This is the gripping and sometimes hilarious story of how a band of heroic curators and eccentric custodians saved Britain’s national heritage during their Darkest Hour. As Hitler’s forces gathered on the other side of the Channel to threaten the UK, men and women from London’s national museums, galleries and archives forged extraordinary plans to evacuate their collections to safety. Utilising country houses from Buckinghamshire to Cumbria, tube tunnels, Welsh mines and Wiltshire quarries, a team of unlikely heroes packed up their greatest treasures in a race against time. It was the sweltering summer of 1939.

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London. Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2017, has appeared at the Cheltenham, Hay and Henley literary festivals and has also featured on BBC radio and TV.