Fighting for Freedom And Fun

Michael Pope's long-awaited wartime memoir tells of his frequently hilarious experiences in North Africa and Italy with the North Irish Horse. It will be warmly welcomed by those who know him best as a regular contributor to The Sporting Life, as a highly respected trainer and as the author of All Such Fun, More Fun and Frolic and Barrels of Fun.

The outbreak of hostilities sees him on mounted guard duty with the Household Cavalry at Windsor, but these humdrum responsibilities soon give way to the heat of battle. After the final assault on Djebel Rhar he is awarded the Military Cross, an episode he recounts with characteristic humility. As one might expect from this author subsequent events take an unusual turn, and after the push north through Italy he and his friends Dick Hern, Tony finch-Noyes, Tony Llewellyn-Palmer and others are able to indulge their lifelong love for racing, first at Ravenna and finally at Vienna which was the venue for the Allied Forces race meeting sponsored by General Richard McCreery. Events are further enlivened when the author's brother Barry confiscates two metal boxes from a shifty group of enemy prisoners. When opened these prove to contain the wages of an entire German battalion. Soon a poker school is in full swing amongst the deservedly happy-go-lucky officers of the regiment.

Fighting for Freedom and Fun is a unique account of both the expected and the unexpected in war. Despite its light-hearted tone the book is firmly underpinned by an emphasis that the fight was a fight for survival and that many comrades were left behind in the African desert and on the plains of Italy.