Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • The Long Road Home

  • An Account of the Author’s Experiences
  • By: Adrian Vincent
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
  • Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (7 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Long Road Home cover art

The Long Road Home

By: Adrian Vincent
Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

They Shall Not Have Me cover art
Soldier in the Circus cover art
Malcolm MacPhail's Great War cover art
Mud and Khaki cover art
And We Go On cover art
The Greatest Escape cover art
Broken Wings cover art
1000 Days on the River Kwai cover art
Patrol cover art
Blood and Soil cover art
Left for Dead at Nijmegen cover art
The Yellow Star cover art
Into Enemy Arms cover art
Sword of Bone cover art
A Time to Love and a Time to Die cover art
Warriors for the Working Day cover art

Summary

The honest account of one prisoner-of-war’s struggle to survive through five years of Nazi imprisonment. An essential book for listeners of Horace Greasley, Alistair Urquhart, and Heather Morris.

On a cold May morning in 1940, Adrian Vincent arrived in France with his battalion. His war didn’t last long. Within five days the Siege of Calais was over, and nearly all his comrades were killed, wounded or, like him, taken prisoner. After a brutal journey across the breadth of Germany, Vincent and his fellow survivors began their life in Stalag VIIIB, set to work in terrible conditions down a Polish mine. For the next five years, they waged a war not against enemy soldiers but instead versus monotony, disease, cruelty, starvation, and hopelessness.

“The most honest prisoner-of-war story I have read in the last 10 years.” (Leicester Mercury)

“Mr. Vincent has the admirable intention of entertaining the reader, and this he does very successfully. His style is deft and concise. He has a nice wit and his characters emerge as life-like and life-size figures.” (Times Literary Supplement)

“Vincent tells his story with humour, sympathy, and observation.” (The Sphere)

The Long Road Home is a remarkably truthful memoir of what it was like to be a prisoner during the Second World War. Vincent does not portray himself or his comrades as heroes, but instead what they really were: survivors. 

©1956 The Estate of Adrian Vincent (P)2021 Tantor

What listeners say about The Long Road Home

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Pretty unique story

This was a pretty unique story of people who were prisoners who did not have it so awful as you may imagine obviously not fun but the story is interesting

Some parts of the book are actually laugh out loud funny, so it’s defo worth a listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

A gritty, true life story of a prisoner of war

This book makes a refreshing change from the usual POW offerings written from the perspective of officers having jolly japes with the Germans.

This is the story of private soldiers who were forced to work in the fields, factories and coal mines and those who refused to work were severely punished. Although there are some lighter sides to the story what comes over most is the unrelenting years of labouring for long hours on short rations.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

A missing story finally told.

In the UK at least, the usual stories of life as a POW in the second world war are all about the officers, an entitled group of the middle and upper classes whose sense of derring do and pluck seem redolent of the age of Empire and Colonialism. This story is a refreshing change. This remarkable tale begins when the author, a conscripted soldier with only a few weeks of basic training, finds himself in Calais, fixing his bayonet to his rifle and having to contemplate the prospect of killing or of being killed. But neither happens, instead he is captured and thus begins the long road to captivity in Poland, and, after 5 years, and inumerable indignities, struggles and other sufferings intermingled with a few desperately grabbed at joys, he then finds himself on a harrowing march to a Germany on the verge of defeat.
I am so glad I read this book. It is a story that the victors, in their writing of history, have chosen to largely ignore. I can only guess why that is, but if we are to remember and to never forget, then this tale of those who had no choice but to fight a war that was not of their design should be more widely known and appreciated.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!