BBC WW2 Archive
 
I was born in North Finchley, emigrated with my English
parents to Natal, South Africa and fought with the Natal
Mounted Rifles, volunteering in 1939 at age sixteen.
My regiment faced Axis forces progressively on five fronts -
in Kenya, Central Abyssinia, The Western Desert in Egypt and
Cyrenaica and Italy.
With almost six years of active service and convalescence I
came to understand the psychology of men at bay through
first-hand experience and the dynamics of acute and sustained
terror.
War evoked in me both curiosity and discovery, leading to the
 mastery of Medicine and Surgery at Sheffield University where the hidden
effects of shrapnel and other missiles could be investigated further like those
which had penetrated my own body.
In my long standing friendship with Barbara Cartland we sometimes talked of
the impact that the World Wars had on society. Barbara, herself, had lost two
brothers and her father killed in hem. It was Barbara who encouraged me to
publish my own story (War, Wine and Valour) which she had seen in my
extensive war diaries.

War Wine and Valour