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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

The Patriot's Progress


Thomas

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'The Patriot's Progress' is currently available from Amazon in paperback form, but i'm not sure if it contains Kermode's illustrations. Also,. according to their website, Faber and Faber are reissuing the complete ' Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight'. Some of the volumes are already available, and some of them are available for download to Kindle, if you are in to e-books.

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I've not seen the latest paperback edition but, the illustrations are such an integral part of the publication, it would be inconceivable to cut them out.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you IanA and SeaJane, very interesting to me. Another Kermode with a bravery award to add to my list, I wonder how many more there were in WW1? My Grandfather Thomas K a DCM in Boer War, his brother James DCM, MM & MID x 2 in WW1 Palestine Camel Corps (Lewis gun). I vaguely recall coming across other Kermodes (no list kept) but was not aware of William Kermode's. I would be quite interested to know about families (brothers, sisters, cousins) who were similarly awarded, there must be lots of them? Steve Becker posted a description on the engagement James Kermode was involved in (2nd Gaza) in his post of 26 February 2011. Ed K

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  • 3 years later...

I've just finished The Patriot's Progress. It's an outstanding book that's easy to read (in one sense, anyway) but, often using short, terse sentences and "tight" writing, vividly conveys the true horror of trench warfare. Towards the end, the protagonist Thomas Bullock and his colleagues advance for 11 hours in gruelling conditions that had me wondering how much a man can endure. Then I realised that after all that they were only in position to launch an attack on the first objective. The woodblocks are an essential part of the book (were editions published without them?) and themselves graphically illustrate the conditions faced by soldiers.

I bought a copy (for 69p plus postage!) mainly to read the pages devoted to training "on the great [salisbury] Plain", though the reference to regimental badges being cut on the chalk hillside suggest Williamson had Fovant Camp in mind (pedantically some miles from the Plain, albeit not far from the city of Salisbury).

There's also an account of the Etaples mutiny, with the book suggesting it was sparked off by an NCO of the Military Field Police shooting a sergeant of the Gordon Highlanders. (This incident and the mutiny have been several times discussed on the GWF: Google "invisionzone etaples mutiny".)

A first-rate book.

Moonraker

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A first-rate book.

Moonraker

Glad you enjoyed it. You're in good company as T.E. Lawrence also liked it (as did everybody in his hut) - "I have enjoyed the P.P. very much. The Hut fellows say it isn't properly named, it being not a 'bloody bind' like that Bunyan chap's stuff". Williamson himself was in two minds - he appreciated the praise coming from people like Lawrence and Arnold Bennett but resented that he'd used material and ideas that he was saving for his Magnum Opus - "Damn! I wanted 60,000 words recreating the Etaples mutiny; now I've popped it off in 600 words. I used all the stereotyped details of war books: reserving the fresh ones for my real war book..."

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  • 7 years later...

I worked my way through A Chronicle ... in the 1970s, with my local library having all these volumes.  I've just re-read A Patriot's Progress (with the Kermode woodcuts) and was about to review it, but realised that I did so (above) in 2014. My admiration is undiminished.

I'm gradually de-cluttering with a view to downsizing and am re-reading my library, with a view to then taking the books to a charity shop. But I'm very inclined to keep A Patriot's Progress.

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