soon clear for me, that I wanted to do something meaningful for the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII. When I first conceived the idea of this collection, everywhere in the world, celebrations were planned to commemorate the liberation of concentration camps, prisoner of war camps, and ultimately, entire nations from oppression.

The idea to create a collection of books to not only commemorate the occasion, but also to leave a lasting impression on the readers, way past the moment of the anniversary was born, and it was an easy task to an appropriate theme for our collection: Liberation.

After six years of horrible war, people all across the world were finally liberated. Some from horrible oppression, others from having to fight against their fellow humans. Soldiers on both sides who bore the brunt of violence yearned for an end to the hostilities, but also civilians wished to be liberated from being afraid for family members, or from hunkering down in bunkers during air raids.

We wanted to give a diverse selection of stories about all different kinds of people who all had a different war experience, but undoubtedly all of them were, if not happy, at least relieved, that it was finally over.

The anniversary of Victory Day in Europe on May 8th 2020 was supposed to be a happy occasion with splendid celebrations in many countries, remembering those who survived and those who didn’t.

But the universe had different plans and all public events were cancelled. For us, the six authors who contributed a book to this collection, it’s one more reason to keep going.

We want to spread hope across the world in the form of our stories. Stories, that every person who’s currently at home can read, and can remember the heroes and heroines from the past.

We want to make sure, the sacrifices so many years are not forgotten and the lessons from this dark part of history are kept alive, handed down to the younger generations to keep them fighting for a better world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

A Collection by Marion Kummerow, Marina Osipova, Rachel Wesson, JJ Toner, Ellie Midwood, and Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger

Riveting stories dedicated to celebrating the end of WWII.

From USA Today, international bestselling and award-winning authors comes a collection filled with courage, betrayal, hardships and, ultimately, victory over some of the most oppressive rulers the world has ever encountered.

By 1944, the Axis powers are fiercely holding on to their quickly shrinking territories.

The stakes are high—on both sides:

Liberators and oppressors face off in the final battles between good and evil. Only personal bravery and self-sacrifice will tip the scales when the world needs it most.

Read about a small child finding unexpected friends amidst the cruelty of the concentration camps, an Auschwitz survivor working to capture a senior member of the SS, the revolt of a domestic servant hunted by the enemy, a young Jewish girl in a desperate plan to escape the Gestapo, the chaos that confused underground resistance fighters in the Soviet Union, and the difficult lives of a British family made up of displaced children.

2020 marks 75 years since the world celebrated the end of WWII. These books will transport you across countries and continents during the final days, revealing the high price of freedom—and why it is still so necessary to “never forget”.


Stolen Childhood by Marion Kummerow

The Aftermath by Ellie Midwood

When's Mummy Coming? by Rachel Wesson

Too Many Wolves in the Local Woods by Marina Osipova

Liberation Berlin by JJ Toner

Magda’s Mark by Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger

The Road to Liberation is available at
Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CA.

Meet the Authors

Marion Kummerow was born and raised in Germany, before she set out to "discover the world" and lived in various countries. In 1999 she returned to Germany and settled down in Munich where she's now living with her family.

After dipping her toes with non-fiction books, she finally tackled the project dear to her heart. UNRELENTING is the story about her grandparents, who belonged to the German resistance and fought against the Nazi regime. It's a book about resilience, love and the courage to stand up and do the right thing.

Marina Osipova was born in East Germany into a military family and grew up in Russia where she graduated from the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives. She also has a diploma as a German language translator from the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages. In Russia, she worked first in a scientific-technical institute as a translator then in a Government Ministry in the office of international relations, later for some Austrian firms. For seventeen years, she lived in the United States where she worked in a law firm. Eventually, she found her home in Austria. She is an award-winning author and a member of the Historical Novel Society.

Rachel Wesson is Irish born and bred. Drawn to reading from an early age, she started writing for publication a few years back. When she is not writing, Rachel likes to spend her time reading and playing with her three kids. Living in Dublin there are plenty of things to do, although the cowboys and Indians of her books rarely make an appearance. To chat with Rachel connect with her on Facebook. To check out her newest releases sign up to her mailing list.

JJ Toner: My background is in Mathematics and computing, but I have been writing full time since 2005. I write short stories and novels. My novels include the bestselling WW2 spy story The Black Orchestra, and its three sequels, The Wings of the Eagle, A Postcard from Hamburg, and The Gingerbread Spy.

Many of my short stories have been published in mainstream magazines. Check out EGGS and Other Stories - a collection of satirical SF stories. I was born in a cabbage patch in Ireland, and I still live here with my first wife, although a significant part of our extended family lives in Australia.

Ellie Midwood is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning historical fiction author. She owes her interest in the history of the Second World War to her grandfather, Junior Sergeant in the 2nd Guards Tank Army of the First Belorussian Front, who began telling her about his experiences on the frontline when she was a young girl. Growing up, her interest in history only deepened and transformed from reading about the war to writing about it. After obtaining her BA in Linguistics, Ellie decided to make writing her full-time career and began working on her first full-length historical novel, The Girl from Berlin. Ellie is continuously enriching her library with new research material and feeds her passion for WWII and Holocaust history by collecting rare memorabilia and documents.

In her free time, Ellie is a health-obsessed yoga enthusiast, neat freak, adventurer, Nazi Germany history expert, polyglot, philosopher, a proud Jew, and a doggie mama. Ellie lives in New York with her fiancé and their Chihuahua named Shark Bait.

Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger was born in Minnesota in 1969 and grew up in the culture-rich neighborhood of "Nordeast" Minneapolis. She started her writing career with short stories, travel narratives, worked as a journalist and then as a managing editor for a magazine publisher before jumping the editor's desk and pursuing her dreams of writing and traveling. In 2000, she moved to western Austria and established her own communications training company. In 2005, she self-published a historical narrative based on her relatives' personal histories and experiences in Ukraine during WWII. She has won several awards for her short stories and now primarily writes historical fiction. During a trip into northern Italy over the Reschen Pass, she stood on the edge of Reschen Lake and desperately wanted to understand how a 15th-century church tower ends up sticking out of the water. What stories were lying beneath? Some eight years later, she launched the "Reschen Valley" series with five books and a novella releasing between 2018 and 2021. For more on Chrystyna, dive in at inktreks.com.

Hope in the Midst of War

I always enjoy finding novels that discover an interesting tidbit of World War II history to expand upon. That is what author Suzy Henderson has done in her recently released book, The Beauty Shop. She has put the spotlight on young soldiers who experienced tragic wounds and burns and the dedicated doctors who worked tirelessly to give them new lives. Read more below on Suzy's writing inspiration.

Welcome, Suzy!

~ Samantha

Guest Post by Suzy Henderson

I have been fascinated with both World War periods for many years, and I suppose having relatives who served in those wars fuelled my interest. Having spent hundreds of hours researching military history, I discovered a story I’d never heard before and became quickly absorbed. That story was about the Guinea Pig Club, and after researching it, I was hooked.

On September 3rd, 1939 Britain declared war on Germany. Although the government had hoped to avoid taking this action, preparations for war had been ongoing since 1937. The RAF had already appointed four leading plastic surgeons to run four main plastic surgery units. One of those surgeons was New Zealander Archibald McIndoe, and he chose the unit at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead. By the time war was announced in 1939, the units were up and running. However, nothing could have prepared them for the nature of the injuries they were to face, and McIndoe, as talented as he was, often struggled with the most severe cases. He was left with no choice but to experiment and improvise, but from his experiences, he pioneered great change.

Sir Archibald McIndoe

Right from the beginning, he did not see patients; he saw young men robbed of the latter years of boyhood and the beginning of manhood. Often they had horrific injuries, some having lost their sight, and some with their faces burned away, and they were distraught, depressed and lost, fearing the worst until McIndoe came along. He always shook their hand, often lingering in hold for a few moments while he spoke with them, and nurses remarked how the men’s faces changed as if all of a sudden a huge burden lifted. The fact was, he gave them hope – the first to come along and do so. And hope is a precious gift to those who are convinced all is lost. McIndoe’s words reassured them. He gave each man all the specific details of the care and surgery they required, explaining how long it would take and assured them they would heal in time. In later years, these men have often said how they cherished that first meeting, you see, to them he was God, and some even called him that while others called him Maestro or Boss. They all had such great affection for him because he quite literally saved them.

At the very beginning of the war, McIndoe noticed that the burned pilots who were shot down and bailed out into the Channel seemed to fare much better than those who bailed over land. He deduced it was related to the salt water and so, he devised the plan for saline baths on his ward. The treatment proved to be very successful, and the salt water contributed to reducing infection and promoted wound healing while soothing the burns, enabling the men to finally relax.

As the war rolled on, more airmen became casualties. Fighter pilots, trapped in the flaming cockpits of their Spitfires and Hurricanes, and pilots and airmen of bomber aircraft flooded into hospitals all around the country. In July 1941, several bored airmen in McIndoe’s care decided to form a club. Initially, it was to be a drinking club and a way of passing the time. They called it the Maxillonians. However, one day an airman, on his way to the operating theatre for another procedure announced, “We’re just bloody guinea pigs for the Maestro.” That was it. The club was renamed the Guinea Pig Club.

As more casualties arrived, the club grew. When Fighter Pilot Richard Hillary was sent to the USA in 1942 on a propaganda mission, he raised the profile of the club, and as he too had sustained burns after being shot down during the Battle of Britain, the American citizens saw first-hand what the men had to endure. Soon, McIndoe was opening airmail with letters of support, offers of work and financial donations. He was surprised at first, but he soon realised what an opportunity this was – a chance to protect and invest in the future of his “boys”, as he called them, and so he arranged for the club to become a charity.

Ward 3 Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead

McIndoe took a holistic approach to care, realising this was essential in making these men whole again. In Ward 3, the men were cocooned, under his wing so to speak. In keeping all ranks together, a tightly knit band grew, and camaraderie flourished. However, he realised that the men couldn’t stay safe forever and so he went out into the town of East Grinstead, held meetings with the locals and explained the work he was doing. Then he did something unusual. He asked for their help, appealing for volunteers at the ward, to help out with things such as letter writing, reading and chatting to the men to raise morale. Next, he asked them to invite the men to their homes for tea, and some of his more influential friends with large houses even held parties and dances. The people of East Grinstead were eager to help. McIndoe asked them to look the men in the eye and at least smile, beseeching them never to turn away or appear shocked. They understood, and so the teamwork began, and gradually the airmen gained confidence and came to realise they were safe outside too, safe and welcomed in the small country town just outside London. It was such a small step for the locals to make but for the men, it was monumental.

McIndoe also took other measures, such as allowing the men to smoke and drink beer on the ward. He recruited pretty nurses to boost morale and get the men used to speaking to beautiful girls once again, and he recruited chorus girls from London to escort the men to the pub and dances. He also called in favours with his more influential friends and secured jobs for some of the men. McIndoe quite literally covered all areas including pensions which were unfair and unjust for those who were unfit to return to active service. Through his interference, the men were granted a fairer pensionable award.

Later, after the war, the Guinea Pig Club was to prove its worth in helping some members with such things as affording suitable housing, adaptations and even granting money to help establish businesses. There were some men who, despite their injuries, were more than capable of making their own way in life. The club assisted those who were not, those with more severe injuries who required assistance.

What drew me to this story was not simply McIndoe’s exemplary, pioneering surgical work. What I saw was a philanthropist, a man who solely took it upon himself to ensure that the servicemen in his care were fully healed and accepted back into society. His brilliance lay in recognising that it would take more than surgery to heal the men. In healing their bodies and souls he had to consider their psychological and social care too.

Ward 3 at Christmas

McIndoe revolutionised the care, treatment and rehabilitation of burns survivors, and of course, as a pioneer of plastic surgery, his accomplishments formed the foundations of our modern-day burns treatments. He showed his boys how to live with their altered appearances, with their injuries, and he taught the locals how to live, interact and care for these injured servicemen.

Sir Archibald McIndoe died in his sleep on 11th April 1960, a month short of his sixtieth birthday. His colleague and mentor, Sir Harold Gillies, said “Sir Archibald McIndoe was truly one of the great heroes of the Battle of Britain. Hundreds of injured airmen have learned to live and thrive because of him, and the Guinea Pig Club is his great memorial.”

And if you're wondering about the title of my book, The Beauty Shop, I can tell you that this was the name the men gave to Ward 3 - the beauty shop was where they sent you 'to be made up again.' So you see, despite facing such tragic, dark times, and uncertain futures, under McIndoe’s wing the men thrived, and even their humour survived.

The Beauty Shop

England, 1942. After three years of WWII, Britain is showing the scars. But in this darkest of days, three lives intertwine, changing their destinies and those of many more.

Dr Archibald McIndoe, a New Zealand plastic surgeon with unorthodox methods, is on a mission to treat and rehabilitate badly burned airmen – their bodies and souls. With the camaraderie and support of the Guinea Pig Club, his boys battle to overcome disfigurement, pain, and prejudice to learn to live again.


John ‘Mac’ Mackenzie of the US Air Force is aware of the odds. He has one chance in five of surviving the war. Flying bombing missions through hell and back, he’s fighting more than the Luftwaffe. Fear and doubt stalk him on the ground and in the air, and he’s torn between his duty and his conscience.


Shy, decent and sensible Stella Charlton’s future seems certain until war breaks out. As a new recruit to the WAAF, she meets an American pilot on New Year’s Eve. After just one dance, she falls head over heels for the handsome airman. But when he survives a crash, she realises her own battle has only just begun.


Based on a true story, The Beauty Shop is a moving tale of love, compassion, and determination against a backdrop of wartime tragedy.

You can purchase The Beauty Shop for Kindle or in paperback on Amazon.

Connect with Suzy Henderson

Suzy Henderson was born in the North of England and initially pursued a career in healthcare, specialising as a midwife. Years later, having left her chosen profession, she embarked upon a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing at The Open University.

That was the beginning of a new life journey, rekindling her love of writing and passion for history. With an obsession for military and aviation history, she began to write.

It was an old black and white photograph of her grandmother in her WAAF service uniform that caught Suzy’s imagination many years ago. Her grandmother never spoke of her war service and died in 1980, taking her stories with her. When Suzy decided to research her family history and her grandmother’s war service, things spiralled from there. Stories came to light, little-known stories and tragedies and it is such discoveries that inform her writing today.

Having relocated to North Cumbria, she has the Pennines and the Scottish Borders in sight and finally feels at home. Suzy is a member of the Historical Novel Society and her debut novel, The Beauty Shop was released in November 2016.

Connect with Suzy on her website, blog, Lowfell Writer's Place, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+.

Find The Beauty Shop at Amazon.