Tail-End Charlie, written and illustrated by Mick Manning and his wife Brita Granström, is the personal story of Charles Desmond Manning and at the same time shares common elements with millions of people's wartime experiences of adventure, death, survival and love.

It follows Charlie from joining up in 1943 to his last mission in 1945 when he was wounded and is based on the stories Mick heard from the age of eight.

"It took him about 15 years after the war to start talking about it and it came out in dribs and drabs at bath time or during car journeys," he says.

He died in 1977 at only 52 from a heart attack while at work as a headmaster.

"It's taken me quite a few years to sort it all out in my head and write them down because I wanted to do it with him speaking the words – as I remember them," says Mick.

Charles Desmond Manning grew up in Tipton Street, Brightside, and his own father, Charlie Muss Manning, was a locally well-known bare knuckle fighter and steelworker at Vickers, Brown Bayley's and then Steel, Peach and Tozer.

"He is said to have run out into the street and fired his First World War service revolver up at the German bombers when he heard his son had been wounded in action," reports Mick.

"Before the war dad played football for Sheffield Schoolboys and was a member of the Sheffield Civil Defence, helping to put up barrage balloons on The Rec near his home.

"He often brought the ATS girls home for cocoa (so my aunty Brenda tells me). As soon as he was old enough he joined Bomber Command because, bless him, he'd read in his Boys Own that RAF crew got real fried eggs – not the powdered stuff he hated so much."

After demob Charlie trained as a teacher, working locally at schools in Kimberworth, Rotherham, until 1960 promotion took him to Keighley and he worked there for the rest of his life, becoming headmaster at Hartington and later Highfield middle schools.

Mick Manning studied illustration at the Royal College of Art in London and spent some years teaching in Glasgow until settling with his Swedish-born wife and fellow illustrator Brita at Berwick on the Scottish border.

Specialising in children's non-fiction, they have produced a number of award-winning books, one of which, Yuck, was featured in the Mike Leigh film, Happy-Go-Lucky.

Tail-End Charlie was clearly something special, however.



"It's very personal and you are showing something of yourself with a book like this and so I am really pleased to have got a good response so far.

"I suppose this is my way of saying thanks to my dad in print – without people like him and their victory who knows what life would be like today? – and passing on his stories to the grandchildren he never met."

The couple have four sons between 11 and one and a half – Max, Bjorn, Frey and Charlie, "who's definitely our tail-end Charlie"

Mick traced his dad's pilot and navigator in New Zealand who were able to provide additional information and also consulted another pilot from their squadron, Australian Richard Levy.

When it came to the illustrations, Mick and Brita split responsibilities: "She's done the people and I've done the bombers, buildings, skies, landscapes and backgrounds".

The text appears as pages from a wartime flight log and the images are augmented with ephemera such as adverts, cigarette cards, magazine clippings and photos.

Does this make it more a nostalgic trip for adults than a children's book? "Ah, we were careful to research the National Curriculum," replies Mick.

"We have boys of nine and 11 and they have both done World War II so we knew there would be a market there if we got the right balance. We made sure we talked about general aspects of the war."

At the same time it is a very personal book which concludes with Charlie meeting his future wife, Muriel Jones.

"My mum is still alive and she was very touched by the book," says Mick.

"She was a wireless operator and worked at Bletchley Park. I've suggested that her story could make the basis of another book about a woman's war. She's not keen and says she signed the Official Secrets Act which I said probably doesn't matter any more. I'm still working on her."

Tail-End Charlie is published by Frances Lincoln Books at £11.99.

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