Showing results by narrator "Helen Dickens" in All Categories

George Orwell wasn’t just the author of 1984 and Animal Farm — He was the man who saw it all coming. From the jungles of British Burma to the slums of Paris, from the trenches of the Spanish Civil War to the propaganda halls of the BBC, Orwell lived through the machinery of power — and spent every ounce of his voice trying to tear it apart. Orwell: The Man Who Warned Us is a literary biography that doesn’t just tell you who Orwell was — it shows you how he became one of the most dangerous writers in history.

Lizzie Flowers has had a hard life, but she is still full of true East End grit. In the bleak years after World War I, her family faced desperate times, and deep tensions split them apart, but when barrow-boy Danny Flowers asked her to leave for a better life in Australia, she stayed true to her family's roots. She married Danny's brother, Frank, instead, a decision she came to bitterly regret.

August 1914, London. Britain has just declared war on Germany, and the whole country seems to be in uproar. Flora, Hilda and Will, who grew up together in St Boniface orphanage sit in the sunshine in Hyde Park on a rare day off, discussing the impending war and the changes it will bring to their lives. Will means to go off to fight, Hilda hopes to better her current lot in life as a maid at the charitable institute Hailing House, but Flora is content with her job as assistant to the Isle of Dogs' kindly Doctor Tapper.