Alex Askaroff Norman - A Journey Through Time

Annotation

This book should really be called Lucky Norman, for Norman's true life story follows a remarkable path through War & Peace. From 1920 until 2010 we follow the true story of Norman, from the cold North Atlantic convoys to the Normandy Landings we see Norman and his men. Then we carry on to The Mau Mau in Kenya and the swinging 1960's, and much more. This is a fascinating and often hillarious tale of one man and one life. For most of the 20th Century Norman had been involved in and witnessed a brave new world, a world in which we live today. Here is a biography of a modest man spanning over nine decades. Starting with the Spanish Flu and his birth in the bustling market town of St Neots, Cambridgeshire, through to the traumatic abdication of a king in 1936 and war. During WWII we find Norman on convoy duty in the cold waters of the North Atlantic, where death waits and U-Boats stalk the deadly waters. Later as Norman worked his way up through the ranks, the Normandy landings loomed ever closer. His life would hang on a knife edge as he participated in and witnessed the momentous events of June 1944. In war there are lighter moments as well and the liberation of one town led to a night of drunken enjoyment on wine from the Rothschild's vineyards. After freedom in Europe Norman's turbulent story continues. While other lucky servicemen were demobbed and went home to their loved ones Norman, now master and commander, was on a ship bound for the Far East and an encounter with the fearful Japanese. Even after hostilities Norman's amazing journey was far from over. We travel through Oxford where Roger Bannister was running around the track as the fastest man alive to the burning African sun and the dreaded Mau Mau. In peace we travel through the swinging 60's, World Cup fever in 1966 and work in one of the toughest comprehensive schools in the South of England. Through one of the most turbulent centuries this planet may ever have, from first to last, in war and peace, Norman's true story provides us with a unique portrait of one man's remarkable life.