At the start of the war in 1939 James Bevan is a junior officer approaching middle-age, attached to a small anti-aircraft unit on the south coast.

Abandoned by his wife, the soldiers he command are his family: Bairnsfather, whose sexual encounters with his girl friend Muriel take place in an air-raid shelter; Cartwright, trying to keep two women on his gunner's pay of a shilling a day; Hignet, cosily educating himself in the orderly room. It is a rude awakening when they are called upon for the real war.

Hugely absorbing, rich and rewarding, Other Times brims with history and experience, love, sorrow and humour.

A tour de force of imagination and storytelling... I cannot recommend it highly enough * Daily Mail *
Thomas has the rare ability to recreate the very sounds and smells and atmosphere of a long-lost world... One of the most satisfying reads in years * Daily Mail *
When it comes to telling a thoroughly good tale, dew do it better than former Barnardo boy Leslie Thomas... a surefire winner * Yorkshire Post *
Thomas, as ever, tells a cracking yarn * Mail on Sunday *

Born in Newport, Monmouthshire in 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is evoked in This Time Next Week published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a reporter, before going on to do his national service. He won worldwide acclaim with his bestselling novel The Virgin Soldiers, which has achieved international sales of over two million copies.