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I was the youngest of 6 children fortunate enough to go to a very good school under scholarship, the school being moved about to the country due to the war.

“Because of my age, my friends frequently showed an interest in my wartime experiences. Sources are diminishing! I prepared a talk about my experiences for their entertainment, it was “well received” so I decided to try for print. Obviously many books in this category exist ranging from “The Diary of Anne Frank” to the wondrous escape stories. I was an ordinary schoolboy and I know of no other account in this category. Schoolboy life warrants exposure. It was certainly not dull, was often humorous and was occasionally very dangerous. I was thus led in to a somewhat mismatched autobiography. I felt justified because after the war I was carefully and hopefully trained to succeed in a fast declining industry, supported only by the phantasm of the “Cold War”. This, in an unusual way led me to emigrate twice and tempted me into describing the resulting travels.”

“The Deadliest War in History Through the Eyes of a Child

The historic invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, sparked a six-year war and was later on coined as the Second World War. It took six years before it finally ended, leaving eighty-five million casualties and being deemed as the deadliest war in history. It also displaced a lot of people and, as per record, it was an estimate of sixty million people.

Although there is a saturation in the market for memoirs and autobiographies recounting stories of this dark time in human history, there is definitely less of it from a schoolboy’s perspective. It makes Lewis Creedon’s “War at Ten Onwards” a unique one.

His book is a memoir that recounts a time in his childhood wherein they were asked to move to the countryside to avoid getting caught in the crossfire between Nazi Germany and the Allied forces.

The book follows his story as a 10-year-old boy and it started as a happy one. He was recommended by his schoolmaster and granted a chance to take an examination at King Edward the Sixth School, which was considered as the educational Mecca. He aced the exam, and the hopes of a future shone brighter. Unfortunately, this happened at a time when war was looming.

It continues to the time they were asked to evacuate and so on. He also shares his experiences in his travels and some misadventures making it a fun read.

Lewis Creedon was able to tastefully combine humor and history in this memoir. It’s not just educational but also an eye-opener. The way he wrote it is what sets it apart from any other because unlike other memoirs about the deadliest war in history, he is leaning a bit more on the perspective of a young child and not depressing at all.”