A different commemoration of an individual in the Second World War

To publish a well-written book at the time of the 80th VE commemoration is a bold decision. In contrast to the BBC’s stance of briefly referring to some veterans’ former time fighting or surviving in war, the broadcaster virtually overlooked the fact that warfare continued for several years outside Europe, in places such as Malaya, Thailand and Shanghai, and Japanese soldiers barbarically destroyed and suppressed residents alongside British based soldiers. As current Hastings resident Geoff Martin states in his introduction to From Stepney to Hell…and back, ‘On a personal level I am appalled at the lack of public knowledge of what happened to men like my Dad’. Hilda Kean reports.