It was a particularly cold February in Germany.  The air was sharp, and piles of snow and compacted ice edged the road, while a monochrome wash of white fields and dark, skeletal woods shrouded the countryside.  All along the autobahn from Berlin the landscape seemed hardly to change at all, but then, south of Leipzig, as I finally left the motorway behind and wound my way through the Thuringen, a different countryside emerged – one of fairytale woods, old world houses and villages seemingly less touched by the modern world. Read more…

This review was first printed in the Sunday Telegraph on 15 April 2007.

BOMBER BOYS: Fighting Back 1940-1945
By Patrick Bishop
Published by Harper Press April 2, 2007, £20

Review by James Holland

After the enormous success of Fighter Boys, his homage to the men of the Battle of Britain, a companion piece to the men of Bomber Command was an obvious follow-up, but one that was always going to be much harder to successfully pull off.   Read more…