To Fight Alongside Friends - Hardcover

Harrison Gerry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007558538 ISBN 13: 9780007558537

Publisher: William Collins, 2014

Synopsis

A born storyteller, Charlie May's vivid eye for detail and warm good humour brings his experience in the trenches (and the experience of millions of ordinary men like him) to life for a 21st-century readership. Captain Charlie May was killed, aged 27, in the early morning of 1st July 1916, leading the men of 'B Company', 22nd Manchester Service Battalion into action on the first day of the Somme. This tolerant and likeable man had been born in New Zealand and - against King's regulations - he kept a diary in seven small, wallet-sized pocket books. A journalist before the war, May's diaries give a picture of battalion life in and behind the trenches during the build-up to the greatest battle fought by a British army and are filled with the friendships and tensions, the home-sickness, frustrations, delays and endless postponements, the fog of ignorance, the combination of boredom and terror to which every man that has ever fought could testify.

About this title

About the Author:

Born in Dunedin,CHARLES CAMPBELL MAY, is one of the most quoted New Zealand soldiers of World War I. He was killed in "No Man's Land" on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916. Passages from his wartime diaries have been anthologized in books, academic and popular, about that war and that battle. His diaries, the originals of which are in the Regimental Archive near Manchester, have pride of place in the Imperial War Museum in London.

Gerry Harrison is Charlie May's great-nephew. He has been an actor and worked in film and TV production and served as a councilor for twelve years. Meanwhile he has written pieces for theGuardianandThe Times, and theIrish Times. He lives in Ireland.

Review:

`May proved to be a natural diarist, as wry as he was sharp-eyed' Daily Mail, Books of the Year `What shines through like sunshine is Charlie May's default belief in service to country, his quiet commitment to others over self, and his sheer decency. You could bet your life on Charlie. And, in a way, we did' The Times `Captain May's words offer a rare and vivid insight into life in the trenches: of rats and death, and the men's optimism as they prepared to go into battle. They also read as a moving love letter to the wife he adored and the little girl he couldn't wait to be reunited with' Daily Express `Sensitive and bright ... May is a gifted storyteller and his uncensored diary makes for fine reading' Daily Mail `[We] want to hear the voices of those who were there, unencumbered by 21st century prejudices ... `To Fight Alongside Friends' [is] the disarmingly jaunty, previously unpublished diaries of Captain Charlie May ... beautifully edited and minutely annotated' Sunday Times `Reflective and acute ... By July 1st 1916, when the last diary entry was entered at 5.45am, the reader feels that they know Charlie May, and what follows comes as a shock, as if a cinema reel had broken in mid-reel ... [the diaries] linger in the memory [and] deserve to be made available to a wider audience. They testify to how the 1914 generation drew on literary expression to order and to mediate what is commonly supposed to have been an incommunicably dreadful experience' Financial Times `Every so often one comes across a diary where it is the sense of personality behind it that lift it out of the ordinary: such a diary is that of Captain Charlie May' David Crane `The diary of Captain Charlie May provides a fascinating insight into the mind of a young British officer. It is peppered with intriguing insights, acute observations and the hectic, heart-stopping flurries of nocturnal trench raids' Robin Cross, author of the bestselling `VE-Day'

About this edition

• Publisher: William Collins
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0007558538
• ISBN 13: 9780007558537
• Binding: Hardcover