Billie: The Nevill Letters: 1914-1916: Billie: The Nevill Letters: 1914-1916

by Ruth Elwin Harris

Of all the stories arising from that disastrous day, July 1 1916, on the Somme, none is more poignant than that of Lt Wilfred ‘Billie’ Nevill, an officer of the 8th East Surrey Regiment, who issued his men with footballs to kick into No Man’s Land when the whistle went for the advance - as though the Somme was to be a Wembley Cup Final writ large. Nevill and most of his men were dead within the first few minutes of the battle, but their story remains as an icon of the British sporting spirit set against the mechanised realities of modern war. Based on over 200 letters to his family from the front, this volume tells Nevill’s story. The text is accompanied by 30 b/w photos and three sketch maps.This correspondence forms one of the best collections of First World War letters held by the IWM.

254 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 1991

About the author

Ruth Elwin Harris says that her historic quartet of novels, THE SISTERS OF THE QUANTOCK HILLS, had its beginnings while she was growing up during World War II. To escape the wartime bombing, she and her brother were sent to live with their grandfather in rural Somerset, England. His house and garden became the model for Hillcrest, the Purcell sisters' family home in the four-part series.

Another influence came later, when Ruth Elwin Harris emigrated to Canada at the age of twenty-one . "There was no such thing as e-mail then," the author says, "and the telephone was rarely used -- it was expensive and calls had to be booked. Letter writing was the way we kept in touch. Friends and family wrote often, and I was amazed at how accounts of the same incidents and people were often so different."


Years later, when Ruth Elwin Harris sat down to tell the story of the orphaned Purcell sisters, she remembered those letters and their different viewpoints and incorporated the idea into her writing. Each book has a different sister as heroine, and the story is told from that sister's point of view. "It was strange how partisan I became," the author says . " When I was writing SARAH'S STORY, the first in the series, I became very indignant about the way Frances was behaving, yet when I came to write about the same incidents in FRANCES'S STORY Frances's behavior seemed to me absolutely logical and right."


Ruth Elwin Harris won writing competitions as a schoolgirl, and also dramatized a children's novel for a school production. Before starting on the Quantocks series she wrote short stories for the British Broadcasting Corporation and for magazines. While researching the background for JULIA'S STORY, she came across a collection of family letters in the Imperial War Museum in London, which resulted in her only nonfiction book, BILLIE: THE NEVILL LETTERS 1914-16.


The author enjoys gardening ("very good for working out writing problems in one's mind"); music, particularly opera; traveling; and, of course, reading. She lives with her husband in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England.

Reviews

[Elke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing, I just couldn't stop reading!
Billie was a wonderful guy, able to write great letters - everyone who's interested in WW 1 should definitely read his story!