Whicker’s War - Tapa dura

'a vivid warm-hearted record of his experiences as a leading member of the Army Film and Photo Unit in Italy during the second world ... Whicker's prose is such a natural expression of his ebullient personality ... that reading it one seems to hear that laconic humour and to realize that he is as dapper and jaunty as he was in 1943.'
Sunday Times

‘Riveting – a marathon television series, now a compulsive and fascinating book...’
Radio 4

'My bookshelf would certainly be poorer without this written record. Inspired...and inspiring.'
Manchester Evening News

'It almost doesn't seem like a book at all, for so familiar is the Whicker economy of language and word rhythms that it is impossible to look over the opening paragraphs without hearing the Whicker voice reading the words out loud inside your head.'
Jean Moir, Daily Telegraph

'One of the outstanding broadcasters of the age and a reporter with notable gifts. Surrounded by carnage, corpses and the memory of lost friends, his familiar voice was as lilting and playful as ever, but laced with elegy...It was beautifully written and delivered with such assurance that even the pauses were eloquent.'
Stephen Pile, Daily Telegraph

Alan Whicker has been a broadcaster for over 40 years on both BBC and independent channels. This is an insightful, articulate and moving account of his experiences in World War 2 and is based on the successful Channel 4 series.

Throughout his forty years in TV he was steadfast in his belief that his programmes should not be about himself but about those people he encountered. Until this year when he was persuaded, as part of the 60th anniversary of the invasion of Italy, to tell his remarkable war experiences in two fabulously reviewed hour-long television pieces.

This book uses these programmes as the starting point to tell the story of Alan Whicker's remarkable war.

Alan Whicker joined the Army Film and Photo Unit as an 18-year-old army officer, following the Allied advance through Italy, from Sicily to Venice. He filmed the troops on the front line, met Montgomery, and other military luminaries, filmed the battered body of Mussolini after his execution and accepted the surrender of the SS in Milan. This is remarkable account of the Italian campaign of 1943 and 1944 as he retraces of his steps over sixty years later. Beautifully written, poignant with humour and pathos this is a masterful book by one of the 20th centuries greatest TV journalists.