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The Boy Who Shot Down an Airship
Mr. Green did his military service, but never saw the war was more or less over by the time he got to it. He did not mix with the great, although he saw Princess Elizabeth driving carefully past while he and his mates were relieving themselves at the roadside. This book evokes its time and place, not through showy writing, but through relaxed, anecdotal humour. Mr. Green has also written The Art of Coarse Acting, a sacred text for all who have trod the Amateur Boards; he likes to put himself over as a bit of a slob; but his observation is keen and his style indefinitely readable. No airship got shot down by any boy.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
About the author
Michael Frederick Green
31 books4 followersMichael Frederick Green ( 2 January 1927 - 25 February 2018) was a British journalist and author of humorous books. He is best known for The Art of Coarse Rugby, The Art of Coarse Acting and other books with similar titles.
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February 12, 2016
I love all Michael Green's books, which discuss rugby, acting or sailing, for example. Now we see where the books originated. Growing up in Leicester between the wars, Green was well used to seeing maimed returned soldiers; his father was one of them. I've read in the memoir of the Pullein-Thompson sisters that they had to import hay from Canada as there just were not enough men to do all the farm work at this time.
The book takes us through school, country and town life, rugby, friendships which were later shattered by war service. At sixteen, out of school and desperate to get a job rather than have an unpopular job forced upon him, Green managed to get accepted as a junior reporter in a local paper. The newsroom hadn't changed since the Boer War and one editor's typewriter had separate keys for lower case and upper case letters. Most of the men here were young, filling in until joining the army as the call-ups had already started and the experienced men had gone. The old hands remaining told incessant stories about the Great War, just like Green had heard all his life. Bad news kept arriving and school comrades kept being posted missing, POW or dead.
Joining a tank regiment, Green was trained at home then sent to Italy which had surrendered but was in mayhem. Before he had to fire in anger, the war ended. There was an inevitable sense of anti-climax, but after time had passed the men adjusted. "I was nineteen and I was going to live forever." We get a look at the demolished Europe, Cold War tensions, the displaced persons and the rigidity but liberty of army life.
Home again, Green was lucky enough that his previous employers were required to re-hire him for at least six months. That's where we leave him, but there is a second volume. This was written in 1988. The memoir feels like a whole different world. There were many times when I laughed out loud, just from the unexpected humour, ludicrous situations or self-deprecating stories. Oddities include the running tale of Green's cousin Joan, engaged to a young German when war broke out; life in the tank regiment where the tank engine was constantly used to brew tea; playing rugby against the officers. One of the nicest tales in the book is from the cub reporter days, when Green interviewed a Great War survivor who, demobbed, had been making his slow way north on his one leg, a few miles a day. He stopped at a pub for a pint and bite, and asked where he could sleep. Another man said "You come along of me, me old beauty," and he did; he had been there ever since.
The book takes us through school, country and town life, rugby, friendships which were later shattered by war service. At sixteen, out of school and desperate to get a job rather than have an unpopular job forced upon him, Green managed to get accepted as a junior reporter in a local paper. The newsroom hadn't changed since the Boer War and one editor's typewriter had separate keys for lower case and upper case letters. Most of the men here were young, filling in until joining the army as the call-ups had already started and the experienced men had gone. The old hands remaining told incessant stories about the Great War, just like Green had heard all his life. Bad news kept arriving and school comrades kept being posted missing, POW or dead.
Joining a tank regiment, Green was trained at home then sent to Italy which had surrendered but was in mayhem. Before he had to fire in anger, the war ended. There was an inevitable sense of anti-climax, but after time had passed the men adjusted. "I was nineteen and I was going to live forever." We get a look at the demolished Europe, Cold War tensions, the displaced persons and the rigidity but liberty of army life.
Home again, Green was lucky enough that his previous employers were required to re-hire him for at least six months. That's where we leave him, but there is a second volume. This was written in 1988. The memoir feels like a whole different world. There were many times when I laughed out loud, just from the unexpected humour, ludicrous situations or self-deprecating stories. Oddities include the running tale of Green's cousin Joan, engaged to a young German when war broke out; life in the tank regiment where the tank engine was constantly used to brew tea; playing rugby against the officers. One of the nicest tales in the book is from the cub reporter days, when Green interviewed a Great War survivor who, demobbed, had been making his slow way north on his one leg, a few miles a day. He stopped at a pub for a pint and bite, and asked where he could sleep. Another man said "You come along of me, me old beauty," and he did; he had been there ever since.
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