Cleared for Take-off

Dirk Bogarde's latest memoir recalls the wartime years, when he served as a captain in photographic intelligence, and the post-war period when he embarked upon his film career, along with vignettes of his experiences in Hollywood and Italy, his beloved Provence, and finally his return to England. On his many reconnaissance missions, in Europe and the Far East, the young Bogarde experienced the terror of enemy attack and the horror of its aftermath, together with the intense camaraderie and bitter humour of the battlefield. He also felt, like countless others, a feeling of utter hopelessness at the war's end, when, as suddenly as the fighting had stopped, these youthful but hardened comrades-in-arms were dispersed to find their feet in a traumatized world. Having done some theatre work before the war, Bogarde returned to acting with apprehension, his ambition driven chiefly by a seeming lack of other options. To his own astonishment, a year after demob, he was working on his third feature film, had a car and driver, and a pleasant five-storey house in Chester Row.