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.Longmate, Jill, "Norman Longmate obituary", The Guardian, 5 July 2016. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1981. Longmate died in June 2016 at the age of 90."Norman Longmate, historian – obituary", The Telegraph, 27 June 2016. He was married to and separated from Elizabeth (née 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.
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
References
External links Jill Longmate, "Social historian who corresponded with Mary Whitehouse", Prospero: The newspaper for BBC pensioners, issue 6, December 2016, page 11.