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Men Of Letters
''Men of Letters: The Post Office Heroes who Fought the Great War'' is a book by Duncan Barrett, co-author of ''The Sugar Girls'' and ''GI Brides'' and editor of ''The Reluctant Tommy''. It was published by AA Publishing on 1 August 2014 and officially launched on 4 August to marked the hundredth anniversary of Britain's declaration of war. Content The book tells the story of the Post Office Rifles during the First World War. 12,000 men served with the unit during the course of the war, across three battalions, and around 1,500 of them were killed. The book describes in detail the horror and suffering of the war and Barrett writes about a man who was shot in the head by a former Post Office colleague before being suffocated by mud near Passchendaele Ridge, Passchendaele. He also describes the humour of life in the trenches, including an incident in which some former postmen delivered mail to the Germans on the other side of no man's land by wedging them into carrots and throwing th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duncan Barrett
Duncan Barrett is a writer and editor who specialises in biography and memoir. After publishing several books in collaboration with other authors, he published his first solo book, '' Men of Letters'', in 2014. Barrett also works as an actor and theatre director. Early life Duncan was born in Islington, London in 1983 and went to City of London School from 1994 to 2001, before studying English at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he served as Film Editor of student newspaper '' Varsity''. He is the author of ''Star Trek: The Human Frontier'', co-written with his mother Michele Barrett and published by Polity Press in 2000. He edited Vitali Vitaliev's travelogue ''Passport to Enclavia'', published by Reportage Press in 2008. Work as writer and editor Barrett was the editor of Ronald Skirth's pacifist First World War memoir ''The Reluctant Tommy'', published by Macmillan in 2010. In it he wrote that, having come across Skirth's memoir through his mother's research, he felt determined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Arch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post Office Rifles
The Post Office Rifles was a unit of the British Army, first formed in 1868 from volunteers as part of the Volunteer Force, which later became the Territorial Force (and later the Territorial Army). The unit evolved several times until 1921, after which the name was lost during one of many reorganisations. History Beginnings – 49th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers Corps (Post Office Rifles) When the Volunteer Force was formed in 1859/60 Viscount Bury raised the 21st Middlesex Rifles Volunteer Corps (Civil Service Rifles) drawing its recruits from civil servants based in London. There were sufficient recruits from the GPO staff to form a Post Office company, which was placed under Captain John Lowther du Plat Taylor's command. On 13 December 1867 a bomb exploded outside Middlesex House of Detention, Clerkenwell. It was an attempt to rescue two members of Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) detained there awaiting trial. The Government's response was to raise special constables t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GI Brides
''GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love'' is a bestselling book by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, authors of ''The Sugar Girls''. It was published by HarperCollins on 29 August 2013. The book tells the true stories of four British GI Brides, women who married American servicemen stationed in their country during the 'friendly invasion' of the Second World War. It is based on interviews with them, but written in a narrative style. Characters Sylvia O'Connor – a volunteer at a Red Cross club in London who married a military policeman from Baltimore. She travelled to America by plane after he won the money for the ticket in a dice game. Lyn Patrino – who married an Italian-American lieutenant she met in her hometown of Southampton. After a stay at a transit camp in Tidworth, she traveled on one of the early war bride ships, and arrived in New York to find protesters waving placards that read 'English Whores Go Home'. Rae Zurovcik – a welder in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sugar Girls
''The Sugar Girls: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End'' is a bestselling work of narrative non-fiction based on interviews with women who worked in Tate & Lyle's East End factories in Silvertown from the mid-1940s onwards. Written by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, it was published by Collins in 2012. The authors were inspired to write it by Jennifer Worth's ''Call the Midwife''. Background In the East End of the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of girls left school every year at fourteen and went to work in the factories that stood alongside the docks in Silvertown, in the East End of London.< The stretch of factories running between 's refineries for sugar and syrup was known as the 'Sugar Mile', and also included Keiller's jam and marmalade factory. Tate & Lyle's two factories had been built in the late nineteenth ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Reluctant Tommy
''The Reluctant Tommy'' is a book compiled by Duncan Barrett from the memoirs of Ronald Skirth, a member of the Royal Garrison Artillery during the First World War. His experiences during the Battle of Messines, the Battle of Passchendaele and the Second Battle of the Piave River, which Skirth calls the Battle of the Asiago Plateau, were detailed in this book. The book captured attention due to Skirth's actions during the war to avoid enemy casualties. The manuscript was known only by the family for decades before finally being published in 2010. The book received favourable reviews on publication, but was also criticised for significant historical inaccuracies. History After coming home from the war Ronald Skirth entered the teaching profession. When he retired in 1971 he started work writing about his wartime memories of the First World War, and in particular his experience of disillusionment. Although he initially intended to focus on his relationship with his wife Ella, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passchendaele Ridge
The Third Battle of Ypres (german: link=no, Dritte Flandernschlacht; french: link=no, Troisième Bataille des Flandres; nl, Derde Slag om Ieper), also known as the Battle of Passchendaele (), was a campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire. The battle took place on the Western Front, from July to November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders, as part of a strategy decided by the Allies at conferences in November 1916 and May 1917. Passchendaele lies on the last ridge east of Ypres, from Roulers (now Roeselare), a junction of the Bruges-(Brugge)-to-Kortrijk railway. The station at Roulers was on the main supply route of the German 4th Army. Once Passchendaele Ridge had been captured, the Allied advance was to continue to a line from Thourout (now Torhout) to Couckelaere (Koekelare). Further operations and a British supporting attack along the Belgian coast from Nieuport ( Nieuwpoo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military war effort and sacrifice of Britain and its Empire during the First World War. The museum's remit has since expanded to include all conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914. As of 2012, the museum aims "to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and 'wartime experience'." Originally housed in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill, the museum opened to the public in 1920. In 1924, the museum moved to space in the Imperial Institute in South Kensington, and finally in 1936, the museum acquired a permanent home that was previously the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southwark. The outbreak of the Second World War saw the museum expand both its collections and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Postal Museum & Archive
The Postal Museum (formerly the British Postal Museum & Archive) is a postal museum run by the Postal Heritage Trust. It began in 2004 as The British Postal Museum & Archive and opened in Central London as The Postal Museum on 28 July 2017. Sites The Postal Museum operates three sites: The museum at Phoenix Place, London near the Mount Pleasant sorting office in Clerkenwell, a museum store in Loughton, Essex and The Museum of the Post Office in the Community, located about the post office in Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire. Origins The Public Records Act 1838 was the first step in organizing government archives, including the civil service department known then as ‘the Post Office’. This represents the beginnings of what is now The Royal Mail Archive. By 1896 a report concerning the maintenance of Post Office records had been produced and the first archivist was appointed. The Public Records Acts of 1958 and 1967 reinforced the need for the Post Office to keep, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Wood
The Attacks on High Wood, near Bazentin le Petit in the Somme ''département'' of northern France, took place between the British Fourth Army and the German 1st Army during the Battle of the Somme. After the Battle of Bazentin Ridge on 14 July 1916, High Wood lay undefended for most of the day but delays in communication and confusion caused by orders and counter-orders from British corps headquarters, which had overlapping responsibilities, led to the occupation of High Wood being forestalled by German reserves, which had moved forward to counter-attack British troops in the villages of Bazentin-le-Grand and Bazentin-le-Petit. Men from the 7th Division managed to occupy the southern half of the wood and two cavalry squadrons advanced on the east side to Wood Lane, which connected the wood to Longueval. On 15 July, the wood was evacuated by the survivors and the cavalry retired. The British and the Germans fought for control of the wood from 14 July to 15 September. Both si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I (newspaper)
The ''i'' is a British national morning paper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom. It is aimed at "readers and lapsed readers" of all ages and commuters with limited time, and was originally launched in 2010 as a sister paper to ''The Independent''. It was later acquired by Johnston Press in 2016 after ''The Independent'' shifted to a digital-only model. The ''i'' came under the control of JPIMedia a day after Johnston Press filed for administration on 16 November 2018. The paper and its website were bought by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) on 29 November 2019, for £49.6 million. On 6 December 2019 the Competition and Markets Authority served an initial enforcement order on DMGT and DMG Media Limited requiring the paper to be run separately pending investigation. The ''i'' was named British National Newspaper of the Year in 2015. Since its inception, the ''i'' has expanded its layout and coverage, adding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio London
BBC Radio London is the BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM frequency, DAB, Virgin Media channel 937, Sky channel 0152 (in the London area only), Freeview channel 721 and online. The station's output is generally similar to that of other BBC Local Radio stations and targets a broad, mainstream audience. While previous incarnations of the station offered a more diverse range of programmes for London's various ethnic, religious, social and cultural communities, specialist programming now remains in a smaller form and is mostly broadcast at weekends. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of 671,000 listeners and a 1.1% share as of September 2022. History 1970–1988: Radio London Local radio arrived in London as part of the second wave of BBC local stations, following a successful pilot project headed by Frank Gillard, who on visiting the United State ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
