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Birdsong on BBC 1 last night
I thought this was fantastic. I haven't read the book though and wondered what people thought of this who have?
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Just read Engleby - about an emotionally stunted man. I found my involvement with the book was affected. Still enjoyed it though.
I actually had a special interest in this, because the scene of the opening day of the Battle of the Somme was set at Auchon Villers, near Beaumont Hammel, which was also the site, in the book, of a field hospital.
Some months later, Nov 13 1916, my fathers unit, 2/2 S.Midland Field Ambulance was attached to the 51st Highland Division outside Beaumont Hammel, and Dad went 'over the top' with the Highlanders that day in an effort to retake Beaumont Hammel from the Germans. Dad left a lengthy written account of these events, briefly as follows.
The Germans, for once, had been surprised by the attack, and the Highlanders reached the front line trenches almost unopposed,and cleared them with grenades. Dad's unit set up a dressing station in the German trenches, but eventually Dad was detailed as part of a stretcher party to take a badly wounded Highlander back to the field hospital at Auchon Villers, three miles away across the trenches and no-mans-land, pitted with craters There were eight stretcher bearers, including four German prisoners and Dad's job was to walk with his arm round the wounded man to keep him upright as he had shrapnel in his throat and would have bled to death. The fighting of course, continued, and many times they had to drop to the ground or take cover in craters and the three miles took them three-and-a-half hours and they lost one of their prisoners on the way, whom they presumed had been killed. Their patient survived the ordeal, and on reaching Auchon Villers, they also found the missing prisoner who had made his own way there.
The field hospital at Auchon Villers, was actually a cafe, and still operates as such today, and in Birdsong, (the book) Stephen Wraysford and Isobelle and her family, spent a summers day there in 1910
My grandad served in the Great War. He didn't write his memories down but I taped him talking about his experiences. He served in Lowther's Lambs regiment and was wounded twice. He had a brother and brother in law killed in the fighting. The latter at Hell fire corner.
The war scenes were brilliantly done, I thought. Personal and compelling and almost unbearably sad.
I like most of Sebastian Foulks's work, including Engleby, which, as someone said, is disturbing but very well written.