Product Description

FORGOTTEN VOICES OF THE GREAT WAR was the surprise best-seller at Christmas 2002, selling over 60,000 copies in hardback alone. The formula was simple: Max Arthur interviewed some of the 30 surviving British soldiers from the First World War and combined their stories with other interviews in the Imperial War Museum and various private collections. LAST POST is very consciously the last word from the handful of survivors left alive in 2004. When they die, our final human connection with the First World War will be broken: after this book, we will have only recordings or diaries. We will never be able to ask a question of someone who was there.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112241 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

James Holland, THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
'this remarkably poignant book.'

Review
'Nostalic photographs add to the book's flavour, lighting up a time when generations predating the modern, pervasie 'me' culture lived and worked for each other.' (TRIBUNE )

"For their devotion to King and Country and for Mr Arthur's work we should all be grateful" (CONTEMPORARY REVIEW )

"one you will want to add to your collection" (THE GREAT WAR )

About the Author
Max Arthur is a skilled interviewer who has written oral histories of the RAF and Royal Navy during the Second World War as well as the Falklands conflict. FORGOTTEN VOICES OF THE GREAT WAR was a Sunday Times bestseller both in hardback and paperback.

Customer Reviews

An education
This beautiful, vivid and poignant book deserves a wide audience and should be force-fed to every hoody wearing ASBO collecting yob. In their own words, 21 WWI veterans describe their experience of the great war.

This is not a book about facts, dates and statistics. It is macro social history of the uppermost important at the mirco level. It's about real people, normal in almost everyway, who gave so much. It was a humbling read.

Max Arthur through the words of 21 hero's (most now dead) provides a fitting testament to those lost during 1914-1918.

It also highlights what happened after the war, how life continued forever changed.

Reading this book, one is sad not because so many young men died, that is true (Lord Denning said Britain lost its finest men during the war) but because we have forgotten so much about what is important, about being good citizens, about duty, honour and friendship. It is not good enough to mock "not like the old days".

Read the book and decide for yourself.

A great read
I echo the comments from the previous reviewer. This is a great read, and it's all their own words. The author has resisted the temptation to interperet or add to, or explain their words.

Not only do the men talk about the war, but they talk about their lives too. And for me that was equally as interesting because I've been tracing my family tree, and it gives you a small insite into the everyday lives of ordinary people at the turn of the last century.

It really is quite amazing how long these men have lived, and the thing that brought it home for me was the fact that some of them had outlived their own children!

Very moving read
It is absolutely amazing that there are still, in 2005, any veterans at all of the First World War. I love the fact that the author, realising that the last few would soon be gone, raced around the country collecting their stories. He makes no secret of the fact that the men are grouped together by the accident of longevity, rather than anything else, but that does not make their stories any less powerful. Their stories are very moving indeed. These are not great heroes or famous men, but the ordinary soldiers whose courage and stoicism won what was meant to be 'the war to end all wars', and their modesty shines through the accounts. I liked the fact that the author recorded something about all of their lives too, and not just the war years, it gave it a valuable sense of context, and the photographs of the men – then and now – were very touching. For those who can find official military histories a bit overpowering, this is a wonderful book to take you straight to the heart and minds of those who were actually there.