http://www.amazon.com/From-Clear-Blu...6017967&sr=1-1

The story of Timothy Knatchbull, who survived the IRA bombing of Mountbatten's boat (his grandfather) in 1979. His grandmother and identical twin, Nicholas, were also killed in the boat.

Weird. I was just yesterday explaining this terror attack to a USC colleague, and how that changed the way some units of the British Army 'tackled' certain terror cells.

Our discussion moved on to the example of Mountbatten using Japanese troops after the surrender, to maintain law & order in parts of Burma & elsewhere... How after WW2 there were plans to build the peace etc, (in Europe and in Asia) plans that appeared to have been sorely missing from Bush's team after invading Iraq in 2003.

What was it about the book that you were captured by?

First, it's beautifully written and it has great photographs.

I vaguely remembered Mountbatten's assassination and I was very interested in Knatchbull's story of his survival at age 13 and the loss of his identical twin. His parents were severely wounded and his mother almost lost her sight. Just the stoicity of these people is amazing to me. British stiff upper lip and all that.

Here is Knatchbull's mother lying in a hospital bed, severely wounded, her face a maze of lacerations, possibly blind, her father is dead, her young son is dead, her surviving son severely wounded, her husband severely wounded, her MIL dead. But she acts fairly calmly throughout; her bravery brought me to tears.

The entire book is Knatchbull's struggle to understand why the IRA did what they did, what has caused The Troubles, what part has his Anglo-Irish family played in The Troubles, how can he reconcile the loss of his beloved twin with the fact that he survived. All this told almost without recrimination and malice and a desire for revenge.

I don't know how old you are, but it was horrible living in London in the seventies with the IRA lurking everywhere with their deadly terror. (They were elsewhere too, of course.)

I'm in my mid 40s. I remember much of those times but lived in the West Country so was well out of the terrorism.

Until I joined the RAF, and spent several short periods in N Ireland. It was er, strange, at first...

It sounds like a wonderful book. I will read it. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Harry

From reading some of your comical posts, I thought you were much younger.

Those folks (Knatchbulls) are direct descendents of Jane Austen's brother Edward, I believe. I don't know if that is mentioned in the book.

It's not mentioned in the book, but Austen's brother Edward is the 8th Baron's (the current baron) great, great, great, great grandfather.

Does anyone remember reading Ring of Bright Water? I remember Val Doonican singing the theme song for the movie, but, strangely, I had never read this lovely book until recently. I bought the DVD, which I enjoyed and then I read the book. Lovely, but I cried myself blind at the otter's fate. Cruel world. I had no idea they were such darling intelligent creatures.

http://www.amazon.com/Ring-Bright-Wa...6151905&sr=1-1

what! what!

Gavin Maxwell was a very interesting character and all his books are very readable. The one he wrote in the 50s, about setting up a commercial basking shark fishery after WWII, is brilliant. He knew everyone in literary society in those days so he appears intriguingly in a lot of different literary biographies.

SPADE

deja vu

The matrix is malfunctioning again.

That's the book I am probably least interested in, I think, though he wrote quite a bit about it in ROBW. I will probably buy the book next that he wrote following ROBW. What a sad character Maxwell was in many ways; he died of cancer whilst quite young. A man who was gay, but only in private.

What I loved about the man was his love for the wildlife and his utter devotion to his pet otters. Who knew an otter could even show love and be a pet? There is one scene where his otter goes swimming in the sea and he watches the little otter's head getting smaller and smaller as it swims further and further away and he is so sad that it may never return to him. (It does.) I shed many tears during the reading of the book.

Found it, almost a year ago
here

See you May 2013 for the next what what - Spade incident