July saw the publication of Chris Hall’s biography of Madge Addy. Madge lived just around the corner from the shop. We would like to think that she bought her sweets here long before we opened the bookshop. To coincide with Chorlton Book Festival we were delighted to be loaned nursing memorabilia and wartime artefacts including a stretcher bed and a military radio for a window display.
Chris brings her story to life using archive material and photographs from Britain, France, Spain and Norway. Madge’s Spanish Civil War experiences are vividly described in a mass of letters she wrote requesting medical aid and describing the harrowing conditions at her wartime hospital. Her activities in the Second World War show a woman with ‘nerves of steel’.
‘The nurse who became a spy’ Chris Hall, Pen & Sword publications is in stock priced at £25