A life less ordinary

To mark the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, John Eskdale and other survivors share their harrowing memories of war and stories of hope

Family history has always been an interest of mine, mainly because of my rare surname Zwalf. Until I was in my late teens, I had never met anyone with the same name. My father Joseph Zwalf was born in

Beryl Nevell thought her service during the Second World War had been a case of ‘doing her duty’. Then someone special stepped in and showed her what she was truly owed…

Alsu Kurmasheva was jailed in a Russian prison on false charges. Separated from her family and with no end in sight, she turned to the one thing that kept her hope alive

ADMISSIONS SHADOW WORK Loneliness and the literary ...

When Thomas Joshua Cooper and Paul Hill set out in 1974 to meet and interview the ‘movers and shakers’ of 20th century photography (see Dialogue with Legends, AP 1 April) they had no idea that the project would take four years and become a unique archive that is still in print. Paul Hill describes the interview with British photojournalist George Rodger, followed by selected extracts from the recorded encounter