So then I continued my backwards voyage into Giles Foden’s work with Ladysmith, which I got in some book buying spree a year or so ago.
Set in the middle of the Boer War it tells the story of several participants both inside the embattled Ladysmith town itself, as well as outside. At first we focus around many of the characters but slowly we begin to concetrate more on Bella, the daughter of the Irish landlord of the town’s hotel.
Real newspaper journalists and even Winston Churchill are included in the characters, as well as a chap called Gandhi, and not knowing a great deal about the Boer War, the book was well conceived.
I’m a bit surprised by the low user ratings that this, and Zanzibar are getting at Amazon. If you can honestly say that this is a 2 out of 5 book, then you’re not reading a great deal of dross that gets published.
I will seek out Pakenham’s The Boer War at some point to get a fuller picture of what was going on back then.