An extraordinary wartime memoir, combining the best kind of adventure story with a coming of age testimony of unforgettable resonance and poignancy.
Stephen Grady OBE was born in Northern France in 1925, the son of an English father who was a head gardener in the Imperial War Graves Commission. In 1941 he joined the French Resistance, carrying out missions for which he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Silver Star, the American Medal of Freedom, and a British mention in Dispatches. After the liberation of France, he joined the British Army and served as a Lieutenant with the Intelligence Corps, before returning to a long career in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, for which he eventually became director of the France area. He now lives alone in Greece.Michael Wright, who worked with Stephen Grady on Gardens of Stone, is an English writer based in rural France. He has published two bestselling books about his life-changing experiences there: C'est la Folie and Je t'aime La Folie.
A heart breaking, beautifully crafted true story of courage, loss, loneliness and the reality of what it meant to fight the Occupation. - Kate Mosse, author of CITADELThis is not only a remarkable coming of age story, it is also one of the finest memoirs of the war I have ever read. Stephen Grady brilliantly conveys the journey from childhood adventure to a far more sinister world where the threat of betrayal and torture lurks at every turn. At turns profoundly moving and grippingly tense, this book, like The Railway Man and First Light before it, deserves to become a classic. - James Holland, author of HELLFIREAn extraordinary memoir of the journey to manhood unfolding against a backdrop of terror, destruction and stark tragedy. At times charmingly whimsical, at times almost unbearably poignant, Gardens of Stone is the best book I have read about the struggle of seventy years ago - and its haunting legacy - bar none. - Colonel Tim CollinsRemarkable...extraordinary. - Libby Purves, BBC Radio 4 MidweekHis heroism is of the very real kind...vividly recreates , in a simple and unadorned style, life under Nazi occupation. - Sunday TimesStephen Grady has made his authorial debut at the age of 87 with a book that is thrilling, honest, funny and sad. - SpectatorBritish schoolboys doubtless have quite different fantasies nowadays, but for much of the last
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