LUSTLEIGH’S WW2 book, launched in 2025 on the 80th anniversary of the conflict, has scooped the prestigious honour.

The book has been awarded Best Community Publication at the latest Alan Ball Awards.

David McGahey, chairman of the Lustleigh Society which published the book, said: ‘This is a huge achievement and just recognition of the amazing community we have in our beautiful Dartmoor village.’

In making the award, the organisers the Library Services Trust and CILIP Local Studies Group reported a large number of entries.

Of the Lustleigh book, the judges said the publication ‘was the result of a huge community effort, brilliantly researched content, well written, with good editing, and beautifully produced’.

Home Front to Front Line; Lustleigh’s United Response in World War Two is the culmination of a collective effort by an army of volunteers who have each researched a particular aspect of life in this small Dartmoor community and how everyone, young and old, played their part in contributing towards the war effort.

Chapters cover such areas as the Home Guard and other military activity, children and evacuees, the roles of women and girl guides, and religion.

There’s even a chapter about tourism that was still active in Lustleigh throughout the war.

The book concludes with dedicated biographies of each of the 10 men who went into battle but were never to return.

Mr McGahey added: ‘It is another publication of which the Lustleigh Society is immensely proud and this award really is icing on the cake’.

The Lustleigh Society exists to research, care for and promote the heritage of the parish of Lustleigh.

It manages the Lustleigh Community Archive which contains records, maps, parish magazines, photographs and a historic documents relevant to the area.

Established in 1985, the Alan Ball Award is designed to encourage the production of high quality publicly or locally funded local history publications and is in honour of Alan Ball, a local history author and an officer and member of the Library Association.