An Afternoon with John Nichol - Nottingham

Join us for a very special lunchtime event with bestselling author and former RAF Tornado Navigator John Nichol as he talks about his experiences as a prisoner-of-war during the 1991 Gulf War, and his new book, Blitz – When World War Two Came Home.

May 2026 marks the 85th anniversary of the end of the so-called Night Blitz. But the aerial assault on Britain did not stop in May 1941. For too long, ‘The Blitz’ has been framed as a few desperate months from September 1940 that mainly affected London. In reality, the scope of the attack on the home front was far more widespread, and far more devastating. Between 1939 and 1945, Hitler’s aerial onslaught crashed into lives across the UK night after night, killing more than 60,000 civilians and leaving millions homeless.

Now, John Nichol tells this supposedly familiar narrative – one of the most important events in British history – afresh. Beginning with a search to understand his mother’s experiences of the blitz on Tyneside, Nichol ranges outward to reveal a truly national history.From Dover to Glasgow, Cardiff to Manchester, he uncovers astonishing accounts of catastrophe and resilience. Of ‘ordinary’ men, women and children catapulted into harm’s way. Of heroic firefighters battling infernos, the unflinching bravery required to defuse unexploded bombs, families wiped out in an instant, communities left bereft by a single blast. Using interviews with survivors, official records and eyewitness testimonies, Nichol gives voice to the unsung heroes who endured explosions, fire and fear, but found the courage to run towards danger.
He brings the story up to date by speaking to people involved in similar situations: mass casualty events, the deadly blaze at Grenfell Tower, bomb disposal in modern warfare and individual acts of astonishing bravery. And as conflict rages in Europe and the Middle East, Nichol asks whether the country still has the resilience today to survive a modern war.

Join John Nichol as he discusses a nationwide struggle that shaped the course of the war and the spirit of a generation.

John Nichol served in the Royal Air Force for fifteen years. On active duty during the first Gulf War, his Tornado bomber was shot down during a mission over Iraq. Captured and tortured, John was paraded on television, provoking worldwide condemnation and leaving one of the most enduring images of the conflict. He is the bestselling co-author of Tornado Down and author of many highly acclaimed Second World War epics including Spitfire and Lancaster, all of which were Sunday Times bestsellers. BLITZ is John’s twentieth book.

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