Ex-Teesdale Mercury journalist turns his gran's war diary into new book

A JOURNALIST and writer who began his career as a reporter with the Teesdale Mercury has published his first book.

Duncan Leatherdale joined the paper in 2007 as a trainee, working with both the Mercury and the company’s short-lived Wear Valley title until moving on to The Northern Echo and then the BBC in Middlesbrough.

He has turned his grandmother’s diary documenting life in wartime London into a new book.

Life of a Teenager in Wartime London is based on the diary kept by Glennis Leatherdale, known as Bunty, when she was a teenager living in south London during the Second World War.

Mr Leatherdale, 32, said: “I was visiting gran one day when she produced this small, green leather book from her bureau.

“It was the diary she kept from January to June in 1943. I offered to type it up for her so she could re-read what she had written some 70 years before.

“As I did that I became fascinated with her life at that time.

“What intrigued me most was how, in between the bombings and constant threat of invasion, her biggest concerns were those of a teenager in any age – exams, how she looked and the other sex.”

As well as featuring Bunty’s 1943 diary in its entirety, Life of a Teenager in Wartime London also looks at various topics which might have been of interest to teens at the time.

Mr Leatherdale added: “I just wondered what it would have been like, where would you have gone to enjoy yourself, how would you have got there and what you have worn and eaten.”

The book also includes first-hand accounts of teenage life at the time sourced from the Imperial War Museum.

His research also took him to the British Library and National Archive.

He said: “Although the book is very London centric as that is where Bunty was living, I hope it will be of interest to anyone who lived through the war or who is more interested generally in what life on the Home Front was like.”

Bunty, who turned 93 this year, now lives in Bradford-on-Avon near Bath.

Mr Leatherdale said his gran was “surprised” that anyone would be interested in her wartime diary.

She was also impressed by how much work her grandson had put in to turn it into a book.

The book was launched at Durham Town Hall earlier this month to an audience of about 40 family, friends and members of the public.

It is published by Pen and Sword and is also available on Amazon or the Pen and Sword website.