Description
SAM KYDD for YOU the war is over…
PAPERBACK BOOK 267 Pages. Includes photos and illustrations.
Much loved actor Sam Kydd was a household name. In a career lasting from 1945 to 1982, he was in over 290 films, including such classics as:
The Captive Heart, Scott of the Antarctic, Treasure Island, I’m Alright Jack, Angels One Five, Reach for the Sky, The Magnet, The Cruel Sea, The Saint’s Return, Radio Cab Murder, and many more. He was also in hundreds and hundreds of TV shows, including starring roles in TV classics and series such as Shillingbury Tales, Sally Ann, The Pickwick Papers, Dixon of Dock Green, Mess Mates, Crane and Orlando.
In 1973 Sam wrote about his dramatic World War II experiences as a prisoner of war in Poland and Germany. The book: For YOU the war is over… was hugely successful, selling over 50,000 copies. Out of print for 40 years, it has now been republished by his son, Jonathan Kydd.
Captured in Calais in 1940, Sam spent the next five years in captivity, before fleeing back to Blighty via Odessa. This is a book about survival. How could you avoid starvation? Would you ever be released? Might you all be shot in the morning? You constantly lived on your wits, dealing with thuggish guards, scavenging for food, bartering with chocolate and cigarettes for the luxury of an egg or even a fumble with a willing prison cleaner. It helped to have a sense of humour and, as you would know from his comedy TV and film appearances, Sam had this in abundance.
This unique account features the ordinary soldier, the rank and file who were too busy being slave labour for the Nazis to have any thoughts of escape. It’s also the story of a man who maintained the morale of his fellow prisoners by writing and performing in shows and entertainments. This was Sam’s war. It was funny, scary and heartbreaking.
The book is illustrated with Sam’s own drawings of life as a POW, and contains stories and descriptions written in his own, inimitable, voice.
“Raw, straight-from-life realism… both revealing and convincing.”
The Daily Telegraph
