His Royal Highness Prince Edward The Duke of Kent KG GCMG GCVO ADC(P), first cousin to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, has devoted his life to the service of his country. Even before he served twenty-one years as a regular soldier in the British Army, he was introduced to this life of service by his widowed mother, HRH Princess Marina, The Duchess of Kent, during an extensive tour of the Far East at the time of his seventeenth birthday.
His interest in modern technology, especially computing and engineering, in issues of health, fitness and social welfare, and in the development of the intellect, has seen him become the patron, president or active member of more than one hundred charities and social organisations.
His military service, and deep interest in military history, sees him making a particularly important contribution to many military-related organisations – the chief of which must be the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
At the time of his eightieth birthday on October 9, 2015, Prince Edward remains one of the busiest members of the royal family. This book is offered as a tribute to his life of service, and to the myriad organisations, large and small, local, national and international, that make up the fabric of the United Kingdom in the twenty-first century.
Celia Lee is a military historian and biographer and is an honours graduate of the Open University, where she studied the 19th-century novel and social and military history. She is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Centre for First World War. She published Jean, Lady Hamilton (1861- 1941) and is the main author of 'Winston & Jack: The Churchill Brothers' and 'The Churchills: A Family Portrait'. She has undertaken a study of work carried out by women in the Second World War and contributed a chapter on the work of HRH Princess Marina The Duchess of Kent as Commandant of the Women's Royal Naval Service, 'Women in War: From Home Front to Front Line'. Celia Lee is a member of the British Commission for Military History, the Gallipoli Association, the Western Front Association, the Douglas Haig Fellowship, the Biographers Club, the International Churchill Society and the Polish Hearth Club. John Lee is well-known in military history circles as a writer, lecturer and battlefield tour guide. He has an honours degree in Modern History from Birkbeck College, London, an MA in Social and Economic History from Birkbeck, and an MA in War Studies from King's College London. He is an Honorary Research Associate of the Centre for First Word War Studies at Birmingham University. He is a member of the British Commission for Military History, the Western Front Association, the Gallipoli Association, the Army Records Society, the Douglas Haig Fellowship, the Napoleonic History Society, the American Civil War Round Table (UK) and the International Churchill Society (UK). John Lee is the author of "A Soldier's Life: General Sir Ian Hamilton 1853- 1947" - described as 'model of military biography', 'The Warlords: Hindenburg and Ludendorff' and 'Gas Attacks: Ypres 1915'. He has contributed many chapters to collections of essays on the First World War.
