Tom East

Tommy's War Tom East

Tommy's War is a story of speculative fiction. Or is it historical fiction? It's certainly a careful blend of detailed history and personal story. Real-life characters ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Josef Stalin feature in authentic situations. Or is this a love story crossing the rigid social barriers of the early 20th Century? Is it ultimately the story of a family, told over more than two centuries? Is it a story of adventure?

It is all of those things, told from the perspective of Tommy Green, a disaffected shopkeeper-craftsman living in Greenford, Middlesex. This is now a busy suburb of London but at that at that time it was still a semi-rural village. At the beginning of July, 1914, Tommy receives a mysterious visitor, who tells him that he, and only he, can alter history, bring sanity to the World for the future, and save millions of lives, including those of his as yet unborn son and his best friend. To do this he has to go to Paris to carry out a difficult and dangerous mission.

But Tommy has just learned that his life in the village, both romantically and in business, is set to improve in dramatic ways. If he goes to Paris his hopes for a new life in the village may be dashed. He is placed in an impossible conflict as his life is pulled in different directions. How can he even begin to resolve his dilemma?