{"title":"Serena Merton","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"jack-and-hopit-book-serena-merton-9781911512806","title":"Jack and Hopit","description":"A chance discovery of the existence of the gravestone carved with the battle honors of Hopit - the Tipperary-foaled hunter - led the author to research the Great War relationship of Hopit and 19-year-old Second Lieutenant John (Jack) Forrester Colvin in their four long years on the Western Front. Extensive family photograph albums bring a personal element to the story of this long partnership, while the war diaries of the 9th Lancers and letters from individual soldiers tell the wartime story. Jack's father, Forrester, commanded two reserve regiments of cavalry and was Advisor of Horses to the 11th Corps of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) throughout the Great War. After the Armistice and, as part of the Army of Occupation in Cologne, he was responsible for the future of the horses who had served King and Country - choosing which were to be repatriated; which were to continue with their regiments; and which were to be sold to French and Belgian farmers (and, unfortunately, butchers). Jack and Hopit's postwar years were spent point-to-pointing, hacking and hunting together - and though Hopit died in 1927, his elaborate gravestone hints at the closeness of their relationship through those most grueling of years on the Western Front.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49506217885969,"sku":"GOR009001065","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51871507480849,"sku":"GOR014438318","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911512803.jpg?v=1751632326"},{"product_id":"a-thousand-battles-book-serena-merton-9781914377419","title":"A A Thousand Battles","description":"Born in Canada in 1905 to a British father and a Swiss mother, Cecil Gerald Merton studied forestry at Cambridge before starting work as an Assistant Forestry Manager in 1930. He was to spend the next decade living in the jungles of Burma with his wife and two small daughters. War came to his corner of South East Asia in early 1942; he joined the 2 Burma Rifles and walked out of Burma in the Retreat to India, finally arriving in Imphal in May 1942. Not knowing if his wife and children were alive or dead, he became one of the first officers of The Johnnies, part of Z Force, an intelligence gathering group behind enemy lines in the jungles and highlands of Burma. Volunteering for every mission over the next three years, he battled illness, monsoon rains, mile-wide rivers, leeches, wild animals, disease, thirst and hunger; all the while fighting against the cruelest of enemies and his own personal demons; fearing for the lives of his loved ones. Awarded the MC and bar for his bravery as 'one of the finest Patrol Leaders in Z Force', he survived the war to be reunited with his wife and children.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49614952333585,"sku":"GOR011971949","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1914377419.jpg?v=1751632841"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-serena-merton.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}