From the Archive: Remembrance

The following originally appeared on my Wordpress site on 11th November 2023:

On this day of Remembrance, I find myself reflecting on how the past influences our present and our future. 11th November 1918 will always stand in our collective memory, but for me much more significant is April 1917. On Easter Monday in 1917, thousands of allied troops emerged from underground caverns that they had hollowed out and lived in for months, in order to take the Germans by surprise and reclaim strategic land that had been lost in Northern France, specifically the town of Arras.

The Battle of Arras had begun. Such battles were not fought by the commanders and public school officers that so many accounts have focused on, but by young men who signed up or were drafted. They believed they were fighting for their country, for God, for their families, but they were thrown into a new kind of war that they couldn't possibly understand.

Private Robert Gooding Henson was 23. He had joined the Somerset Light Infantry, coming straight from a farm where his parents worked, and ended up traipsing across France with so many others. He fought at the Battle of Arras. He was my great-grandmother's sister's son, an only child with no children of his own, and I didn't even know about him until 2016.

Finally, in 2021, Unbound published my book 'A Hundred Years to Arras', in which I fictionalise Robert's story, mixing it with the stories of so many young men whose lives were in the cold mud in 1917. It wasn't all fighting. So much of it was hanging around, waiting, waiting, waiting, and getting up to mischief. Missing regimental dogs, using rats as target practice, scavenging for bread, flirting with local girls, but freezing to death, fighting and falling in mud and on barbed wire, slipping away with thoughts of hearth and home... these things are parts of this book.

Reviews have compared it to Sebastian Faulks and Laurie Lee, which is flattering but I'll take that. It's a novel that was the culmination of 4 years of research, garnering support, and finally getting it out into the world. I'm immensely proud of it, and on this day, I'd like to be able to share it with as many people as possible.

On Unbound's relaunched website, you can buy a copy here:

https://unbound.com/books/a-hundred-years-to-arras

It's also available through any bookshop. Online bookstores including Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and Barnes & Noble also carry it. I encourage you to use your local independent bookshop if you can. You can order it through here too, where you can support your local independent bookshop:

https://uk.bookshop.org/.../a-hundred-years-to.../5875717...

You can also buy a signed copy direct from me. All you have to do is message me here, or email me at mrcobleywriter AT yahoo.com. You can find out more information about the book in these places, with some lovely reviews of my "heartwarming and gently woven" novel:

https://thelibrarydoor.me/.../cobley-goes-from-one.../

https://mmcheryl.wordpress.com/.../blogtour-a-hundred.../

https://fullybooked2017.com/.../a-hundred-years-to-arras.../

I hope today we can reach some new readers. On this day, please remember the personal effects of war, whether it's in 1917 or now. There are no winners. In the end, the only real winner can be kindness and peace.