The Berlin Blockade [antikvár]

FOREWORD We are often asked how two people write a book together. The natural reply is that it is very hard to see how one person does it alone. J. B. Priestley said that though many people wanted to write a book, in practice very few had the discipline to stay in a room with themselves for hours at a time to produce it. Writing is solitary, taxing and isolating; it is far easier if two people share the problems of devising, researching and compiling - but only if they are of one mind about the subject and the approach. Fortunately we have never quarrelled about these essentials. During the four years taken to write The Berlin Airlift, holidays have been devoted to the travel that was needed; and while Ann worked on the book full time, John gave all the hours not spent at the BBC to his share of the work and took a three-month leave from television for uninterrupted research. Finally we understood why we can work together on a book with no more than the usual marital arguments: we take notes in an identical way so that either of us can gut a document and record its relevant points as if the other had done it, we have common historical values and the same black-humoured response to the material. This made the job a shared experience. Yet credit where credit is due. John wishes to record that the first name on the jacket is that of the principal author. Ann is satisfied that the second name has more than earned its right to be there. A four-year journey into and through an historical event leaves the travellers with a happy burden of gratitude to