The Bombing of Golders Green

On the night of September 24, 1940, a German warplane dropped a bomb into the backyard of a house in the London suburb of Golders Green where a bespectacled, asthmatic 10-year-old named Brian Gluss lived with his family. His brother Michael and his grandmother Hannah were killed in the blast, and Brian would never stop thinking—and writing—about what happened that night he simply called The Bombing.

Over five decades Brian obsessively searched for what really happened the night of The Bombing–-making some surprising discoveries along the way. To create this book his editor has gleaned from hundreds of documents to form a clear narrative out of Brian’s long journey. The Bombing of Golders Green begins with Brian’s finest work inspired by The Bombing: his 1996 op-ed “Remembering the Forgotten War Dead.” This essay is fearless and complete in its vision and should finally reach the wider audience it deserves. But it is only the first word in the full story of The Bombing.

Complex as any novel, The Bombing of Golders Green contains a cast of unique characters including Brian’s parents, Motel and Tillie; The Three Sisters (Becky, Millie and Isabel) who had very separate experiences of The Bombing; and above all others, the mysterious and ever-shifting figure of Michael, the lost son.

Brian Gluss (1930-2013) was a man of peace whose life was permanently shaped by an act of violence. If you want to know the truth of what war does to ordinary people, what happened to Brian and the rest of the Gluss family is essential.