{"title":"Randall Nicol","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"till-the-trumpet-sounds-again-the-scots-guards-1914-19-in-their-own-words-book-randall-nicol-9781911096078","title":"Till The Trumpet Sounds Again: The Scots Guards 1914-19 In Their Own Words","description":"This is a story of soldiers at war against the background the two battalions of the Scots Guards who served in Belgium and France from 1914 to 1918. The author's purpose is to display - by getting in amongst them - what they knew, saw, heard, felt and experienced around them and who they were as people. It is clear that the author has attempted to look and listen mostly through these men's eyes and ears - and sometimes through those of others who watched and listened nearby. In conveying how the war appeared to them, the author has not sought to achieve any wider view - nor to explain more than what is considered to be essential. What went on when the men were not in the trenches or fighting a battle holds just as much interest as when they were. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book is written in a chronological, narrative form - using as a basis the war diaries of the battalions, and supplemented from August 1915 by the two volumes of Cuthbert Headlam's History of the Guards Division in the Great War 1915-1918. The main content of the book stems from diaries, letters, notes, occasional pieces of verse, military documents and reports - as well as some press cuttings and any relevant published works. There are three key elements to the book: the first is that a great deal of the material used forms part of private collections and thus has never before; second is the intensive research which has been conducted into individual officers and soldiers; the third element is the blending together of all the research into a coherent whole so that there is a steady flow in an extraordinary story which is full of shocks and surprises, enjoyment and laughter - and (even in the most inauspicious situations) sorrow, joy and determination. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese officers and men were ordinary human beings who experienced extraordinary events. In all other ways, they behaved as soldiers do, in that they did what they had to do - often misbehaving out of the line, but rarely in it; enjoying what there was to enjoy and grumbling about much else. Among themselves they had their personal likes and dislikes, but all had to depend on each other and work together. Because of the comradeship borne of the shared experience at close quarters, they got to know each other very well indeed. One cannot be but humbled and moved by their resilience amid dire adversity - not least in the winter conditions of 1916-17. It is extremely important when reading to remember that they had no idea how long the war would continue - and it is not surprising how unexpected and unreal the announcement of the Armistice was for many. The Scots Guardsmen's understanding of what others were doing at any time was limited to what they saw and heard - very rarely anywhere near the whole story and often inaccurate (and sometimes, however unintentionally, unfair). Those British soldiers who took part in the Retreat from Mons saw and were well aware of the plight of the refugees - and they could see behind them the fires as the advancing Germans burnt farms and villages. Those who landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge early in October 1914 were similarly well aware of the plight of refugees. Those in the area east of the Somme battlefields after the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line in March 1917 saw the scale of calculated destruction. Those in the last weeks of the war who advanced across largely unfought-over Belgian and French territory (in the case of the Scots Guards, east of Cambrai) first met pathetically grateful civilians. Whatever else the war was about, it was also about liberation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49506396602641,"sku":"GOR007823284","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49543363395857,"sku":"GOR007836714","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911096079.jpg?v=1751347442"},{"product_id":"till-the-trumpet-sounds-again-volume-1-book-randall-nicol-9781911096061","title":"Till the Trumpet Sounds Again Volume 1","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49525083472145,"sku":"GOR007823287","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52093848977681,"sku":"GOR007836717","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911096060.jpg?v=1751630910"},{"product_id":"miles-barne-s-diary-book-randall-nicol-9781912390076","title":"Miles Barne's Diary","description":"Miles Barne, then aged forty one, who lived at Sotterley, Suffolk, rejoined the Scots Guards in June 1915. He began his Diary on 23 July as he left for the Western Front and, apart from when on leave, recorded life with the 1st Battalion Scots Guards almost every day in the most straightforward, but vivid, way. That included everything that he saw and heard within his own immediate sphere. Often it was far from military. So he noted the countryside and crops, farms and villages, flowers and plants, woods and trees, animals and birds. While his accounts of his more terrible experiences such as Loos, some of the trench tours in the Ypres Salient and of the dreadful Somme winter of 1916-17 catch the attention immediately, those of other events elsewhere and away from the fighting are of just as much interest. He died after being mortally wounded on 17 September 1917 by a bomb inadvertently dropped by a British plane, well behind the line near Ypres. Miles Barne never intended that anyone beyond his close family should read the Diary, which is open, direct, detailed and unvarnished, as well as being very humble, very much reflecting his own personality. It has been lying almost untouched at his home for a hundred years and is supported now by contemporary documents, which he saved because of their personal importance to him. One of the Diary's most distinctive features is the very large number of people whom he mentioned meeting, including many individual soldiers, as well as officers. Notably, whenever there was a battalion from Norfolk or Suffolk in his neighborhood he was quickly off to see who he knew already and meet others. Quite apart from East Anglia, his range of relations, friends and acquaintances from before the War was wide and then there were all the many others he met. It has been possible to identify a very large proportion of them. Miles Barne commanded a company at Loos in the most daunting circumstances on the lower slopes of Hill 70 during and after the failed later attacks. His men requested in writing that his exceptional conduct and bravery be drawn to the attention of the Brigade Commander. The aftermath of Christmas Day 1915 stands out. Miles Barne, temporarily commanding the Battalion, was the victim, though fully exonerated, of the attempt by the military authorities to carry through the full process of law after the 1915 Christmas truce at Neuve Chapelle. In addition to what he wrote in the Diary there are included here Miles Barne's own copies of court martial documents. He was defended by Raymond Asquith of the Grenadiers, the Prime Minister's eldest son. Miles Barne was naturally at ease with one and all other than those of high military rank. That in the spring of 1917 he twice dined as a guest at Headquarters Fourth Army and found it daunting sheds an interesting light on what such a headquarters looked like to an outsider. There are other intriguing vignettes of people, including the Prince of Wales and Winston Churchill and observations about what he saw well away from the line in the base areas, some of which impressed him, such as the bakeries, others not, such as the infantry base depot at Etaples. Amid the tragedy and sorrow, which included the deaths of his brother in law Tim Orr Ewing and his brother Seymour Barne, as well as many others he knew well, there were times of joyful entertainment, as when he rode a winner in the famous race meeting on the beach at Calais. Everything that could be enjoyed was enjoyed and everything ridiculous immediately seen as such, wherever it occurred. Miles Barne was intelligent, observant, conscientious, humane, gently witty, completely honest, enthusiastic, very interested in his fellow men, and morally and physically brave. Rightly he was very well liked by all ranks. His flaws as an officer were being too self-effacing and unassertive out of the line. He expressed himself with a certain naivety, because there was no guile, no calculation and no artifice to him. So he was very slow to spot it in others. His warmth, charm and kindness leave a memory touched with nobleness.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49613359939857,"sku":"GOR010234316","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1912390078.jpg?v=1751631762"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-randall-nicol.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}