It is easy to forget the town beyond the fence of Bletchley Park played its own role in the Second World War.

Local historian John Taylor has applied his microscopic eye for detail and from dusty archives, the files of the Bletchley Gazette and other newspapers of which the Citizen is the natural heir and by talking to those who lived through it, produced Bletchley and District at War.

There's no escaping the monumental role of the codebreakers but John resists the temptation to simply add to the towering pile of books about that place – he wrote Bletchley Park's Secret Sisters (also published by Book Castle).

Instead Bletchley at War is the less remarkable but no less engrossing tale of an ordinary provincial town caught up in global conflict.

Against a chronology of the war John covers the arrival of evacuees from London to Victory celebrations and beyond.

Townsfolk enrolled for the Home Guard and ARP and the photos – the book is copiously illustrated – recall images of Dad's Army.

John tells us how Bletchley's warriors would, in the early days, have fought the Nazi horde with sticks, golf clubs and garden tools.

Capt Mainwaring's last stand was the novelty rock emporium.

Bletchley's battle HQ was behind The Bull Hotel at Fenny.

The invasion did not come but the Home Guard guarded the vital Fenny Stratford telephone Repeater Station linked to Bletchley Park.

The town started a Spitfire Fund to buy a fighter for the RAF – for £6,000.

Then Bletchley raised a commendable £75,000 towards £120,000 for a navy corvette.

But wars are not fought just by machines. John lists those who fell.

Many died as Japanese PoWs, some almost as the war ended.

There is war work, what happened where and who did what as well as extracts from Herbert Bennett, of Windsor Street's war diary.

There is bravery, endurance and even humour – the youngster whose school coat was eaten by a pig and how Bletchley Boys Brigade sparked a shortage of platform tickets seeing off the Northampton Girls Life Brigade at the station following a party!

With its anecdotes from local people this book will rekindle memories for old-timers and with a chapter aimed at present day youngsters covering rationing, air raid shelters and those Mickey Mouse gas masks it will be invaluable to anyone studying the Second World War at school.

Bletchley and District At War, by John A Taylor, published by Book Castle, paperback 250 pages, ISBN 978-1-903747-53-7. Price £14.99. Published November 1.

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