by Max Arthur
Stephen Fry
"One reads this book with bleeding eyes. It contains, as no other book has before it, the First World War in the raw: its dramas and cruelties, its moments of humour - some of it very black indeed - its drudgery and its excitement. Max Arthur has chosen a remarkable set of recollections: oral testimony at its most immediate and most revealing.'
Sir Martin Gilbert
"This extraordinary book is crammed with details, conjuring up the atmosphere of war as vividly as the frequent descriptions of appalling violence."
Daily Telegraph
"The stories of these now long-dead vets simply jump off the page."
FHM
"The words of the soldiers are as fresh as if they were written yesterday - extraordinary."
Deborah Moggach, Mail on Sunday
"These stories are so harrowing, and their witness so precise and devastating."
Andrew Motion, The Times
"This book really shows what it was like for us on the Western Front. It is remarkable. It really captures our voices, our spirit and our memories.'
Arthur ‘Smiler’ Marshall, 105, Essex Yeomanry & Machine Gun Corps, 1915 to 1918
"A compelling account of a world not to be forgotten."
Despatches
"The testimonies are vivid and many are compelling. They are gruesome and dark in places, with no holds barred when it comes to describing wounds and horrors at the front…everyone who loves oral history will enjoy the often harrowing accounts contained in this book."
History Today
"This book is not just a particular, compelling and important record, it is in its own way as fine a memorial as the memorials in towns and villages to all those who never returned to their own country, and a reminder to future generations of the real horrors of trench warfare."
Nautical Magazine
"Nothing can compare with the power of a first hand account… compelling, sobering and often humbling."
TES
"An impressive anthology of eye-witness experiences which does not short-change us on the horror and filth, the pity and terror of that dreadful conflict."
The Herald, Glasgow
