ISBN: 0 340 89872 0 Hardback 306 pp £20 Published by Hodder and Stoughton.
There are over 36,000 Great War memorials in Britain. As well as investigating some of the most interesting stories behind memorials (or in one case, the lack of one) this inspirational book sets out to explore “remembrance” in all its aspects while looking at why we remember the War and the experiences of those who survived to return to their “land fit for heroes”. Although it accompanies the Channel 4 series with Ian Hislop, this is much more than just a book of the t.v. series and contains many stories of coincidence and sacrifice which would be unbelievable in fiction.
This is an unusual and very moving book. Author Neil Oliver will be a familiar face to some, having appeared on television himself in the series 'Two men in a trench' and 'Coast'. “Not Forgotten” intermingles the personal account of how Oliver himself became interested in the Great War with true tales, many of which, although interested in WW1 for over twenty years, I had never heard. The stories of the 205 men of Lewis returning home on New Year’s Day 1919 after four years of war only to be drowned in a shipwreck on their own shore and the 215 Royal Scots killed in a multiple train crash and fire outside Gretna in 1915 are well told and intensely emotive.
Here too is the story of the Cenotaph, the Scottish National War Memorial and the Imperial War Graves Commission - perhaps not new to all of us but told in a individual and engaging way. The short and readable chapters also deal with women, the “Pals” Battalions’, the decimation of the aristocracy and those “shot at dawn” among others.
This is a well written and thoughtful book which will contain something of interest to all those interested in the Great War, no matter what the scale of their knowledge. I would recommend it thoroughly.
Reviewer: Grant Shaw
