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SUNDAY TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR and FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014 WINNER OF THE TEMPLER MEDAL AND THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller Richard Vinen's new book is a serious - if often very entertaining - attempt to get to grips with the reality of National Service, an extraordinary institution which now seems as remote as the British Empire itself. With great sympathy and curiosity, Vinen unpicks the myths of the two 'gap years', which all British men who came of age between 1945 and the early 1960s had to fill with National Service. Millions of teenagers were thrown together and under often brutal conditions taught to obey orders and to fight. The luck of the dra...
More than 2 million men were conscripted to serve in Britain's armed forces during the period of National Service, which began after World War II and was phased out by 1963. Aged just 18, these individuals, many of whom had never left their hometowns before, were put in uniform to serve their nation and taken to some of the furthest reaches of Britain's crumbling empire. It was an experience that left a profound mark on the post-war generations. Using first-hand accounts and official documents, these remarkable times are described in this detailed, entertaining, and hugely informative account of the National Service years.
During the ten years from 1987 to 1997 that he was Director of the Royal National Theatre, Richard Eyre kept a diary - a record that disarmingly captured a life at the heart of British cultural and political affairs. The powerful and the famous inevitably strut and fret upon its pages, but National Service is also a moving personal journey, charted faithfully by a fiercely self-aware and frequently self-doubting individual. The job of grappling with a giant three-headed monster as complex as the Royal National Theatre is laid before us. So are good gossip, brilliant insights into personalities and relationships and a sense of the ridiculous, which Eyre is powerless to suppress. Like other consummate diarists such as Alan Clark and Kenneth Tynan, Richard Eyre has a voice and point of view that jolt the reader into fresh understanding - and are instantly compelling.
The experiences of a young soldier on the frontlines of the Rhodesian Bush War are vividly recounted in this personal memoir. In A Walk Against the Stream, Tony Ballinger tells of his eighteen months of compulsory service as a young national service officer in the Rhodesian army. Stationed in Victoria Falls, Rhodesia, he faced down enemy territory just across the Zambezi river in Zambia. Initially allocated to 4th platoon, 4 Independent company Rhodesia Regiment (RR) as a subaltern and later on as a 1st Lieutenant in support company 2RR, the story starts with the author’s training and deployment. The events that unfold contain interesting military encounters, including battles against the Zambian army and revolutionary guerillas. But Ballinger also explores the human side of his time in the service: his love of a country falling apart, the relationship he forms with a local woman; and how their love, hope and dreams are snatched away by unfolding events. This is a riveting personal tale, interspersed with dozens of the author’s personal photographs.
Albert Balmer was just one of the thousands upon thousands of men to be sent abroad on national service. But few if any of those 'peacetime conscripts' can have been blessed with his pin-sharp memory for detail. This memoir of two short but eventful years in the late 1950s is therefore one of the most vivid accounts yet published of the time when ordinary men stood alongside regular soldiers, facing the same dangers. It is also an important record of the British forces' role in Cyprus, an often-ignored and frequently misunderstood chapter of military history. Called up in 1957, Albert soon finds himself being sent from training camp to training camp within Britain, learning artillery skills ...
The story of a young man who was conscripted into the British Army as an Infantry Soldier and served for two years as part of National Service. A personal story about everyday army life, journeying over 28,000 miles. He includes life in the Essex Regiment, on board 3 troopships and falling in love with Hong Kong and even a spell of 'Jankers'.
The origins of the NHS are the subject of this study that presents evidence on the key players who participated in the founding of the system. The author also traces those who opposed the NHS.
National Service (NS) is one of Singapore's foundational public policies. First implemented by the British in 1954, amended in 1967 to provide a means to defend a fledgling independent nation, and codified into its present form in 1970, NS is a key pillar of Singapore's defence. Its significance, however, goes beyond defence. With over 1 million male Singapore citizens and permanent residents having served NS, and consequently involving many more — family members, friends, employers and colleagues — in different ways, NS is deeply woven into Singapore's political and social fabric. This volume brings together a range of scholarly perspectives on NS which explore its past, present and future in four sections: The history of NS, NS in practice, debates on NS and an international perspective. Comprising chapters by individuals from varied backgrounds, National Service in Singapore offers a broad account of one of Singapore's oldest public policies.
The Institute of Medicine carried out a study mandated by Congress and sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide an assessment of several issues related to noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus associated with service in the Armed Forces since World War II. The resulting book, Noise and Military Service: Implications for Hearing Loss and Tinnitus, presents findings on the presence of hazardous noise in military settings, levels of noise exposure necessary to cause hearing loss or tinnitus, risk factors for noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus, the timing of the effects of noise exposure on hearing, and the adequacy of military hearing conservation programs and audiometric testing. The book stresses the importance of conducting hearing tests (audiograms) at the beginning and end of military service for all military personnel and recommends several steps aimed at improving the military services' prevention of and surveillance for hearing loss and tinnitus. The book also identifies research needs, emphasizing topics specifically related to military service.
The intimate history of love, marriage, and emotional revolution in twentieth century Britain