A vivid depiction of an East End community in wartime London
Carter Lane is an ordinary backstreet in Bermondsey and, for Dolly and Mick Flynn, it is home. When World War Two breaks out they know that nothing will be quite the same again. As the Blitz starts to take its toll and the close-knit community in Carter Lane endures the sorrows and partings which they had dreaded above all else, they find comfort in one another and solace in the knowledge that their wounds will eventually heal - as time goes by. Heartbreaking and compelling, this is the story of a community in its darkest and yet finest hour.
Harry was born in 1931 in a back street off the Tower Bridge Road. Only when his own children began to ask questions about the war, did Harry realise how many stories he had to tell. He became known as 'the King of Cockney sagas', and he wrote eighteen bestselling novels of London life. After Harry died in 1999, the Harry Bowling Prize was set up in his memory.