Not a Single Excuse : Origins and Memoirs of a Small Town Politician Paperback
by Alan Ward
Paperback
Description
The first part of this book is essentially a family history which attempts to indicate conditions at the time of, and background to, events surrounding it.
It may be of interest, therefore both to those interested in ancestry research and those interested in social history, particularly of the 19th and early 20th Century.
Some of the characters were military people and their adventures in many ways epitomise the Britain of the 19th Century.
We follow William Ward for example from his birth place in Colchester through to the plains of India, the Crimean Peninsula and finally via Ireland to his death in Canada as a member of the 16th Regiment of Foot.
We also meet his son, William James; who finds himself in a school for orphans at the age of seven and becomes an Army schoolmaster, ending his days as a Warrant Officer Class One with the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards at Wellington Barracks in London.
During his service he had two spells in the Indian sub-continent with his wife Ellen Jane, who gave birth to nine children, two of which were born on the Northwest frontier on the borders of Afghanistan. The second part of the book is a personal memoir of the author reflecting on his life from the time of the outbreak of the Second World War to the Millennium and the advent of New Labour.
This gives us a feeling for a school boy living through the momentous events of the war and traumatic decade that followed it.
It gives us some personal insights into education in the post war decades from the perspective of a schoolmaster and as a result of a teacher exchange programme some views of America in the dramatic year of 1969-70 when he taught in Chicago and travelled extensively throughout the continental USA.
We then move to the author's experiences as a local politician and a council leader in the last decades of the century.
These include his involvement in the development of Bracknell Forest Borough as it emerged from the time when Bracknell itself was a new town to a fully fledged unitary authority.
This gives us insights into the workings of politics at the absolute grassroots level and gives us a view of the degree to which individuals can influence what happens and similarly to why they often cannot!
Information
-
Item not Available
- Format:Paperback
- Pages:248 pages, illustrations
- Publisher:A & P W Consultants Ltd
- Publication Date:01/08/2012
- Category:
- ISBN:9780957205208
Information
-
Item not Available
- Format:Paperback
- Pages:248 pages, illustrations
- Publisher:A & P W Consultants Ltd
- Publication Date:01/08/2012
- Category:
- ISBN:9780957205208
