With ‘Fighting Through’ doing well, I started to give serious thought to a second book. I’m not a professional author, just a passionate regimental historian, and so the day job comes first, but always in the back of my mind is another idea of how to keep the history of the Suffolk Regiment alive.
I’d long wanted to tell the story of the Suffolk Regiment’s part in the Malayan Emergency, but it was a difficult subject to get publishers involved in. However in the last few years, interest in post-war campaigns has increased and so I thought I’d reconsider putting forward a proposal to see if anyone was interested.
I drafted a proposal for my publisher, based upon a photo history rather than a weighty volume as there was aLe east a fabulous book published about twenty years ago by my good friend and Suffolk veteran, Len Spicer, which told of the day-to-day activities of the Battalion in great detail (Len himself served in the Intelligence Section of 1/Suffolk).
To my surprise, my publishers were most keen on the idea and so today, I’m starting to draw together the pieces of a story that started many years ago in 1949, and ended three and a half years later with the Suffolks being the most successful Battalion to serve there during the emergency. Watch this space for updates as to how the book is progressing...
