Regret to Inform You…

Close friends since childhood, and heroes of their school football team, the lives of six young men look promising until war is declared. Regret to Inform You... follows the story of the people in Rusfield and their personal battles as fathers and sons go off to war. Swept up in the frenzy of excitement and pride, all this quickly changes to dread as telegrams begin to arrive. The villagers left behind, filled with a determination to maintain normality, show a remarkable response during the years of increasing tragedy. Regret to Inform You... gives an intuitive understanding about the lives of real people living in a recognisable, albeit fictional, Suffolk village and pursuing the routine of daily life. It is their remarkable response that provides an ultimately uplifting story. This book will appeal to fans of historical fiction, of the parallel lives of the men at the Front and their loved ones back home.

After a 40 year career in education, Derek Jarrett broadened his interest into local history. His extensive research into the thirty men on his local WWI memorial in North Hertfordshire culminated in publishing Pirton – A Village in Anguish in 2009. He has since given many illustrated talks to local history and other societies.