WE ALL WORE BLUE

Muriel Gane Pushman (Tempus, £14.99)

Muriel Gane was a pretty, unsophisticated girl of 18, from a close, happy English middle-class family when she volunteered for the Women's Royal Airforce. She admits that it was the colour of the uniform that influenced that choice - blue had always suited her.

Her story of comradeship, courage and determination during the Second World War comes together in this charming account of her life in the WAAF, which should appeal not only to her own generation but the wide reading public too.

She begins by recalling that moment on September 3, when the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced the outbreak of war.

Her father, a solicitor with a highly-developed sense of moral principle, enlisted first. Days later, she made an excuse to go to London and headed for the recruitment office. She was accepted and reported to the Air Ministry Headquarters on January 6. What she did during the war, and how the experience affected her, come together in this delightful book, which is illustrated with family photographs.

We All Wore Blue is a sequel to One Family's War, which relates the experiences of the Gane family during wartime.