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Peter Parker
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The Last Veteran: Harry Patch and the Legacy of War Paperback – 28 Oct. 2010

by Peter Parker (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

This moving and timely book explores the way the First World War has been thought about and commemorated, and how it has affected its own, and later, generations.

On 11 November 1920, huge crowds lined the streets of London for the funeral of the Unknown Warrior. As the coffin was drawn on a gun carriage from the Cenotaph to Westminster Abbey, the King and Ministers of State followed silently behind. The modern world had tilted on its axis, but it had been saved. Armistice Day was born, the acknowledgement of the great sacrifice made by a whole generation of British men and women.

Now, almost a century later, Harry Patch, the last British veteran who saw active service, has died. Our final link with the First World War is broken.

Harry Patch was born in 1898 and was conscripted in 1916. He served with a Lewis gun team at the Battle of Passchendaele and in September 1917 was wounded by a shell that killed three of his comrades. After the war, Patch returned to Somerset to work as a plumber, a job he continued to do until his retirement.

The First World War was fought not by a professional army but by ordinary civilians like Patch, who epitomised Edwardian Britain and the sense, now lost, of what Britain stood for and why it was worth fighting for. ‘The Last Veteran’ tells Patch's story, and explores the meaning of the war to those who fought in it and the generations that have followed. Peter Parker's illuminating and timely book is a moving tribute to a remarkable generation.

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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Fourth Estate
  4. Publication date
    28 Oct. 2010
  5. Reading age
    14 - 16 years
  6. Dimensions
    12.85 x 2 x 19.8 cm
  7. ISBN-10
    0007357966
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0007357963
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From the Publisher

bestselling military books;bestselling non fiction books;books on military;top non fiction books

bestselling military books;bestselling non fiction books;books on military;top non fiction books

bestselling military books;bestselling non fiction books;books on military;top non fiction books

bestselling military books;bestselling non fiction books;books on military;top non fiction books

Product description

Review

‘To read Peter Parker's fine book on Harry Patch, The Last Veteran, is to see something of what the experience of the war created in one man; to see a kind of depth and human solidity shaped by the tragedy.’ Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

‘Peter Parker’s essential book…absorbing and moving.’ TLS

'A fine work of research and history…The ordinariness of [Harry Patch's] life serves the purpose of showing what stuff the heroes of 1914-18 were made of: but to an extent it also illustrates the disillusion that set in soon after the war was over…He became remarkable by living for so long. But what this account of his life, and the times in which he lived, really shows is that he and millions like him were remarkable long before that.' Telegraph

'The Last Veteran illuminates; it is full of fascinating detail, replete with irony' Guardian

'Peter Parker's homage to Patch is an occasion for thoughtful refection on our recent military history, the echo of the war down the generations and our sense of ourselves in the modern world.' Times

'Parker is a careful and thoughtful writer, and his book uses the spare materials of Harry's life as a springboard into wider and deeper waters'. Literary Review

'Peter Parker's new book on the last veteran may be the best yet…It comes closer to the essence of Patch than any number of well-meaning tributes to him published before and at the time of his death in late July. Which is quite a tribute to the London-based author Peter Parker, who had no idea who the last veteran would be when the bulk of his book was written.' Western Daily Press

'Absorbing and moving…As Peter Parker's essential book shows [Harry Patch and Henry Allingham's] death takes from us not just a human trace of the trenches but a living reminder that remembrance should be painful, unsentimental and monitory- or else it is not worth doing at all' TLS

About the Author

Peter Parker was born in Herefordshire and educated in the Malverns, Dorset and London. He is the author of ‘The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public-School Ethos’ (1987) and biographies of J.R. Ackerley (1989) and Christopher Isherwood (2004). He writes about books and gardening for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines and lives in London's East End.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fourth Estate; Reprint edition (28 Oct. 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0007357966
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007357963
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14 - 16 years
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.85 x 2 x 19.8 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.8 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

About the author

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Peter Parker

Peter Parker

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Peter Parker is the author of biographies of J.R. Ackerley and Christopher Isherwood, The Old Lie, The Last Veteran, Housman Country and A Little Book of Latin for Gardeners. He has edited A Reader's Guide to the Twentieth-Century Novel, Reader's Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, and a two-volume anthology, Some Men In London: Queer Life 1945-1959 and 1960-1967. He is an advisory editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He wrote introduction to G.F. Green's In the Making and contributed essays to Britten’s Century and Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read. He has written about people, books, art, architecture and gardening for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines.

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4.8 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Linda Anne Donlan
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Last Veteran
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 January 2010
    Verified Purchase
    This was bought as a Christmas gift for my husband and he is not an avid book reader but it has held his interest from start to finish a very good and informative insight into the conditions suffered during the 1st world war
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Chiara Ridolfi
    5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary and moving book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 November 2009
    Peter Parker's book is not a biography of Harry Patch, the last veteran of the Great War (1914-18). It is, instead, a history of the memorialisation of the war in public, institutional and, occasionally, private lives. Parker points out two crucial things: first, the meanings of the war to the generation that fought in it and to successive generations; in that respect, the book is a social history of commemoration. His second point, that this was a war fought not by soldiers and a trained army dedicated for the purpose but by ordinary civilians, lends particularity to that social history. There is great immediacy in the 90-year journey he takes us through, from the guns falling silent on Armistice 1918 to the death of Patch in August 2009. The first chapter, on how the Unknown Soldier became an iconic symbol of remembering the war, is very moving, as is the final chapter, concentrating more on Patch's life, both during and after the war. Parker's writing is lucid, elegant, infinitely informative, gleaming with felicitous details and revelations and even irony. This gripping book, painstakingly researched yet written also from the heart, is not to be missed on any account. It is a vital book for a generation that looks all set to forget its own history.
    36 people found this helpful
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  • Mr. Leslie A. Spencer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Harry Patch Memoirs
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 February 2010
    Not exactly what I was expecting as there is relatively little about his time in the trenches - however this is in common with others who were there, it's not something they talked about. Humourous accont of Mr Patch's life growing up, serving in the trenches and post war employment into his later years. Excellent historical account of life as it was.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Roddy
    4.0 out of 5 stars Full of interesting facts
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2019
    Verified Purchase
    To read! Interesting book.
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  • John W. Goater
    4.0 out of 5 stars A truly remarkable read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Bought as a present for a relative that never gave any clues as to what he was interested in. But this book did the trick a sincce reading has gone into greater depth the history of the military.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • NF
    5.0 out of 5 stars Ein Einblick in Kultur und Gesellschaft Großbritanniens mit Blick auf den I. Weltkrieg
    Reviewed in Germany on 25 August 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Reicht die deutschlandzentrierte Sicht vieler Bücher und Schriften aus, um den bei uns hinter dem II. Weltkrieg zurücktretenden "Great War" zu verstehen? Ich glaube nicht und das Buch gibt einen anderen Blick frei, der dem I. Weltkrieg als "Urkatastrophe" des 20. Jahrhunderts ein persönliches Element hinzufügt und zudem auf die besondere Bedeutung von Zeitzeugen hinweist. Befragt sie, so lange sie leben, denn nur diese Zeitzeugen können aus eigener Erfahrung berichten, eine persönliche Erfahrung, die detaillierter und eindrückliche ist, als die großen Schlachten und -pläne, die sonst Inhalt von "Schulgeschichte" sind.
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