Dead End Kids: Heroes of the Blitz

This is a gutsy story about the East End of London during the early years of the Blitz.  The story is inspired by a group of young people who did fight fires during the war, but in his foreword Bernard Ashley makes it clear that his characters are not based on those living then. Told in cockney dialect, the people of that part of London with their famous community spirit come alive, as they take refuge in the underground shelters from the ferocity of the German bombing.  Josie Turner is a bit old for gangs really but her group use a disused barge as their headquarters, and watch as the other young people form groups to fight the fires which rage nightly, in order to free the Fire Brigade for the bigger ones.  Josie determines that just because she is a girl shouldn’t mean she can’t form a group to do the same, and they manage to do that, but then tragedy strikes and her brother Len, the leader of the groups, is killed in freak accident.  Josie fights for the iron bar that denotes the gang leader and assumes Len’s mantle.  Meanwhile her blossoming friendship with another boy is threatened when he is accused of a crime he did not commit and goes on the run.

Once the reader is accustomed to the dialect, (this would read aloud well), the story moves quickly. Bernard Ashley’s vivid descriptions take the reader into the heart of the East End in wartime; you can see the bombed out buildings, some walls eerily standing, wallpaper flapping, beds upturned.  Len’s death is unexpected and horrible, but the courage of the young people is clear.  Josie’s character in particular stands out.

There are not too many books about the Blitz itself – Fireweed by Jill Paton Walsh written in 1969 is  probably the best of the bunch – so Bernard Ashley with this latest book in his long writing career, makes a valuable contribution to the genre.  Young people of 12+ will get the most out of this story and be full of admiration for their forbears.