The first draft of book number three: ‘A Battalion in Burma’ has just arrived in my inbox.
I’m hugely excited to finally see this all drawn together for the first time. It gave me a cold shudder to think that after three years work, and many previous years of collating the story of Second Suffolk’s jungle war together, that we are in sight of getting it finished and into print for the 80th anniversary of their most intense actions against the Japanese at Imphal.
Over the Christmas period, I will be going through it line-by-line and check that everything is correct and that it makes sense(!) and that the maps are all in the correct places in the text. First impressions are that it is really good (but then I would say that, wouldn’t I!) a couple of niggling spelling errors and a duplication of a quotation, but other than that, all okay.
The plates look good too, but there are some photographs that I would like to increase in size, and others that I would wish to decrease, but that comes later. Getting any correctionsto the text is first priority.
There are lots of people who contributed to it and so it will soon be time to let them know that it will be going to print. I'm sure they will be happy to see their relatives names in print and see their photographs published, so lots to do over the festive period.
Further updates will follow, so watch this space…
