Book description
The worst has happened. On the eve of their return to Blighty, Brigg
and his fellow National Servicemen find themselves sentenced to
another six months in Panglin Barracks...
Many of the surviving characters from The Virgin Soldiers
live again in these pages: dogged Tasker, the odious Sergeant
Wellbeloved, the vulnerable Colonel Bromley Pickering and the
comically touching Juicy Lucy.
But we encounter new characters too: the fanatical and demented
Lieutenant Grainger; the endearing Welshman, Morris Morris - strong as
a horse but bafflingly buxom; US Private Clay - mysteriously lost in
transit by the American Army; and last, but not least, Bernice
Harrison, the sporting nurse who threatens to replace the wayward Lucy
in Brigg's affections...
Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a
sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is
evoked in This Time Next Week published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a
reporter, before going on to do his national service. He won worldwide
acclaim with his bestselling novel
The Virgin Soldiers
, which has achieved international sales of over two million copies. His
next novel,
Dover Beach
, will be published by William Heinemann in November 2005.
