by David Crane

ISBN: 9780007558551

Published: 2015-11-05

The First World War Diaries of Manchester Pals Captain Charlie May written and kept in secret and published now for the first time. A born storyteller, Charlie May s vivid eye for detail and warm good humour brings his experience in the trenches (and the experience of millions of ordinary men like him) to life for a 21st-century readership. Captain Charlie May was killed, aged 27, in the early morning of 1st July 1916, leading the men of B Company, 22nd Manchester Service Battalion (the Manchester Pals) into action on the first day of the Somme. This tolerant and immensely likeable man had been born in New Zealand and against King s regulations he kept a diary in seven small, wallet-sized pocket books. A journalist before the war and a born storyteller, May s diaries give a vivid picture of battalion life in and behind the trenches during the build-up to the greatest battle fought by a British army and are filled with the friendships and tensions, the home-sickness, frustrations,...