Sweet Clarinet by James Riordan
Published by OUP

“I watched in horror as the skin on the backs of my hands bubbled and browned like cheese on toast; slowly the skin melted away to charred ends of finger bone.”

Despite horrific burns Billy survives after a German bomb destroys his air-raid shelter, but cannot come to terms with his disfigurement and labels himself ‘The Freak’.   He has no will to live until he is given a gift by another disfigured survivor and told to stop worrying about the outside and concentrate on what is inside.   The present is a clarinet - and Billy does not even know which end to blow.