The Stomach for Fighting, Rachel Duffett

[John_Hartley]

Let me declare an interest here – I am also the author of a book about food during the war (Bully Beef & Biscuits, Pen & Sword, 2015).

 

Indeed, while I was still researching for my book, I became aware of Duffett’s book and was interested to see how someone else had tackled the subject. However, the book was published in hardback by Manchester University Press and there was no way I was coughing up the price of around eighty quid. Now available in paperwork, also from MUP, it’s become an affordable read.

 

In the introduction, she notes that the book is based on a PhD thesis and, to my mind, that background shows. On the one hand, it is exceptionally well referenced.  There are, for example, 81 footnotes relating to the 21 pages of Chapter 1. And the bibliography goes on for pages. On the other hand, photographs are all but absent – something that would be anathema to my own publisher. Whilst Duffett has accessed collections of letters and memoirs, held by IWM, she tends to describe what someone has written, rather than actually quoting the man’s words, which tends to be a more modern style. There’s something about the style that slightly grates with me in that she rarely mentions a man’s full name – referring to, say, A P Burke, rather than Arthur or Pat Burke (a man whose letters I also accessed and quote extensively in the book). It just seems impersonal but, presumably, in line with the background of academic treatise.

 

As for actual content, the book covers the main bases, although with differing emphasis to some than I gave them. The first half of the book covers the pre-war civilian diet and the first experiences of army food in the training camps. The second half is, I suppose, the real meat of the book – what did soldiers actually eat, the role of the ASC, differences in officers diet, parcels from home, etc.

 

I find myself in a dilemma as to writing a conclusion about the book. Whatever I may write, unless it was a fulsome recommendation, leaves it open for folk to think “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”. So, I’ll say nowt.

 

John

[David Filsell]

Damned expensive too I recall.