A reference history of the war

I have special reason to bless Jim Bruce as you will discover later. I discovered these and other biographical details only two weeks ago when Ant Cromie kindly sent me a list of answers to a cartload of questions about Stouts Hill. Charles Knight, who taught me Latin and Greek and looked like Crippen the murderer but was the kindest and gentlest man who ever taught me, a man who loved to teach, had no interest in discipline or punishment whatsoever, and took immense pride in my taking the school’s Senior Greek Prize when I was twelve (I have it still, the collected works of John Keats) – he fought in the desert and in Italy too. I remember so clearly history lessons that involved the war, I remember its universal fascination to all of us, for all that it had ended twelve or thirteen years before we were born. Almost every boy in the school could identify the silhouette of a Dornier and a Heinkel and draw Hurricanes, Spitfires and Panzer tanks. Yet not once do I remember a single master refer to war as a personal experience ...»