In Love and War

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>In Love and War </strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>is the gripping account of one man's war. Aged nineteen he was wounded on the beaches of Dunkirk captured in North Africa escaped from his PoW camp walked 500 miles to rejoin his regiment and fought in Italy until the end of the war. Then while spending two years in Palestine as the fate of that contested area was fought over he met his wife-to-be for a brief few days and then pursued their passionate romance through copious love letters. </span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>That man was my father and he told me virtually nothing about his war and I neglected to ask. This book is a belated attempt to reconstruct his story. There are some facts some archive a few second-hand recollections all mixed up with a great deal of imagination. Perhaps it will help me to understand the father I never really got to know.</span></p><p></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>The overall project to engage with his father by every means possible is noble and an act of filial devotion that gives meaning and spiritual significance to all the detail. I admired the writerly technique particularly the triple interweaving of dramatic scenes in which Bethell places himself as an unseen onlooker factual stuff gained from research and official records and then those love letters - what a treasure trove! All held together by his touching letters to his father. This variation of texture makes the book wonderfully readable.</em></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>Paul Ashton </strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)> Author: </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>A Practical Guide to Bee Culture by Sherlock Holmes </em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>and </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(29 31 37 1)>A Puritan at Les Beaux</em></p>