BOOK REVIEWS
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SENSE OF DUTY |
This book is subtitled "A Family study of a Cameron Highlander in the Great War" and this is just what the book is - an excellently-researched piece of family history. I know there are many people who would like to know what happened to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers in the Great War, and this book is a shining example of what the result can be when someone sets himself the task of finding out.
The author's great-grandfather, John Syme, left his job as a miner and, at the age of 31, said goodbye to his family in Kirconnel, North-West of Dumfries, and enlisted as a Private in the 7th Battalion, the Cameron Highlanders.
For most people, this is where the trail would run cold, but Neil Syme Richardson has followed his great-grandfather through Scotland, down into England and across the sea to France and Belgium. When I say "followed" I mean it literally. The author's own knowledge and impressions of the places in which his ancestor served surfaces again and again, and gives a personal insight into times and places which the modern reader can latch on to and appreciate.
Private John Syme went with the Battalion into training in Scotland, then went across to France to take part in the Battle of Loos, being involved in the fighting for the infamous Hohenzollern Redoubt. From here the battalion (like so many others) moved South to the Somme, missing the opening of the battle but arriving in time for the bloody, brutal slogging-match which developed to the South of the Albert-Bapaume road from August to November.
The 7th Battalion was making a name for itself and the decision was taken to train it as a sort of special assault battalion, rather like the German "Stormtroop" units. From one historical icon of the war - the Somme in the Summer and Autumn of 1916 - they went (via Arras) to another - Ypres in the Summer and Autumn of 1917, and then, in 1918, back to Arras, where they had to contend with the German Spring Offensive in that area. And after that - eventually - Private John Syme came home.
Neil Syme Richardson has related the story of his great-grandfather well, and has made the story into a fair-sized book of over 100 pages, but there is plenty of information within those pages to interest the general reader, because what happened to Private John Syme happened, in essence, to the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of millions of us.
SENSE OF DUTY
is privately published by the author.
(Readers who wish to obtain copies of the book book can use this email link
to
contact Neil Syme
Richardson.)
Paperback, 105 pages - illustrated.
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