Norman Longmate (15 December 1925 – 4 June 2016) was an English author and social and military historian.
He was educated at
Christ's Hospital and
Worcester College,
Oxford, where he read
Modern History. Author of 31 books, and of various radio documentaries, he often worked as a historical adviser on TV programmes, including the BAFTA-award winning How We Used to Live.[1] He was made a Fellow of the
Royal Historical Society in 1981. Longmate died in June 2016 at the age of 90.[2] He was married to and separated from Elizabeth (nee Taylor), who was a deputy head teacher. She died in 2011. His daughter, Jill, was a teacher, writer and historian who died in 2023 aged 63.[3]
Works by Norman Longmate
Miscellaneous
A Socialist Anthology (Phoenix House) 1953
Oxford Triumphant (Phoenix House) 1954
Writing for the BBC (BBC Publications) 1966 (1st edition) to 1988 (8th edition)
Detective Stories
Death Won't Wash (Cassell) 1957
A Head for Death (Cassell) 1958
Strip Death Naked (Cassell) 1959, Garland Publishing, New York, 1989
Vote for Death (Cassell) 1960
Death in Office (Robert Hale) 1961
Careers Books
Keith in Electricity (Chatto & Windus) 1961
Electricity Supply (Sunday Times) 1961
Electricity as a Career (Batsford) 1964
General Social History
King Cholera: the Biography of a Disease (Hamish Hamilton) 1966
The Waterdrinkers: a History of Temperance (Hamish Hamilton) 1968
Alive and Well: Medicine and Public Health 1830 to the Present Day (Penguin Education) 1970
The Workhouse (Temple Smith) 1974, (Pimlico) 2003
Milestones in Working Class History (BBC Publications) 1975
The Hungry Mills: the Story of the Lancashire Cotton Famine 1861-5 (Temple Smith) 1974
The Breadstealers: the Fight Against the Corn Laws 1838-46 (Temple Smith) 1984 (St Martin's Press, New York) 1984
History of the Second World War
How We Lived Then: a History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (Hutchinson) 1971, (Arrow Books) 1973, (Pimlico) 2002
If Britain Had Fallen (BBC Publications and Hutchinson) 1972; (Stein and Day, New York) 1974, (Arrow Books) 1975, (Greenhill Books, London & Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Philadelphia) 2004
The Real Dad's Army: the Story of the Home Guard (Hutchinson) 1974, (Arrow Books) 1974, (Amberley) 2010
The GIs: the Americans in Britain 1942-1945 (Hutchinson) 1975
Air Raid: the Bombing of Coventry, 1940 (Hutchinson) 1976, (Arrow Books) 1978, (David McKay, New York) 1978
When We Won the War: the Story of Victory in Europe, 1945 (Hutchinson) 1977
The Doodlebugs: the Story of the Flying Bombs (Hutchinson) 1981, (Arrow Books) 1986
Hitler's Rockets: the Story of the V2s (Hutchinson) 1982, (Pen & Sword Books) 2009
The Bombers: the RAF Offensive Against Germany (Hutchinson) 1983, (Arrow Books) 1988
The Home Front: an Anthology of Personal Experience 1938-1945. Edited with a Preface. (Chatto & Windus) 1986
General Military History
Defending the Island: From Caesar to the Armada (Hutchinson) 1989, (Grafton Books) 1990, (Pimlico) 2001
Island Fortress: the Defence of Great Britain 1603-1945 (Hutchinson) 1991, (Grafton Books) 1993, (Pimlico) 2001
Autobiography
The Shaping Season: an Author's Autobiography - Childhood and Schooldays (Fairford Press) 2000 & 2001