Charlie and Bluebell Hill Boy: two biographical sketches

By Colin Brett

Charlie: Looking into his family history, Colin discovered that his grandad Charlie had been killed in World War One. Based on historical records, Colin wrote a story about his grandad's final year in an attempt to get to know the relative he never had a chance to meet. The result is the remarkable narrative of a Nottingham working class man getting caught up in a cataclysmic conflict, a brutal war which continues to cast a very long shadow over all our lives.

Charlie's Battle: People's Histreh - the Nottingham Radical History Group - have added a chapter on the Battle of          Loos in which Charlies' grandad was killed, and the wider context of the War and its aftermath, with appendices and          excerpts from the 12th Battalion Sherwood Foresters' War Diary.

Bluebell Hill Boy: An autobiographical story on Colin's own childhood and early teenage years, growing up in the St Anns neighbourhood of Nottingham during the 1940s and early 1950s. Colin paints a vivid picture of a culture which itself has long become part of our history. His account features comets, floods, banana skins, and a lot of childhood adventures, as well as Colin's memories of the many colourful characters who were the heart and soul of his community.

Published in Nottingham by Loaf on a Stick Press, November 2016. 

Paperback 11.5cm x 7.5cm, 141 pages, illustrated, £5.

Available from 5 Leaves Bookshop Nottingham, Waterstones Nottingham and the Nottingham City Tourism Office.