Beware This Boy

by Maureen Jennings

  When I first read the story as a child, these words burned into my mind and ever since, the notions of ignorance, closed-mindedness, and fanaticism have been anathema to me. For example, against the war in the beginning, willing to foster acts of sabotage and dissent, the British Communist Party did a complete about-face after Hitler attacked Russia. The bad guys – the British and the Allies – became the good guys and the BCP became fervently pro-war. Of course, nobody was willing to admit that Joseph Stalin had already shown himself to be as terrible a tyrant and murderer as Hitler himself.

  On the other hand, during this long season of darkness, there were many instances that revealed the astonishing fair-mindedness people are capable of.

  Acknowledgements

  As always I owe a big debt of gratitude to my school chums from Saltley Grammar school. Jessie Bailey led us around (and around) Birmingham city centre so I could find a suitable location for Endicott’s factory. Pam Rowan and Enid Harley are always willing to search out information when I need it. We all grew up in Brum, and their support and encouragement are precious to me.

  There are so many wonderful sources that I consulted to get my facts right, but I owe a particular debt to Carl Chinn’s book, Brum Undaunted: Birmingham During the Blitz (2005).

  Thanks to Donald Adams, who steered me to several useful sources concerning policing in Birmingham.

  Especial thanks to my indefatigable, ever-patient editor, Lara Hinchberger. And to McClelland & Stewart, who gave me this opportunity to write the book I have always wanted to write.

  Finally, a huge thanks to Deb Drennan, who, one afternoon, kindly asked what book I was working on. We discovered we both had a deep passion for the lives of the women who worked in the munitions factories during World War II. Deb because her grandmother had worked at a huge munitions factory in Toronto, Canada, during the war years, I because I was in the midst of this book. One thing led to another and from this concept has come a TV series, Bomb Girls.

  I feel immensely privileged to have gone on this journey with so many terrific people.