War Memorial: The Story of One Village's Sacrifice from 1914 to 2003

Description

The incredible story of the dead immortalised on one village's war memorial War Memorial unravels many stories of heroism in war during the twentieth century. Through one war memorial, Clive Aslet traces in vivid detail the lives of the twenty-two men, and one woman, who made the supreme sacrifice fighting for Britain in the two World Wars, the Falklands and Iraq.The result is an intimate portrait of one corner of the countryside in the twentieth century, and an extraordinary tale of the endurance and bravery of otherwise ordinary people - farmers, masons, railway-workers, landowners, schoolchildren - who, but for the war memorial, would be forgotten.War Memorial is about the people who laid down their lives for us, and who will always be remembered.

Clive Aslet is an award-winning journalist and former Editor of Country Life who has spent his career observing Britain and its ways. An authority on British life, he has written several books on the subject - including The Last Country Houses, Landmarks of Britain, and Villages of Britain.

A touching tribute to ordinary lives . . . brutally cut off long before their allotted time * Sunday Telegraph * A fascinating mix of history and sociology that leaves one with a profound sense of the vagaries and cruelties of fate, particularly during times of war * Country Life * [A] fascinating history * Daily Telegraph * A moving look at the harrowing stories behind a century of names inscribed on the war memorial of a small and sleepy Devon village * Sunday Times * An engaging, absorbing work -- Chris Baker * The Long, Long Trail/Great War Forum * With this book Aslet makes an important contribution to social history... the stories are not tidy portraits of heroism but achingly real portraits of wartime loss experienced by a changing rural community * Daily Express *