Chiswick Book Festival marks 80 years since the end of World War II

Chiswick Book Festival, 10 – 15 September 2025

Six authors give their insights into the war – revelatory account of heroism and treachery, love and loss

Guest blog by Torin Douglas

As the nation marks 80 years since VJ Day (with Chiswick’s own Pat Owtram/Davies gracing Radio Times and BBC Two’s VJ Day 80: We Were There on Wednesday), the Chiswick Book Festival team have been updating their own plans.

We announced in May, just ahead of VE Day, that this year’s Festival would mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.

In June we announced that the speakers would include Rosanna Greenstreet and Caroline Cecil Bose on their families’ WW2 Love Letters, John Willis on the BBC’s People’s War project and Taylor Downing on The Army That Never Was.

Now we’re delighted to announce a new speaker, the journalist and author Jonathan Freedland, whose latest book will be published at the start of the Festival on Thursday 11 September.

The Traitors Circle; Jonathan Freedland

Jonathan Freedland – The Traitors Circle

The Traitors Circle: The Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them tells the true, but scarcely known, story of a group of secret rebels against Hitler.

Drawn from Berlin high society, they include army officers, government officials, two countesses, an ambassador’s widow and a former model. Meeting for a tea party in 1943, they do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo.

The book has received terrific reviews ahead of publication.

“The Traitors Circle rivals Freedland’s superb The Escape Artist. A revelatory account of heroism and treachery in Nazi Germany, it is based on original research and reads like a thriller. Totally gripping and timely” – Jonathan Dimbleby.

“Though every word is true, this remarkable book reads like a novel. The narrative style is gripping; the morality searing. This is how the best history books will be written in the future – Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny.

And by ITN’s Tom Bradby on social media:

“My first great read of the summer. An utterly gripping true story about Nazi Germany, brilliantly told by @Freedland.”

Details and tickets: ticketsource.co.uk

Sadly, the reason we could invite Freedland was the withdrawal of his equally distinguished Guardian colleague, Julian Borger, born and bred in Chiswick.

READ ALSO: Bedford Park 150 – Julian Borger remembers his sixties childhood

Borger’s work is taking him out of London (a recurring hazard for book festival organisers when commissioning high profile journalists!)

Laurence Rees; The Nazi Mind

Laurence Rees – The Nazi Mind

Freedland will be interviewed by BBC news presenter Julian Worricker, who is also chairing another of our WW2 sessions, with fellow Chiswick resident Laurence Rees, about his latest book The Nazi Mind.

Rees is former head of history programmes at BBC TV, where he produced many award-winning series about the Nazis, Auschwitz and Hitler.

Details and tickets: ticketsource.co.uk

John Willis; The People’s War

John Willis – The People’s War

Those aren’t the only BBC and local connections in our 80th anniversary programming.

John Willis will speak about The People’s War, the BBC project which gathered over 47,000 testimonies from ordinary people about their experiences of the Second World War.

They sat largely unexplored in the archives for two decades, until Willis began to explore these untold stories of everyday bravery, terror and community, at home and on the front. He is joined by award-winning BBC Panorama reporter and journalist Jane Corbin.

Details and tickets: ticketsource.co.uk

The Army That Never Was; Taylor Downing

Taylor Downing – The Army That Never Was

Historian and broadcaster Taylor Downing went to Latymer Upper School and spoke at last year’s Festival event marking 400 years of the Latymer Foundation.

His latest book The Army That Never Was describes the effort to convince German troops that plans to storm Normandy were a mere sideshow, complete with a fictitious army and hundreds of dummy landing craft, tanks, and planes.

He talks to author and former BBC journalist Alex Gerlis.

Details and tickets: ticketsource.co.uk

Rosanna Greenstreet; Dear Loll

Rosanna Greenstreet – Dear Loll

Our session on World War II love letters is a real family affair.

Rosanna Greenstreet’s Dear Loll describes a marriage enduring the hardships of wartime separation, via the letters of Manchester Guardian journalist Gerard Fay (great-grandfather of her co-author and husband Matthew Fay) and his wife Alice.

Caroline Cecil Bose ; We’ve All Life Before Us

Caroline Cecil Bose – We’ve All Life Before Us

In We’ve All Life Before Us, Caroline Cecil Bose charts the tragic love story of RAF pilot Bob Keddie and his wife Diana via their own letters, diaries and photographs.

Details and tickets: ticketsource.co.uk

READ ALSO: ‘We’ve All Life Before Us’ – Book launch, Wednesday 30 April

The ’male’ letters will be read by Rosanna’s husband Matthew and Caroline’s husband Mihir Bose, both of whom have strong local connections.

Matthew is on the committee of the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project, responsible for the Enwrought Light sculpture outside St Michael & All Angels Church.

And Mihir is a regular podcaster for The Chiswick Calendar as one of the ‘Three Old Hacks’:

chiswickcalendar.co.uk/episode-52

Torin Douglas MBE is Director of The Chiswick Book Festival