The Camp

by Gordon M. Williams

Author Gordon Williams is best know for Straw Dogs (originally titled The Siege of Trencher's Farm) and the Booker shortlisted From Scenes Like These. When he wrote The Camp Williams had the benefit of his newsman's eye for detail and the immediacy of his own, ex-conscript's, experiences at the sharp end of the Cold War. He was stationed at RAF Gutersloh - the closest air base to the East German border. But for the young conscripts in The Camp, their real enemy lay elsewhere. The Camp relates their coming of age in the mid 1950s in a small town in Germany. It was the first book Williams wrote, and does not pander to the usual cosy image of national service.

The reviews were excellent:
'A story of power, oppression and self preservation... Impressive'
--The Times Literary Supplement.
'A talent at once so harsh and controlled'
--The Spectator.
'The Camp earns high honours'
--The Sunday Times

This new edition of The Camp was published by reinkarnation on the 50th anniversary of the ending of conscription in the UK.

300 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2010

About the author

Aka P.B. Yuill, joint pseudonym with Terry Venables.

Gordon Maclean Williams was a Scottish author. Born in Paisley, he moved to London to work as a journalist. He has written for television and is the author of over twenty novels including From Scenes Like These (1968), shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1969, Walk Don't Walk (1972) and Big Morning Blues (1974). Other novels include The Camp (1966), The Man Who Had Power Over Women (1967) and The Upper Pleasure Garden (1970).

He ghosted the autobiographies of association footballers Bobby Moore, Terry Venables and manager Tommy Docherty.

In 1971, his novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm was controversially filmed as Straw Dogs. Sam Peckinpah's cinematic treatment marked a watershed in the depiction of sexual violence in the cinema though the most controversial scenes are absent from the book. Other film work includes The Man Who Had Power Over Women, from his own novel, and Tree of Hands, as scriptwriter from a Ruth Rendell novel. Williams also wrote the book of Ridley Scott's film The Duellists.

While working as commercial manager of association football club Chelsea, he renewed his collaboration with Venables, resulting in four co-written novels. From the novels grew the 1978 TV series Hazell, which the pair co-wrote under the shared pseudonym P. B. Yuill. Under the name "Jack Lang", Williams also wrote paperbacks "for £300 a time."