What are you reading right now?

And New Cross had a bar in the basement which had a sign on the door saying 'Sand Store'.
Pike mentions these ‘wet messes’ I think he called them, in the book. He says they were once common, but as HQ started frowning upon them, the lads became more resourceful in hiding them. One station he was at, maybe Southwark or West Norwood, had a hidden door with a bucket hanging on it in the locker room.
 
Just finished a run of Leslie Thomas; The Dearest and the Best, Dover Beach. Other Times and The Magic Army
Now part into RF Delderfields' The Dreaming Suburb to be followed by part 2, The Avenue goes to War
 
E M Nathanson's original novel that spurred the action movie of the same name, starring Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Ernest Bornine, Robert Ryan...to name a few. Read this in my mid teens and the descriptions of the training got me champing at the bit to join up. The action sequence at the end is done as a brief combat report, the main part of the story being character development. I've got it in the stash for a 40 years later re-read.
the Dirty Dozen EM Nathenson.png
 
The Dirty Dozen
Was remembering this book a couple of days ago.
Read it after seeing the film and it is a good read so cheers Sprocket321, you have given me the push to find a copy
 

BratMedic

LE
Book Reviewer
Pike mentions these ‘wet messes’ I think he called them, in the book. He says they were once common, but as HQ started frowning upon them, the lads became more resourceful in hiding them. One station he was at, maybe Southwark or West Norwood, had a hidden door with a bucket hanging on it in the locker room.
Probably Southwark, very old fire station (old HQ before Lambeth) and training for TLs and BA.
 
The Dirty Dozen
A slight thread drift but the probable idea comes from:

"Between mid-1942 and September 1945 Shepton Mallet Prison was used by the American Military, and was staffed entirely by their military personnel during this period.
By the end of 1944 there were 768 soldiers imprisoned there, guarded by 12 officers and 82 enlisted men.

And during this time, 18 servicemen were executed at the prison - sixteen were hanged and two were shot by a firing squad. The Americans constructed their own execution wing, two storeys high that contained the gallows."

Now decommissioned, the prison is open for tours and if you are nearby it is worth a walk around- but be quick, as there are plans to level it and build houses
 
'The Road to Oxiana' by Robert Byron, jumped off my bookshelf, for the train commute read. It's a Colin Thubron style travel essay, who also provides the introduction to this work.

Byron, born in 1905, educated at Eton and Merton College Oxford and subsequently was killed at sea in 1941 while on his way to Meshed. His tome commences in 1933 era Venice, finishing a year after in Paddington having covered all of the salient territorial points of interest to him within Irak (sic) Persia and Afghanistan.

He has the typically educated Victorian aesthete's eye on everything he casts it upon, especially the architecture of Islam. Years later, Eric Newby and Rory Stewart would follow swathes of his trail and describe their findings otherwise. It's my third time read in ten years and will prove to be a marvellous distraction from the rattle of the DLR
 

sirbhp

LE
Book Reviewer
A very yellow 25 year old copy of dont cry for me sgt major.

I must admit that I thought that the Falklands was up past Scotland at the time .
 
A very yellow 25 year old copy of dont cry for me sgt major.

I must admit that I thought that the Falklands was up past Scotland at the time .
I'll never understand why it all came as a surprise. As a 12 year old paperboy at the time I could see it all unfolding in the weeks before the invasion on the front pages of our national press.
 

Auld-Yin

ADC
Kit Reviewer
Book Reviewer
Reviews Editor
A very yellow 25 year old copy of dont cry for me sgt major.

I must admit that I thought that the Falklands was up past Scotland at the time .
Falkland is in Fife, and has been for centuries.
 
Falkland is in Fife, and has been for centuries.
The name "Falkland" was applied to the channel by John Strong, captain of an English expedition which landed on the islands in 1690. Strong named the strait in honour of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland, the Treasurer of the Navy who sponsored his journey.[6] The Viscount's title originates from the town of Falkland, Scotland—the town's name likely comes from a Gaelic term referring to an "enclosure" (lann),[A] but it could less plausibly be from the Anglo-Saxon term "folkland" (land held by folk-right).[8]

but
Viscount Falkland is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. Referring to the royal burgh of Falkland in Fife, it was created in 1620, by Scottish King James VI, for Sir Henry Cary, although he was actually English and had no connection to Scotland.
er
As a Scottish peer he was entitled to be a Member of the Parliament of England. He thus served as Tory MP for Oxfordshire for 1685–1689, Great Marlow from 1689 to 1690, and Great Bedwyn from 1690 until his death.[1]

Plus ca f'kin change :mrgreen: ;)
 

Sexton Blake

Old-Salt
I'll never understand why it all came as a surprise. As a 12 year old paperboy at the time I could see it all unfolding in the weeks before the invasion on the front pages of our national press.
I’m sorry old chap but are you sure of that? That cheeky invasion by Argentina did seem to catch out almost the entire cabinet, MOD and Uncle Tom Cobley et al.

You must have been a very astute paperboy in 1982. Certainly more astute than I at the time (a 15 year old paperboy)!
 

endure

GCM
Atomic Accidents: A history of nuclear meltdowns and disasters by James Mahaffey.

Everybody knows about Chernobyl and Windscale but very few know about the three men who got radiation sickness in a cave in the Ozarks in 1879 or the multitude of other nuclear accidents that have occured.

A really interesting book.
 
Atomic Accidents: A history of nuclear meltdowns and disasters by James Mahaffey.

Everybody knows about Chernobyl and Windscale but very few know about the three men who got radiation sickness in a cave in the Ozarks in 1879 or the multitude of other nuclear accidents that have occured.

A really interesting book.
Is Jimmy Carter mentioned?
 
51ukvXNjBWL._SY445_QL70_ML2_.jpg


One of only two survivors of the famous Cockleshell Hero raid, Bill Sparks' war and post-war career has never before been told in full. In this gripping book, he describes not only his part in Operation Frankton, the daring Gironde raid, and his escape back to Britain, but how he fought with the Greek Sacred Squadron thereafter. Always something of a military maverick, Bill's memoir is truly action-packed. Sadly this great character has now died.

A decent book but I was disappointed with the raid only being covered by the first chapter.
 
51bTWbdafsL.jpg

On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed.

As adults, their lives will be braided together by ambition, love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. One boy will travel the world but come home in the end; the other will be a powerful, corrupt nobleman. One girl will defy the might of the medieval church; the other will pursue an impossible love. And always they will live under the long shadow of the unexplained killing they witnessed on that fateful childhood day.

A good book but the characters and plots are too similar to the first book.
 

endure

GCM

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