Knock on Any Door &ndash

Publisher: Peter Finnigan Pentland Press, 1999 £ 8.50

Peter Finnigan tells the story of his life and covers his family background from the early 1800’s. The family founded the eponymous luxury store, well-known in the northwest of England.

Some third of the book covers the time the author spent as an Able Seaman during World War II. At sixteen he joined the homeguard , the Navy at eighteen. After a conventional shore-based start, he saw service on Shropshire, and, for much longer, Warspite. He was part of the skeleton crew that took the latter for repair after serious damage by one of the first “glider bombs”. Finnigan was retrained and served with Terpsichore in charge of gunnery radar. He missed the end of the Japanese war and returned soon into the family business.

The seafaring section has many anecdotes which give some insight into life on board a fighting ship. There are a few archive black and white photos. For the rest, it is the story of a man’s growth in the family business, with much made of acquaintance with such as Sarah Churchill. It gives some idea of the contrast between post war North America and life in Switzerland and the UK. It is a short and easy read but not exceptionally enlightening. –MJD

Page prepared 21 June 1999