After the First World War, Albania needed a new king and the vacant throne was advertised in a London newspaper. In the 1920s, an Albanian chieftain pacified the country, with the help of retired British army officers. In 1928, he was declared King Zog - a name which unfortunately coincided with the name of a British cleaning product. In 1938, King Zog scored his greatest public relations success, when he married the beautiful half-American Hungarian countess who became Queen Geraldine. Amongst the wedding gifts was a red Mercedes car from Hitler. The king and queen had a son in April 1939. Two days after Prince Leka’s birth, the Italians invaded and conquered Albania, and the Royal Family fled into exile. They endured the Blitz at The Ritz in London, and then spent the rest of the war in England, at Ascot and in the Chilterns. Their drama continued through the Cold War when the family went into exile in Egypt, France, Spain and Africa, all the time seeking the overthrow of the communist regime which replaced them. They family only returned to Albania in 2002. For the first time, this book tells the social history of this true story from the memories and photographs of the people who were there.

Book details: ISBN: 978-0-9550883-1-5 Size: A4/Pages: 84 Illustrations: over 200 colour photographs & illustrations, most never published before. Published in English: June 2010 Published in Albannian: November 2011

Stefan Center International Bookstore, Rruga Hoxha Tahsin 2, Tirana, Albania (in English and Albanian versions)

Neil Rees works as a computational linguist and is interested in local history, especially the social history of wartime exiles. He is a regular speaker at local history societies in the Chiltern area of England. His previous book "The Czech Connection" explored President Benes and the Czechoslovak Government in Exile, was published in 2005.