Book Review: In Their Own Words

“South Staffords at War: August 1914-December 1915.”

By Andrew Thornton

ISBN-10: 1533290636 ISBN-13: 978-1533290632

Paperback, 214pp.

Published by: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (15 May 2016).

The commemoration of the centenary of the Great War is best described, as far as this reviewer is concerned, as the 'lost opportunity.' (Well, the tossed aside, because it isn't interesting enough on its own merits 'opportunity'.) And even work that has tried to tell a modern audience something new, has more often than not had to be 'sexed' up as the secret, untold, forgotten history of the times.

The carnival of clichés, that no television dramatist or journalist seems able – or willing – to escape, has presented the British public with a regurgitation of old tropes: all the Tommies were naïve volunteers/bullied conscripts; all generals stupid, criminal even; every shell-shocked soldier shot at dawn; and those who survived, lived only to write poetry about it. Oh, the futility....

Hallelujah, therefore, for Andrew Thornton in this, his first book. Using his own huge archive, developed after years of dedicated study, the author has presented us with the words of hundreds of members of the South Staffordshire Regiment in the early part of the war. Cutting through the current 'interpretations,' offering direct insight into how those involved thought and wrote about the war, we get to hear their words afresh; and the words written at the time, not recollections after a gap of decades.

Naturally, as with all sources, these accounts have to be approached critically. But the least of these will speak more loudly, and truthfully, than just about anything akin to 'Birdsong,' for instance.

There is an irony that these words have been available for anyone to read all along. But it takes what Dr. Wayne Osborne has described as the “archaeology” of the literature, and hundreds and hundreds of hours of careful work for them to live again.

Andrew Thornton is to be thanked, congratulated and rewarded by success for this collection of what are most precious in our history – not the medals and monuments but the words of those who were there.

It is recommended unreservedly.