This was a very light and entertaining little book. I finished it in just four days, which might be a record. Palin is, as you’d expect, an excellent and engaging writer, and he effortlessly relates the life of his Edwardian ancestor. It’s indeed fascinating to follow the journey of a very ordinary man thrust in extraordinary events; from his time as a trainee clerk on Indian Railways at the hight of the British Empire, and then as failed junior manager in the Assam tea plantations. He seems to have finally settled down as a farmhand in New Zeeland for a couple of years before being caught up in WWI, joining the NZ army and seeing action, first in Gallipoli, where he was lucky to survive, then in France, and finally the battle of the Somme, where his luck ran out. Born into a wealthy and prosperous family and given a public school education. He had every opportunity in life. The fact that he failed in India, and then wound up as a farm hand in NZ, leads one to suspect that his Indian foreman was correct when he described him as “lacking intelligence”. Only after several years of army service did he rise above the rank of private and become a lance corporal. His diary entries, which form the backbone of the book are very basic lists of letters arriving and his movements from place to place. There’s almost no reflection or contemplation of what it all meant. Palin has to turn to other diarists who were present at the time to fill out the details. There seems to be something of Forest Gump about him however, in that he stoically endures the hardships of war in Turkey and France, with little complaint, and seems to have made an excellent soldier. Palin’s description of his final movements in the Somme leading up to his death are very moving. It must have been quite dramatic to finally discover the field where one’s great uncle lost his life to a German bullet.