The Permanence of the Young Men: Five Seaforth Highlanders

by Shona MacLeod

This is the biography of five young men from the north of Scotland who fought with the Seaforths on the Western Front. The story unfolds through a mixture of personal memories, journals, letters from the front and detailed background research. Their progress from raw recruits, training in Bedford to fighting in the battlefields of France is tracked in the Regimental Diary of the 1st Battalion of the 5th Seaforths and the History of the 51st Highland Division. Although it is not a comprehensive history of WW1, it aspires to paying tribute to the courage and sacrifice of those involved.

212 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 25, 2016

Reviews

[James Taylor]

This is an interesting book, which follows the fates of five young men from northern Scotland during the First World War through their letters home. While the concept behind the book allows one unfiltered access to the lives of these men, much of the content of their letters is banal. The book would have benefits from being more actively edited, with comments from the letters being used to illustrate the men’s lives and experiences rather than publishing the letters in full. The nook also suffers from a number of typos, which detract from the quality of the text.