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  • Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?

  • A Powerful Story of Love and Survival
  • By: Horace Greasley
  • Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
  • Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (428 ratings)
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Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? cover art

Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?

By: Horace Greasley
Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
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Summary

Horace 'Jim' Greasley was 20 years of age in the spring of 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and latterly Poland. There had been whispers and murmurs of discontent from certain quarters, and the British government began to prepare for the inevitable war.

After seven weeks training with the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicester, he found himself facing the might of the German army in a muddy field south of Cherbourg, in Northern France, with just 30 rounds of ammunition in his weapon pouch. Horace's war didn't last long. He was taken prisoner on 25th May 1940 and forced to endure a 10 week march across France and Belgium en route to Holland.

Horace survived...barely. Food was scarce; he took nourishment from dandelion leaves, small insects and occasionally a secret food package from a sympathetic villager, and drank rain water from ditches.

Many of his fellow comrades were not so fortunate. Falling by the side of the road through sheer exhaustion and malnourishment meant a bullet through the back of the head and the corpse left to rot. After a three day train journey without food and water, Horace found himself incarcerated in a prison camp in Poland. It was there he embarked on an incredible love affair with a German girl interpreting for his captors.

He experienced the sweet taste of freedom each time he escaped to see her, yet incredibly he made his way back into the camp each time, sometimes two, three times every week. Horace broke out of the camp then crept back in again under the cover of darkness after his natural urges were fulfilled. He brought food back to his fellow prisoners to supplement their meagre rations. He broke out of the camp over 200 times and towards the end of the war even managed to bring radio parts back in. The BBC news would be delivered daily to over 3,000 prisoners. This is an incredible tale of one man's adversity and defiance of the German nation.

©2019 Horace Greasley (P)2019 Bonnier Books UK

What listeners say about Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?

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Disappointing

i felt the graphic detail of the sexual encounters and the language was inappropriate for this subject matter. I have read a lot of books regarding the holocaust that i have found incredible, this is definitely not one of them, and to link it with 'The Tattoist of Auschwitz' is absurd. I am not a prude, i enjoyed '50 shades of grey' where sexual detail is necessary for the genre. A very disappointing and distasteful read.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

More Mills & Boon than war.

Semi erotic novel that spends more time telling stories of Horace getting his leg over than anything else.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

WW2 PORN ACTION

To be honest , a bit like reading a porn story, i understand that Horace was only a young man at the time of WW2 but way way too much unnecessary sex , one can only think that if he'd spent a little less time talking about his sexual conquests, the story would be more believable, as it is, it lacks a bit in the reality department.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful story totally spoilt

Beautiful story spoilt by it being padded out by very crude descriptions which I very much doubt were the word of Horace Greasley. Leaves one wondering what is true and what is not. A great shame.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Good underlying story spoilt by misogynistic fantasy

I completed this book as it was a book club challenge, but never have I forced myself on through a book so unwillingly. I can’t believe someone’s planning to make a film about this!

What a shame that the original teller of this story seems to have added in an abundance of far-fetched embellishments to what could otherwise have been an interesting and compelling account of his life as a POW.

I appreciate that the writer wrote it acting ‘as the fingers of’ the fruity old story teller, but in my view it would have been kinder to the teller’s (now) memory, and that of his contemporaries, not to mention ‘his’ women, to put it through some serious editing.

The misogynistic reported speech attributed to fellow prisoners and German and Russian soldiers and recurring references to ‘pooftahs’ added nothing to this story. Repeatedly flowery descriptions and overly graphical lads-mag references to sex (and on at least one occasion, an uncomfortably brutal session described with pride) together with constant self congratulatory comments about his prowess as a lover and the size of his dick, had the ring of a soft porn fantasy about them. Too many almost comical references to erect cocks, moist, welcoming vaginas, moans of pleasure (hers, naturally) and ladies’ ‘secret places’. Ugh. This man had no respect for the women he supposedly loved.

Then there was the constant placing of the author at the centre of some heroic piece or other. 200 escapes? Really?

It lacked authenticity for me and detracted from what had the makings of an interesting account of one man’s war. I was left wishing we’d heard from the twin brother serving in Burma instead.

The final nail in the authenticity coffin was the detailed description of the Irish soldier singing (in the truck on the way to their release) a folk song about the lovers conversing across lonely prison walls. Surely that’s a direct lift of lyrics from the ‘Fields of Athenry’, a song not written until the 70s?

A good underlying true life POW story spoilt by misogynistic fantasy and overly descriptive shagging scenes...an opportunity wasted.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A very moving book.

This book was very moving in parts and extremely honest. Well worth it listen. The narrator was very good as well.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

This is a top class true story.

This is a must,i've read many a book about the Concentration Camps in World War 2 but this book is from the British view point of them and how a group off the soldiers stood up to the Germans whenever the opportunity arise,they had guts that's for sure and was astounded when i was listening at night and heard a prisoner called Jock came from Falkirk Scotland in the exact town im writing this review from now ,if you decide to purchase it you will not be disappointed.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

exceptional

not the usual. prisoner of war book. romance well described through out. War and love in one book.

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2 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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  • VI
  • 08-08-23

Graphic. Do not recommend.

I listened to the first few chapters, then returned the book. Extremly graphic. I feel it is more, fictional than fact. A lot of discrepancies in the book. Do not recommend. As other reviewers say, badly written soft porn,

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Jackie Collins re-writes The Great Escape

While I don’t doubt the incidents happened, there is no need for the consistent over dramatisation and graphic tales of sexual activity in a book covering the subject matter.
I gave up about half way through, if I wanted to listen to a soft core porn book I’d download Jackie Collins.

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1 person found this helpful