Showing results by author "Christopher Somerville" in All Categories

In this powerful and moving narrative, Christopher Somerville skilfully links personal testimonies to present an epic which embraces comedy and tragedy, pride and degradation, close comradeship and stark racial prejudice, devotion to the benign Mother Country and a burning desire to see the back of her. Many of the veterans had never previously talked of their experiences, even to close loved ones.

In January 2006, a month or two after my father died, I thought I saw him again - a momentary impression of an old man, a little stooped, setting off for a walk in his characteristic fawn corduroys and shabby quilted jacket. After teenage rifts it was walking that brought us closer as father and son, and this ghost of Dad has been walking at my elbow since his death, as I have ruminated on his great love of walking, his prodigious need to do it - and how and why I walk myself.