Dickens and Travel

Dickens and Travel written by Lucinda Hawksley and published by

Pen & Sword Books - £22 - Hardback - Pages 280

From childhood, Charles Dickens was fascinated by tales from other countries and other cultures, and he longed to see the world. In Dickens and Travel, Lucinda Hawksley looks at the journeys made by the author – who is also her great great great grandfather.

Although Dickens is usually perceived as a London author, in the 1840s he whisked his family away to live in Italy for year, and spent several months in Switzerland. Some years later he took up residence in Paris and Boulogne (where he lived in secret with his lover). In addition to travelling widely in Europe, he also toured America twice, performed onstage in Canada and, before his untimely death, was planning a tour of Australia.

Dickens and Travel enters into the world of the Victorian traveller and looks at how Charles Dickens’s journeys influenced his writing and enriched his life.

I found this to be a cracking little book, and that is from someone who doesn’t really like reading fiction but I found this one a little different. Maybe because it was about the writer and his travels rather than fiction. Although I may have only read one Dickens book I have always fancied reading more of his work. Written by I think a distant relative, Hawksley brings the book together well and makes an interesting read. We read all about Dickens's travels all around the world from Britain to Europe to America, he must have come across some brilliant characters and traditions. These probably influenced quite a bit of his writing without us even knowing. Although Dickens predominantly wrote about London life, reading about his travels for me has added an extra dimension to him and maybe I should start reading the odd Dickens novel. Great book, great writing.

The Fleet Air Arm and the War in Europe, 1939–1945

The Fleet Air Arm and the War in Europe, 1939–1945 written by David Hobbs and

published by Seaforth Publishing - £35.00 - Hardback - Pages 352

For the first time, this book tells the story of how naval air operations evolved into a vital

element of the Royal Navy’s ability to fight a three-dimensional war against both the Kriegsmarine

and Luftwaffe. An integral part of RN, the Fleet Air Arm was not a large organisation, with only

406 pilots and 232 front-line aircraft available for operations in September 1939. Nevertheless,

its impact far outweighed its numbers – it was an RN fighter that shot down the first enemy

aircraft of the war, and an RN pilot was the first British fighter 'ace' with 5 or more kills. The

Fleet Air Arm’s rollcall of achievements in northern waters went on to include the Norwegian

Campaign, the crippling of Bismarck, the gallant sortie against Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

as they passed through the Channel, air attacks on enemy E-boats in the narrow seas, air

cover for the Russian convoys, air attacks that disabled Tirpitz, and strikes and minelaying

operations against German shipping in the Norwegian littoral that continued until May 1945.

By the end of the war in Europe the FAA had grown to 3243 pilots and 1336 aircraft.

This book sets all these varied actions within their proper naval context and both technical and tactical aspects are explained with 'thumb-nail' descriptions of aircraft, their weapons and avionics. Cross reference with the Fleet Air Arm Roll of Honour has been made for the first time to put names to those aircrew killed in action wherever possible as a mark of respect for their determination against enemy forces on, above and below the sea surface which more often than not outnumbered them.

The Fleet Air Arm and the War in Europe completes David Hobbs’ much-praised six-volume series chronicling the operational history of British naval aviation from the earliest days to the present.

This book is part of a series of six, I was lucky enough to get to read his last book Taranto, and together with this book, I’ve just finished reading it is a very fine book and written with so much detail and comprehensive detail. These books are certainly ones to treasure as they are not just written by people who know the ‘knowledge’ of the subject, but they have lived their subject and been a part of it, which cements the brilliant knowledge being written. David Hobbs is a 30 year veteran of the Royal Navy serving as a pilot, and later became the curator of the Fleet Air Arm Museum.

The book explains various aspects of the Royal Navy from the planes used, the ships used, the special operations carried out along with the weapons, dynamics and strategies. It does all this very well by writing it in chapters dedicated to each year of the war. I also enjoyed the good retrospective section in the back which preceded the bibliography and the very detailed notes section. The book also contains a large number of good b/w photographs throughout. I really enjoyed this book and would happily recommend it to others and it’s nice to see more books being written in this way about the Navy.