Another Good Read !

[maypolebaz]

I recently finished reading Old Soldier Sahib by Frank Richards.

Frank, from South Wales, joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1901 and his description of his life from then on makes fascinating reading. This was the sort of soldiering that led Kipling to write ". . . . why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints".

"What's this got to do with Brum ?", I hear you ask. Well Frank, at one point comments that there was more Londoners and Midlanders in the RWF than there was Welshmen, ". . . until, in 1914 the Battalion was sometimes jokingly known as The Birmingham Fusiliers." (I heard that said about the RWF during WW2). Frank goes on to say ". . .Birmingham men, however, made the best soldiers in the Army".

A fascinating book, I recommend it.

 

[devonjim]

There seem to be many threads suggesting "a good read" so here seems as good as place as anywhere to suggest "Full Steam Ahead", How the Railways made Britain, based on the BBC TV programme of the same title. The book traces how the railways were a catalyst to changes in social history, the rise of the working class, women's rights, industrial growth, economic decline, the British holiday. Very readable!