The War in the Air

The first three chapters of The War in the Air relate details of the life of Bert Smallways and his extended family in Bun Hill - a (fictional) former Kentish village which had become a London suburb within living memory (in many ways similar to Bromley where Wells was born). The story begins with Bert's brother Tom, a stolid greengrocer who views technological progress with suspicion and apprehension (which would turn out to be all too well founded) and their aged father, who recalls with longing the time when Bun Hill was a quiet village and he had driven the local squire's carriage.