The Cloister House Press, Gloucester, (2019)
£14.99, hb, £11.99, pb, 124pp, 38 ills..
ISBN: 978–190–946–589–3
[This review featured in the February 2020 issue of Stand To! No.117]
I love the alliteration in the title of Amiel Price’s privately published book! The subject of From Handsworth to Hebron is the author’s grandmother, Amiel Robins, and her first fiancé, Norman Wells. The author found Norman’s Wells’ letters to her grandmother after her own mother’s death in 2014. She also found her grandmother’s small diary which helped her to piece things together. Norman and Amiel worked for the same bank but only met at Christmas 1916. It is clear from Norman’s letters that he became ‘smitten’ very quickly and by the summer of 1917 they were engaged.
I got the distinct impression that at first Amiel was very unsure about Norman – one of the problems of not having two–way letter ‘traffic’. It is clear too, that she was not keen to marry, probably because of the war. Norman spent much of his time training at Oswestry or Altcar between Liverpool and Southport. His letters are full of the minutiae of the life of a new recruit and are often accompanied by sketches. He was posted overseas in October 1917, passing through France to sail to Egypt and died of wounds on 29 December 1917. I was struck by the similarity in looks of both Amiels – granny and granddaughter!
Most people who know this reviewer are aware that I don’t ‘do’ sports programmes so it will come as no surprise that I had never heard of Jack Beresford. It transpires that this rather good–looking man was our greatest rowing medal–winning Olympian until Sir Steve Redgrave! Who knew? Against all odds and possibly some dirty tricks (on the part of the host nation) he and his partner won gold at the infamous Berlin Olympics in 1936, causing Hitler to storm out of the stadium at the medal presentation!
Moved by Peter Jackson’s They shall not Grow Old, Jack’s Beresford’s son, John, has been inspired to build the story of his father’s life around his letters home to his parents, to whom he was clearly devoted. As a 19–year– old, Beresford served on the Western Front from April to October 1918 until he was wounded.
His letters to his parents, all from the front, do not pull any punches or disguise the conditions he faced. He relates the appalling conditions and events alongside the pleasant interludes and the fun he, his friends and his men were able to glean from the awful situation in which they found themselves. Jack Beresford was also a great collector of souvenirs which, his letters reveal, were sent home for safe keeping. If they are still in the family, there must be enough to stock a small museum!
Comparisons are odious; Wells and Beresford had very different wars. Both were officers but I feel the Beresford book is the more interesting. Jack was the younger by seven years, yet his letters feel far more rounded while Norman’s come over as very sentimental.
I have been spoiled by the incomparable Marjorie’s War – by Charles and Reginald Fair – in that volume the letters both from and to the front have been preserved and offer a more or less unbroken narrative of the war from the perspective of the two main families. Nevertheless, all our history must be preserved and these two new reminiscences do much to further our knowledge of the virtually unimaginable experiences of the Great War.
Review by Barbara Taylor