Telling Tales

The Fabulous Lives of Anita Leslie

Penny Perrick

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Paperback

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English

Bloomsbury
01 October 2018

Biography; Biography: literary

'Enormously entertaining … A witty, elegantly written account of the many lives of a flawed, unconventional woman. Fascinating' Marian Keyes ----- The poignant biography of Anita Leslie, only woman to have been awarded both the Croix de Guerre and the Africa Star in WWII.

Anita Leslie (1914-85), best known for popular biographies of her relatives including Jennie Churchill, Winston's mother, was also an unlikely war heroine. In 1940, Anita volunteered as an ambulance driver.

By the end of the war, she was the only woman to have been awarded both the Africa Star and the Croix de Guerre, alongside the other medals for her service across all four fronts of WWII, as recounted in her remarkable memoir Train to Nowhere.

In this revealing biography, Penny Perrick brings Anita to life: her complicated early years, her love for her children, her passion for Ireland, her career as a writer, and the ongoing family drama about Castle Leslie. Telling Tales is a scintillating and poignant account of this flamboyant woman.

By: Penny Perrick
Imprint: Bloomsbury
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm,
Weight: 216g
ISBN: 9781448217212
ISBN 10: 1448217210
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 01 October 2018
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1. Putting on a Show 2. An Education 3. The Devil’s Decade 4. Married to the North Wind 5. Things Fall Apart 6. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute 7. Sunburn Is So Unbecoming 8. Laughter Among the Skulls 9. A Cobweb of Affection 10. The Woods Are Full of Germans 11. The War Heroine 12. The Unbearable Peace 13. The Burden of the Day 14. Charades at Castle Leslie 15. ‘He Enchants My Every Moment’ 16. A Sea Change 17. Complicated Chronicles 18. They All Talk Amusingly 19. Invented Lives 20. Jolly Old Age I’m Having 21. This Leslie Half-World 22. The Low-Down on the High-Ups 23. Deaths and Entrances 24. No Chance of a Warm Light Room 25. The War Revisited 26. Specialists in Survival 27. Back Where She Belonged Acknowledgments Bibliography Dramatis Personae Anita’s Houses Index

Penny Perrick, who lived for many years in the west of Ireland, was a fashion editor for Vogue, a columnist on the Sun and The Times and a fiction editor for the Sunday Times. She is also a novelist and the author of Something to Hide, a biography of the poet Sheila Wingfield. Penny lives in London.

Reviews for Telling Tales: The Fabulous Lives of Anita Leslie

Enormously entertaining ... A witty, elegantly written account of the many lives of a flawed, unconventional woman. Fascinating -- Marian Keyes Wonderfully involving and often very funny -- Roy Foster A fascinating look at the life of an aristocratic war hero with a dark side * Irish Sunday Times * Perrick's spellbinding Telling Tales: The Fabulous Lives of Anita Leslie portrays her subject's shortcomings, but also her qualities -- David Platzer * The Tablet * A picture of an era as well as an individual, full of spirit and panache -- Linda Kelly, author of WOMEN OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Her determination in sometimes grim circumstances to paint the world in sunshine showed the same kind of nonchalant heroism as her startling achievements during the war * Irish Times *