#simon block

[evenasmallcough]

Often she emerged from sleep disoriented and deeply distressed. It was as if her grief was at it's most raw in those moments when she was not quite awake.

Simon Block, A Woman's Courage (pg. 313)

[scratchybeardsweetmouth]

The Windermere children who escaped the holocaust in the lake district

Photo: Helen Sloan/BBC January 25, 2020 | By Jason Solomons Excerpts:

In August 1945, Britain did an extraordinary thing. Using RAF bombers that had completed their last missions, 732 Jewish refugee children, newly rescued from concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, were flown from Poland to England and given a new life. Under pressure from Leonard Montefiore's newly-created Committee for the Care of Children from Concentration Camps, the government was persuaded to open up rehabilitation camps, such as one on the bucolic shores of Lake Windermere. And so, in the unlikely village of Troutbeck Bridge, on the Calgarth estate in a prefab scheme that had housed workers at the Short Sunderland aeroplane factory during the war, a remarkable story of redemption and renewal began.

The story is now told in dramatic form in the film The Windermere Children, which airs in the UK on BBC Two and on German channel ZDF at the very same time (a simulcast first in European broadcasting) to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and 75 years since the end of the Second World War. “I hadn't heard of the story either,” admits The Windermere Children scriptwriter Simon Block. “Not many people had. I was brought the story by the production company, Wall to Wall, but from then on it was about trying to get as much information about what had happened as possible and find the dramatic arc inside it.” “Fortunately, the characters involved are so strong and the emotions and trauma so powerful, the facts did not need bending to make a compelling human story. It told itself.” [...] Many of [the actual Windermere children] were at the preview screening I attended. Harry (Chaim), Ben, Arek, Ike, Harry and Bela sit in the audience, behind the young Polish actors who play them in the film, most of them making their screen debuts. The film's more recognisable talents are there, too: Romola Garai, Iain Glen and Tim McInnerny, fine actors who all acknowledge with humility that the real stars present are the survivors. [...] At the screening, Iain Glen was greeted by the young Polish actors with hugs and high fives, like a favourite coach or even relative being welcomed after a long gap. He plays a gruff Scottish PE teacher based on the real-life Jock Lawrence, enlisted to give the kids some physical therapy through exercise, football and swimming in the lake. “Jock was enlisted for physical therapy even though I don't think he knew too much about the science of it all and he certainly was not prepared for the level of trauma he encountered,” he says. “But he could see the positive effect of getting them outdoors in the fresh air.” One of the children under Jock's charge was Ben Helfgott, who went on to become an weightlifter for Great Britain at two Olympic games. “It's a redemptive story in the end,” remarks Glen. “These survivors are testament to the programme there and show that life may not forget but it can recover and rebuild.” [...] Given one of The Windermere Children's most moving scenes involves a family reunion, it's a poignancy not lost on the film's creators. Says writer Simon Block: "That storyline is absolutely true - you couldn't possibly make something like that up - but sadly something like that is now impossible according to UK law.” "It shows this isn't just a historical drama but very much part of our present. It's a picture of when Britain did something great and was enriched because of it, and hopefully it can be a reminder that we can still do the right thing again.” The last word on The Windermere Children practically speaks for itself. At the screening, survivor Harry Spiro stood up carefully, shaking slightly on his feet but his voice was strong and clear. “I was the only one from my family who survived the Holocaust. I lost everyone, I had nothing. I had no home, no family.” “But I was a Windermere boy and now 70 years later I have a wife, three children, nine grandchildren and great grandchildren. I never, ever thought back then I would have a family, but I got a whole new life here and lots of other lives came from that. So I say: no, Hitler you did not win but look at me, I got my life and my family…”

[theofficialdramallama]

Guess who just got the eBook version of Part 1 & Part 2 of Keep The Home Fires Burning?! <3 Seriously though, as someone who has suffered the cancellation of TV shows too soon (Dallas reboot), I’m so glad that a widespread petition can guarantee a show a continuation of its story, if only in a different media form.

[evenasmallcough]

Too much introspection can be defeating. All the wondering why, the asking questions no one can answer. It feels as if I've done enough of that of late, and that it might now be doing more harm than good.

Simon Block, A Woman's Courage (pg. 323)

[evenasmallcough]

Even on a day like today when it's grey and there's no sun to be seen, autumn bursts with colour.

Simon Block, A Woman's Courage (pg. 284)

[dynamofilms]

The Eichmann Show (2015)

5/10

[paulinedorchester]

Block, Simon. Keep the Home Fires Burning. London: Zaffre Publishing, 2018.

When ITV cancelled Home Fires its creator and writer, Simon Block, had its third season all planned out. (I could have sworn that I read somewhere that he’d actually written all of the scripts, but I must have imagined that.) Evidently not one to stay down for long, he decided to novelize the unproduced episodes. The result was published beginning last autumn as four short e-books and, just a couple of weeks ago, as a single paperback. The result isn’t really a satisfactory substitute for a third season, and yet I couldn’t put it down.

The novel begins exactly where s2e6 leaves off, with Pat coming to a standstill in front of the house into which the Spitfire has just crashed. (Her home, let’s remember: she and Bob live on one side, the Campbells on the other.) We then get a lengthy recapitulation of the last couple of episodes; not until page 56 do we begin to move forward. The entire story unfolds in the six weeks following the crash.

For the sake of those who may want to read Keep the Home Fires Burning I’m reluctant to commit any spoilers, but it gives away very little to say that everyone in the house survives the crash (except for the pilot), although Will is in a very bad way afterwards. The big wartime historical issue in s3 was going to be “trekkers” - people from from the cities (Liverpool and Crewe, in this case) who drove or walked many miles into the country each evening to escape the air raids. There they camped in open ground, leaving themselves vulnerable to the elements and passing enemy aircraft, and sometimes doing damage to crops or other aspects of their surroundings, mostly because they didn’t know how to manage the campfires they built. Great Paxton now has a growing population of trekkers, some of whom are there during the day as well as at night. Frances wants the W.I. to find a way of helping these people; the opposition to this is led by Mrs. Talbot, Laura’s tormentor from s2.

Meanwhile: Pat - who becomes a Mass-Observation diarist, which is really rather perfect - has not been hearing from Marek, and she soon enough finds out the (not unexpected) reason for this; Frances accedes to Peter’s wishes and sends Noah off to boarding school, with near-disastrous consequences; and Teresa is trying her best to make a go of marriage to Nick, despite (a) apparently being constitutionally incapable of producing an edible cooked meal and (b) the continued presence of Annie, both in person and in Teresa’s head. (Nick is completely oblivious and blissfully happy.)

Part of what made this book so compelling was the novelty of reading what is essentially fan fiction (or so it seems to me) by the very person who created the characters and their setting. This wasn’t always comfortable: not unexpectedly, Block writes much better dialogue and internal monologue than narration, which is a bit of a problem for a conventional novel. Much worse, however, at least for a continuity freak such as yours truly, is that he contradicts his own canon in places: I certainly don’t recall Frances returning to the presidency of Great Paxford W.I. a couple of weeks prior to the end of the series, as we are told here, and the novel’s characterization of Joyce is much less sympathetic than Francesca Annis eventually made her. (We’re given a physical description of Joyce - “small,” with a “round” face and “beady eyes” - that doesn’t sound much like Francesca Annis, either.)

Some story threads that were left hanging at the end of s2 aren’t taken up here. Is Jenny at all changed by her experience on the day of the crash? Does David make any progress towards figuring out what he’s going to do with his life now that he can’t work as a butcher? What becomes of Joyce’s son? We don’t read a word about any of those characters, nor about any investigation into what caused the crash. We do, however, end with a cliffhanger once again, as Steph commits an act that’s bound to have repercussions of some kind. That’s just part of it, really. And since Block is planning to write two more Home Fires novels, presumably we’ll find out what happens.

But I think that I might prefer some good fanfic.   

[ceridwyn2]

More information on the "Home Fires" books being written by series writer/producer Simon Block.