From Berwick to Bremen

More about the book

I decided to engineer a trip away from home without the wife and the kids. What better way to do that than to follow in my granddad’s footsteps? A man who served with the 5th Battalion of the King’s Owns Scottish Borderers as they fought their way through northern Europe during the Second World War? The family wouldn’t want to join me anyway, so I justified it as actually doing them a favour by leaving them at home. The journey took me from one non-glamorous location to even less glamorous ones, including the bright lights of Ostend and Blackpool. One thing I did learn early on in the trip was that the very sharp end of wars tend to be fought over towns and villages that very few people have heard of. So that’s where I went. In the end, this is not a military book, but it is history. The history of my granddad and what I found when I went looking. I got my holiday. But it was one of being blown sideways during winter storms in Holland, exploring flooded German gun emplacements, and missing trains and buses. Is that what I deserved for trying to engineer a trip without the wife and kids? Almost certainly.