Most of us are brought up not badly, but wrongly. Trained to the tenets of Mrs DoAsYou-WouldBeDoneBy, we are easily trampled underfoot by students of the Master DoItMyWay-OrBeDoneOver school. Consider the career of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as an example of the second method of upbringing. Mercilessly whipped and humiliated as a child, he grew up self-obsessed, wilful, arrogant, and it would seem without any redeeming personal qualities. Yet it was largely Monty’s egotistic drive that made him the most effective British general of the second world war, while more sympathetic commanders like Wavell and Alexander were relegated to the sidelines.
High among the surprises of this delightful memoir of Richard Carver by his son, the former BBC correspondent, is its discovery of a little oasis of affection in the barren desert of Monty’s private life. In 1927, Betty Carver, Richard’s mother, married Monty, a then undistinguished but opinionated colonel.
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