A Place of Dreams: Desire, Deception and a Wartime Coming of Age – Alison Twells

in conversation with Paulette Edwards
Sat 17 October, 2026 at 11:00 am

Norah Hodgkinson (1925-2009) was a working-class schoolgirl and a prolific diarist. In 1940, aged fifteen, she knitted a pair of socks for the Royal Navy Comforts Fund. The sailor who received them wrote to thank her, drawing Norah into a mysterious ‘love triangle’. When Norah died in 2009, Alison Twells – her great niece – received a suitcase archive containing 71 pocket diaries, a collection of photographs and the sailor’s letters. In this blend of mystery, history and creative non-fiction, Alison uses the material to explore the wartime coming-of-age of an ordinary girl. A Place of Dreams uncovers a dark tale of male rivalry, wartime anonymity and a young woman’s appetite for life and love amidst unexpected dangers.

Dr Alison Twells is Professor Emerita of Social and Cultural History at Sheffield Hallam University and currently researches and writes on ‘history from below’ and women’s and girls’ lives in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Paulette Edwards is a BBC broadcaster.