1 Recovery, Retrieval and Healing 1.1 Reflexivity 1.2 Recovery 1.3 Our Fathers’ Deaths 1.4 Writing a Life 2 Missing Persons 2.1 Picking Up the Pieces 2.2 Selective Memory 3 Changing Perspectives on Death, Dying and Loss 4 World War One and its Transformations 4.1 A Farming Family 4.2 The Arrival of Children and War 4.3 Living with the Legacy of Conflict in Ireland 4.4 Life in the Industrialised West Midlands 5 Family Life Between the Wars: 1918–1931 5.1 The Armistice and its Aftermath 5.2 The School Magazine and the Diaries 5.3 The Pathe News Film 5.4 Family Life in the Gilmore Household 5.5 The Route to Brighton 6 War in Prospect, 1930–1939 6.1 The Great Outdoors 6.2 Leaving School, Leaving Topsham 6.3 Reading Between the Lines6.4 The Mannings at Home 6.5 Out to Work 6.6 Mother and Son 6.7 Transitions to Adulthood (1): Sketching 6.8 Transitions to Adulthood (2): Walking 6.9 At Home in a Group 6.10 Brother and Mother 7 At Home and Abroad 7.1 War in Prospect 7.2 Living with War 7.3 Arthur on Active Service 7.4 The Italian Campaign 7.5 The Aftermath 7.6 Enlistment 7.7 Enlistment and Training for the Normandy Landings 7.8 Seven Years of Change 8 Experiencing the Horror of World War Two 8.1 The Bigger Picture 8.2 The Allied Advance 8.3 Personal Journey 9 Growing Up Post-War: All Over Now? 9.1 Home Life 9.2 Fathering 9.3 Social Life 9.4 Leaving Home 9.5 Bringing the Threads Together 9.6 The Impact of War9.7 The End of Family Life 10 Endings and Beginnings 10.1 L’Osteria Restaurant, London 10.2 The Rutland Arms, Bakewell 10.3 Form, Content and Style 10.4 John Lewis, Birmingham 10.5 Death Studies 10.6 Journey’s End? 10.7 Legacies We Take Forward 10.8 The Personal and the Professional 

This book uses personal memoir to examine links between private trauma and the socio-cultural approach to death and memory developed within Death Studies.  The authors, two key Death Studies scholars, tell the stories that constitute their family lives. Each bears witness to the experiences of men who were either killed or traumatised during World War One and World War Two and shows the ongoing implications of these events for those left behind. The book illustrates how the rich oral history and material culture legacy bequeathed by these wars raises issues for everyone alive today. Belonging to a generation who grew up in the shadow of war, Komaromy and Hockey ask how we can best convey unimaginable events to later generations, and what practical, moral and ethical demands this brings.Family Life, Trauma and Loss in the Twentieth Century will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including Death Studies, Military History, Research Methods, Family History, the Sociology of the Family and Life Writing.

“Family Life, Trauma and Loss in the Twentieth Century is a rich and engaging memoir that can be accessed by all, regardless of professional background or specialty. Indeed, its wide scope means that it will appeal to anyone interested in genealogy, material culture, military and social history, as well as death studies.” (Laura Towers, Mortality, Vol. 24 (1), 2019)

“As so much has been written about death […] this particular genre offers new scope. It is, within itself, complex, yet graspable.” (Douglas J. Davies, Durham University, UK)“Hockey and Komaromy are two of the leading theorists of Death Studies and their extensive work in this field make this monograph not only profoundly interesting, but crucially important to the historical and sociological disciplines.” (Grace Huxford, University of Bristol, UK) “A hugely original and significant contribution to the field of death studies and related interests in loss and trauma.” (Arnar Árnason, Aberdeen University, UK)

Discusses the legacy of war, and the loss and trauma associated with war, in contemporary British lifeGives an overview of the development of the academic specialism of Death StudiesDraws significantly on family history and personal experiences