For those who lived through wartime Christmases, the celebrations during those years had an especially poignant flavour. This unique anthology recreates those times of heartache and brief moments of pleasurable escape and happiness.

Share with wartime veterans and their families memories of Christmas under fire; read about the gift of a pig for POWs’ dinner from the Japanese emperor and how Glenn Miller’s disappearance almost ruined the AEF Christmas show; enjoy ENSA veterans’ anecdotes of Christmas concerts in the most awkward situations.

From Christmas on the Russian Front, on board ship in heaving seas and a soldier’s experiences in Egypt, ‘It ain’t arf hot’ pantomimes and the Archbishop of York’s Christmas message in 1940, to an account of life in the Warsaw ghetto, here is a collection of what made Christmas special during the years of the Second World War.

Illustrated throughout, A Wartime Christmas showcases the hope, warmth and colour that the occasion inspired during those bleak times.

The late MARIA HUBERT (1945-2007) was a cofounder of The Christmas Archives with her husband Andrew. She combined a love of history, folk custom, literature and research with knowledge of Latin, Greek, Spanish and Catalan learned in convents in the UK and Spain. A well-qualified cook, a great deal of her love for Christmas was born of her Yorkshire Christmas food customs. She was a frequent guest on radio and television in the UK, gaining extra fame in Japan with the launch of a Christmas museum in Hokkaido. ANDREW HUBERT is an expert in the history of Christmas, with over 40 years’ involvement with exhibitions, TV & radio programmes. He co-founded ‘The Christmas Archives’ alongside his late wife Maria. Together they created literary-themed festive books to delight fans of classic authors such as Jane Austen and the Brontës, a series which Andrew is now updating and expanding.