To quickly link to a Bates book for more details, use the list below:
A Moment In Time
First Published in 1964 by Michael Joseph Limited.
'There would have to be a war in a summer like this'.
The setting of A Moment In Time,/i> is Southern England in the summer of 1940, the year of the Battle of Britain. The story is recounted by a young girl of good family and rather secluded upbringing, Elizabeth Cartwright, who suddenly finds her life revolutionised and eventually almost shattered by her friendship with a group of young fighter-pilots engaged in desperate conflict above her beloved pastoral countryside.
As she passes successively through hero-worship, gaiety, adoration, love, dread, disillusionment, anguish, bitterness and tragedy to final happiness, the novel becomes an account of two battles: the one of mortal conflict for victory in the sky, the other, equally desperate, for the very soul of the girl herself.
Those who already know the stories of Flying Officer X, which H.E. Bates wrote from his experiences with the RAF during the war, will not need to be reminded that his knowledge and interpretation of the lives of flying men is vigorous, compelling and authentic. These qualities are all eminently displayed in A Moment In Time, together with his unparallelled feeling for the English countryside and it's people during that most memorable summer nearly a quarter of a century ago.