John Orton: 2 books

Britain in September 1940 has seen the retreat from Dunkirk, and the entry of Italy into the War. The RAF has withstood all that the Luftwaffe could throw at it in the Battle of Britain, but the German Blitzkrieg is just starting. The first bombing raids have hit South Shields and the town prepares...

Tom Duncan, a Scot, joins the South Shields Police fresh from the trenches after the Great War. Little does he realise, when he first walks down the five stone steps into Keppel Street Police HQ (pictured opposite), that fifty years later he will be writing his memoirs at his desk by the fire, a glass...