Clive Aslet's War Memorial: The Story of One Village's Sacrifice from 1914 to 2003, is a powerful story of those who died in war.
Who were the men and women whose names are commemorated on war memorials around the country? Where did they live - and how and why did they die?
Such questions usually go unanswered, but this book for the first time unravels the story of one war memorial, in the Dartmoor village of Lydford. Through original documents, Clive Aslet traces in vivid detail the lives of the twenty-two men, and one woman, who made the supreme sacrifice fighting for Britain in the two World Wars, the Falklands and Iraq.
The result is an intimate portrait of one corner of the countryside in the twentieth century, and an extraordinary tale of the endurance and bravery of otherwise ordinary people - farmers, masons, railway-workers, landowners, schoolchildren - who, but for the war memorial, would be forgotten.
The perfect book for those who loved The Real Dad's Army by Colonel Rodney Foster, War Memorial is about the people who laid down their lives for us, and who will always be remembered.
Praise for War Memorial:
'With this book Aslet makes an important contribution to social history... the stories are not tidy portraits of heroism but achingly real portraits of wartime loss experienced by a changing rural community' Daily Express
'Leaves one with a profound sense of the vagaries and cruelties of fate, particularly during times of war' Country Life
'[A] fascinating history . . . Aslet tells their stories with great elegance, and though the period has been gone over in exhaustive detail, he still manages fresh insights that bring it to vivid life' Daily Telegraph
Clive Aslet is an award-winning journalist and former Editor of Country Life who has spent his career observing Britain and its ways. An authority on British life, he has written several books on the subject - including The Last Country Houses, Landmarks of Britain, and Villages of Britain.
