'england win back france'

This is the title of my friend's 11-year-old grandson's school project on the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings. 

Front page piece - full of accurate information, its tone and over-optimistic title nicely convey the upbeat mood of the British news on D-Day. The Allies had hoped to recapture Caen within a day or two but it would take about a month after fierce fighting in St Pierre (see previous post) and elsewhere, and American losses were enormous beginning on Omaha beach on D-Day. 
Life back home - in the 1000 word story that follows, this 11-year-old boy paints in the New Milliennium a rich and accurate picture of the joys, sorrows, worries and excitement of life back home in WW2. Chapter 1 begins:
​'People have been hoping there would not be a war, but it happened.'

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'Dear Lord and father of  mankind
Forgive our foolish ways'
- Quaker John Greenleaf Whittier (for details of this hymn see blog post of 22 April)
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