One of my friends sent me a quote from his brother-in-law who was a Dambuster: “Winning a war would be impossible without the women left at home.” Too right. I was wrong and now it seems as if the title is taking on a life of its own.Ĭlaudia Winckleman mentioned it on her show on Friday 22 nd March, even while the book was still under embargo ( – 34 minutes in) and quipped: ‘The Jambusters are coming!’ They are indeed. He loved it, my literary agent loved it, but now I had to try it on the WI and I was seriously worried they would find it flippant and possibly even insulting.
Then I shouted ‘That’s it! Brilliant! We’ve got it!’ I rang Tim immediately and said I would try it out on Mike Jones at S&S. I was standing by the toaster and Chris was at the table. I confess that the fascination with war film titles probably comes from the family association with the Bridge on the River Kwai, which I had written about in 2005, and the fact that Chris has worked on and off in the film industry for years. Various suggestions flew back and forth (sadly, I have not got the text stream anymore) but I remember one was a play on 633 Squadron and another on The Guns of Navarone. We began a texting dialogue with Tim, who was at home in Aboyne. The book needed a title and as the book was going to show the WI in an impressive light – far more impressive than many people would expect – it needed a really good title. And above all, they dealt with everything in a no-nonsense, practical way, circumventing bureaucracy and focusing on what could be done rather than what could not. They looked after evacuees, knitted some 16 million garments, ran National Savings schemes, sat on government committees on housing, rural development, education, health and post-war reconstruction.
During the War the WI made jam but they also did a great deal more. I was at home in the kitchen with my family in November 2009, celebrating the fact that Simon & Schuster had agreed to publish a book on the WI in wartime. Tim and Julie at GlennTanner, November 2012 The title came from my younger brother, Tim. Now that this book is published, people are beginning to comment on the name, I just want to put the record straight and explain its origin.
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