Author:Ray Jenkins
One of the last major untold stories of the war, this is the first-hand account of a conscientious objector born into a famous artistic family who, after the death of his brother on active service, decides to fight the Nazis and joins SOE. Barely 28 years of age he ends up as a leader of French resistance, set up by Jean Moulin, whose horrific death features in the story, and heads a massive underground movement of some 20,000 men.
The book has been compiled by Ray Jenkins, a distinguished TV, film and radio dramatist from first-hand interviews, with the drama of raids, torture and sudden death ever present - at one point Francis Cammaerts is captured by the Gestapo. There is also an emotional theme as Francis's relationship with his wife, whom he has been able to tell nothing, suffers and he lives closely with the beautiful and legendary agent, Countess Krystina Skarbeck.
A genuinely original contribution to the history of the resistance, Ray Jenkins's beautifully told story has been praised by the official historian of wartime intelligence, MRD Foot.
Francis Cammaerts died in 2006 at the age of 90 after a distinguished career in education.
This is a fascinating book about a remarkable man.
—— Daily TelegraphBrilliant verbal pyrotechnics ... throwaway lines and marvelous anecdotes
—— Daily MailDesperately funny, vivid, vulgar
—— Sunday TimesClose in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense
—— GuardianMilligan is the Great God to all of us
—— John CleeseThe Godfather of Alternative Comedy
—— Eddie IzzardThat absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man
—— Stephen FryManifestly a genius, a comic surrealist genius and had no equal
—— Terry WoganA totally original comedy writer
—— Michael PalinA multiple biography and a detailed anatomy of the nature of friendship... A Train in Winter is a powerful and moving book; its significance is in bringing to a wider, non-French readership the particular and terrible fate of a group of women whose only crime was to love their country and to wish to do something to defend it, at a time when its government chose craven obedience to the occupier, with terrible consequences for so many of its people
—— Natasha Lehrer , Times Literary SupplementThis is a clear-sighted, distressing and unforgettable book
—— Stephanie Cross , The LadyA harrowing but also uplifting story of shared story of friendship, courage and endurance
—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent, Books of the YearIt is an exceptional achievement on the author's part to have reconstructed these obscure lives that so often ended in sordid misery and to have restored their dignity and honour
—— Patrick Marnham , Literary ReviewAn outstanding and important book, compelling and deeply troubling
—— Peter Eade , Country LifeA hybrid of history and multiple biography, movingly chronicles the women's ordeal... [it] bears eloquent witness to the moral and material ruin of collaborationist in France
—— Ian Thomson , SevenA remarkable achievement of biographical and oral research and with a brilliant narrative and description
—— History TodayA highly fractured tale intended to resemble the crumbling nature of Money’s existence post war. Nothing is over-laboured. Each word resounds with sultry, heat-oppressive Georgia.
—— SpectatorMorrison's writing is so deft that even barely sketched characters leap off the page
—— Sunday TelegraphHome is a powerful reminder of the impact the past plays on the present
—— The TimesMorrison can say more in one word than most novelists manage in an entire book. Superb
—— Glasgow Sunday HeraldBursting with poetic language and horrific events this is a penetrating insight to the African-American experience
—— The LadyIt is a powerful set-up, building suspense and a mounting sense of anxiety
—— GuardianToni Morrison’s mesmerising prose manages to be both elegiac and visceral at the same time
—— Mail on Sunday
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