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The Mirror of Monte Cavallara
An Eight Army Story by Ray Ward
ISBN: 9781843410317
Imprint: Birlinn
Publication Date: Oct 2006
Format: Paperback
Price: £10.99
Stock Status: in stock
’This is a first-class book and Robin has done his father proud. Essential reading - add it to your library.’ - Second World War Magazine
When Ray Ward died in 1999, his sons discovered an old and dusty manuscript in an Afrika Korps ammunition box in the cellar of the family home in Glasgow. These papers contained a collection of their father’s memoirs, entitled The Mirror of Monte Cavallara, which detailed his experiences as an infantry officer during the Second World War. One of his sons, Robin, undertook the mammoth task of editing and annotating the manuscript.
Ray Ward joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1940 and served in the 1st Battalion throughout the war. His memoirs give vivid accounts of his time in Eritrea, Abyssinia, Egypt, the Western Desert, Sicily and Italy. Evidence of the bravery, adventure and danger that characterised this conflict, The Mirror of Monte Cavallara is the chronicle of one man’s war, and an account of an illustrious Scottish regiment’s role in the British Eighth Army. But it is also the story of a son’s discovery of his father’s war-time experiences, rarely spoken about when he was alive. An artist and writer, Robin Ward brings a modern relevance and interpretive sensibility to his father’s perspective of the past.
