In the first World War, it had been hard for British writers and artists to avoid the fighting, but in the second a great many of them managed to stay out of uniform, and were much more valuable to their country as a result. This book picks out a number of personalities who typify the culture of London under the Blitz: Henry Moore and his tube shelter drawings, the film work of Humphrey Jennings, Britten and his opera Peter Grimes. Auden, who actually spent much of the war in America, appears and reappears, though there are only a few passing references to MacNeice, who surely was a key figure in wartime London. And in terms of visual art, the work of Moore, Sutherland and Nash seems rather dated nowadays compared with what Naum Gabo and Ben Nicholson were creating in relative obscurity down in Cornwall.