Product Description

The extraordinary diaries of Thomas Cairns Livingstone represent twenty years of gorgeously idiosyncratic daily records of a middle-class Glasgow household, over a period spanning shortly before the Great War to the early 1930s. Thomas Cairns Livingstone, a mercantile book keeper, began his diaries in 1913, when he, his wife Agnes and their son 'wee Tommy' set up house in the Glasgow neighbourhood of Govanhill. For the next twenty years, Livingstone dutifully recorded each day's events in his Collins diaries, from small domestic dramas to troop movements as news of the Great War filtered back to the anxious home front. Rescued during a house clearance, the intricate details of these journals -- interspersed throughout with Livingstone's wonderfully warm and idiosyncratic illustrations -- provide a priceless record of the impression world events were making on the ordinary people at home and an extraordinary chronicle of the ups and downs of working-class life in the period immediately before, during and after the First World War.The details of the family's early life, notes about the (usually dreich) Glasgow weather, and comments on the carnage on the front and on the high seas, are written and illustrated with such warmth and charm that the story of this very ordinary household in the early part of the 20th century becomes completely addictive.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22621 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'Amusing and beautifully illustrated!with an eye for detail!TOMMY'S WAR!provides the missing piece of the wartime jigsaw -- a detailed description of the tender, comforting ordinariness of everyday life that so many brave men gave their lives to preserve.' Daily Mail 'Do try and purchase "Tommy's War", a book of the recently found diaries of a Glaswegian clerk!and his delightful drawings alongside!they are splendidly evocative.' Sunday Times

From the Inside Flap
In 1913 Thomas Cairns Livingstone began keeping a diary. A Glaswegian shipping clerk, he spent his days working, visiting friends, complaining about the weather and worrying about the rent. He had no idea he would live through one of the most tumultuous periods of global history: the First World War.

But as the crisis in Europe worsened and news filtered back to an anxious home front, Livingstone's commentary on family life, Scottish weather and his culinary attempts were soon interwoven with accounts of soldiers wounded, prisoners taken and submarines sunk. Illustrated throughout with Livingstone's wry, whimsical sketches, these remarkable diaries capture perfectly the uncertainty of the period and the effects of war on an ordinary working-class family for whom life had to - and did - go on.

Unique and utterly compelling, Tommy's War is beautifully written, touching and difficult to put down.

From the Back Cover
Wednesday, 5 August 1914

Weather same as yesterday.
Factor called here today for his rent, and got it. Imagine!!!!
Town full of Territorials. Getting ready for our country's defence. Britain declared war on Germany last night at 11pm. Now fighting: Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Servia and Russia.
The biggest war in the world's history.

Customer Reviews

A Delight
This book is a delight, a gem. The original illustrations take the diaries beyond the mundane, and Thomas Livingstone's gentle humour enlivens the often dreary weather and seemingly constant worries over Agnes health. Zeplins, Chimneys, the wash house, news from the front, the ironing, the cost of coal..... all of life is here. You will love it!

What a find!!! An absolute treasure trove.
I don't usually read diaries but this caught my eye and I decided to give it a go as I generally read war books. From page one it became a treasure trove of snippets from a bygone era. How a family strove to make ends meet through severe hardship during ww1. Thomas makes light of it all with wit, charm and such delightful drawings of news items or his family.
Shaun sewell has made a great discovery and shared it with the nation. We must thank you for that and just hope Harper collins will see fit to produce book 2 from 1919 t0 1933. I only hope someone will find the pre war diaries that might have started as early as 1905 whilst thomas was courting Agnes.
This is a real gem, set in Glasgow it gives us all another angle on the great war, A great social history, and whether you are from the North, the south, England, scotland, Ireland or Wales it will appeal to all.

a wee man's great war
Having a fair knowledge of this 1914/1918 hellish war from the writings of the politicians and historians,it was both interesting and enlightening to follow the lives of ordinary working folk who happened to be living and working in Glasgow at this time through the diaries of Thomas Livingstone. This book has everything: humour, compassion and suspense [will he or won't he be called to the trenches]. Here is a man of very limited formal education who writes beautifully quoting from the classics ,using French and Latin phrases and illustrating his pages with skillful sometimes sad but usually very funny cartoons. This day to day account of his family life[ birthdays, Christmas, summer holidays] against the horrors of the first world war is a masterpiece.Thomas Livingstone dealt with his wife's failing health, food shortages, the death of friends and alas lack of tobacco to indulge his only vice with fortitude and kindness.
I defy anyone to read this unassuming work without laughing out loud and shedding a few tears.