Cheltenham in the Great War is the first book to portray the town, its people and the impact of the 'war to end all wars' from the declaration of war in 1914 to Armistice Day in 1918. Almost 1,000 Cheltenham women left by train every day for munitions work, hundreds made airplanes in the Winter Gardens, many were nurses and most former suffragettes joined the WVR. Why did two schools do double shifts and for what did the townspeople raise £186,000 in one week in 1918? How did Cheltenham cope with 7,250 soldiers billeted in the town and 'khaki fever'? This book gives an insight into the lives of different social classes in Cheltenham – including stories of remarkable women – and how their war was fought on the Home Front. The Great War story of Cheltenham is told through considerable new research and is vividly illustrated throughout with evocative, informative images, many of which have not been published previously.

Cheltenham in the Great War is the first book to portray the town, its people and the impact of the ‘war to end all wars’ from the declaration of war in 1914 to Armistice Day in 1918.Almost 1,000 Cheltenham women left by train every day for munitions work, hundreds made airplanes in the Winter Gardens, many were nurses and most former suffragettes joined the WVR. Why did two schools do double shifts and for what did the townspeople raise £186,000 in one week in 1918? How did Cheltenham cope with 7,250 soldiers billeted in the town and ‘khaki fever’? This book gives an insight into the lives of different social classes in Cheltenham – including stories of remarkable women – and how their war was fought on the Home Front.The Great War story of Cheltenham is told through considerable new research and is vividly illustrated throughout with evocative, informative images, many of which have not been published previously.

The small suburbs of Beecroft and Cheltenham sent many of their young men to fight in World War I in Europe. These events are recounted in parallel with what was happening back home: fund-raising dances, Red Cross meetings and recruiting drives. Captures the community life of the period and the immence impact of the Great War.

Describes the difficult and bloody four-month battle that tipped the stalemate on the Western Front in favor of the Allies in 1918 and drove back the Germans, bringing World War I to an end.

This book describes the campaigns fought by the Gloucestershire Regiments sixteen infantry battalions and the 1/1st RGH which saw action on all the Allied fronts. During The Great War the Gloucesters who already had more battle honors than any other regiment won another eighty-two.Over 46,000 men served in the Gloucesters and the RGH during the First World War without any member of either regiment being charged with either desertion or cowardice. Twenty-five Military Medals were won by 1st Gloucesters at Festubert on one day in April 1918, a record for a single battalion.A Gallant County captures the contrast between the fighting in the mud of the Western Front, the heat and dust of the Middle East and the horrors of Gallipoli. The author skilfully paints the picture of infantry and cavalry actions in the different theatres. 1/1st RGH were one of only two yeomanry regiments to fight from Egypt to Aleppo.The use of personal accounts and descriptions of acts of individual and collective gallantry make this a superb record of a Countys outstanding contribution to victory.

Readers of the 1917 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack were advised by the editor, Sydney Pardon: “Its chief feature is a record of the cricketers who have fallen in the War – the Roll of Honour, so far as the national game is concerned.” By the time the conflict was over, Wisden had carried almost 1,800 obituaries. Test players like Colin Blythe were far outnumbered by men with a lesser claim to fame, as schoolboy cricketers were sent out to the battlefields fresh from their playing fields. Amid the carnage and confusion, errors inevitably crept in: names were wrong and there were cases of mistaken identity. Some mistakes have lain buried in Wisden's pages for a century: as this book discloses, three men outlived their obituary by many years. All the obituaries have been updated in Wisden on the Great War with new information about the subjects' lives and deaths, their families and memorials, and ordered by the year of death. There is a listing of the 289 men who had played first-class cricket, while the 89 who did not get an obituary in Wisden are now recognised. The book also lists for the first time the 407 first-class cricketers who were decorated for gallantry, of whom 381 survived. Among the men included is an officer who as a boy was an inspiration for J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, and one whose agonising death on the battlefield is movingly described in Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That. These men now receive proper tribute, along with literary names that are already well-known, such as Rupert Brooke, who headed his school's bowling averages in 1906 and received an obituary in Wisden that mentioned that, at the time of his death, he 'had gained considerable reputation as a poet'. The wartime Wisdens have long been cherished by families whose relatives are commemorated in them, but the originals are scarce and command a high price. Now the lives of the men are properly celebrated, enhanced by many remarkable stories of courage and coincidence. The result is a poignant insight into the cohorts of cricketers who played the ultimate game for their country.