I am making an unashamed plug for a good friend who has recently published his book, “The Skipper’s War.” However, if it was not a fascinating read I would not dream of plugging it! For those with even a passing interest in The Great War, Oxford, or indeed The Dragon School, this is a book full of heart wrenching tales.

Tales of young men, with their school community as a common bond, who paid the greatest sacrifice.

I know the hard work and dedication that has gone into getting the book to publication in these testing times, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Click on “THE SKIPPER’S WAR” or the picture for more information and to order your copy.

“… An almost unbearably moving chronicle of the young lives –  ‘among the brightest and most talented of their generation’ – that were lost in the Great War. A valuable record of that wretched conflict, observed through their vivid, even, at times, humorous eyes. An affectionate portrait of the near-legendary headmaster who taught them the values for which they fought and sacrificed themselves…”       Nicholas Shakespeare

This 300 page hardback book, which is being published by Scala, covers the years 1877-1920 and tells the story of the emergence of a small school in North Oxford under a charismatic headmaster and a remarkable generation that experienced the First World War.

The foreword has been specially written by Old Dragon, Rory Stewart, who observes”

“The story of these hundreds of lives and deaths connected by five years in a north Oxford prep school is almost an encyclopaedia of the war. The Dragons evacuate from the beaches of Gallipoli, are killed at the third Battle of Ypres, meet Lawrence of Arabia and Marie Curie, grapple with the German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Jutland, save the wounded at the Easter Rising and are shot out of the sky by Baron von Richthofen…”