Noticing via this Low Life column that I had trench fever, the Western Front Association treated me to a year’s membership and subscription to their excellent quarterly magazine Stand To!. And if that wasn’t enough, they also offered me a place in their contingent at this year’s Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph — a dream come true. ‘It’ll make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck,’ promised WFA legal trustee Richard Hughes in an email.
My torch might be sputtering but my trench fever burns still brightly. ‘Not another book about the first world war!’ says Catriona as she hobbles up the path with yet another package posted from the UK. In this past year I’ve been concentrating on the battle of the Somme: memoirs, historical narratives, battlefield guides and maps. Until quite recently you could buy a 1916 Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 linen-backed battlefield map with mud on it and a copperplate signature by a Captain So-and-So for 30 quid.
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