I've enjoyed all the books I've received ARCs for from Pen & Sword, so when this was one of their featured books, I clicked on it, despite not being too interested in British military history. I expected a pompous book that glorified British military superiority and filled with nostalgia for Empire. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book wasn't like that at all. The book's very self-deprecating, and well-written, and it's difficult to write humour, as easy as it is to read. The author hasn't picked any self-glorifying anecdotes to narrate at all, and he sounds like he would have been an excellent raconteur in person! I found the period he covers fascinating-the dissolution of the British Empire with the independence of colonies, and his experiences in those places, and through the heights of the Cold War, where he was stationed in East Berlin. The only instance where he abandons all attempts at humour is a harrowing, moving chapter on the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, where he describes his experiences with NATO and their tragically ultimately futile attempts at alerting the UN to provide more troops and the potential for disaster. This was an extremely illuminating chapter that throws light on the devastation of the war, and the complete inadequacy of NATO troops stationed in that theatre.
This was a very entertaining book to read, and I would recommend it very highly, to anyone suffering from a book reading slump during this pandemic.

I enjoyed this book. Charles Ritchie was a great story-teller. All of his stories are interesting; a great many of them involve imbibing excess alcohol. I found the alcohol-related stories sometimes a little disturbing, given the context, but fun to read nonetheless. There was some clever wording which Ritchie was never shy to point out. I didn’t find any of the stories laugh-out-loud but they were mostly light-hearted. The foreword by Princess Anne is excellent. This book is definitely worth reading and Charles Ritchie definitely sounds like someone worth knowing, which I do now, a little, thanks to this book. Thank you to Netgalley and Pen & Sword for the advance reader copy.

Absolutely superb. I loved every moment of this book from start to finish – including the excellent foreward by HRH Princess Anne – and just couldn’t put it down until I’d finished...then was a bit disappointed it was over!
Unrelentingly self deprecating, yet unapologetically outrageous in places the style is genuine, funny, compassionate and honest.
From run ins with royalty and rock stars to close shaves and incredible escapes from some extremely tricky situations, the ‘chapters’ are short, snappy and captivate the reader despite covering a huge range of geographies, incidents, postings and more.
Having family and friends who have served in the military I was aware that there japes aplenty but some of the pranks in this book should win awards for creativity, bravery (stupidity possibly too – it’s fine line to tread!) and downright incredulity on occasion.
I was devastated to realise the author is sadly no longer with us, but this book, in his own words and with a lovely tribute from his wife at the end, will hopefully provide a fitting legacy to a gentleman who was undoubtedly an absolute legend in his time.