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The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Trenches: The Life of Harry Patch, the Only Surviving Veteran of the Trenches | 
 enlarge | Authors: Harry Patch, Richard Van Emden
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £3.75
You Save: £13.24 (78%)
New (32) Used (26) Collectible (1) from £2.17
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 7829
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 238
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0747591156
EAN: 9780747591153
ASIN: 0747591156
Publication Date: August 6, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Unfortunately the outer cover was torn but the book is brand new and in great condition
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 A hero tells his story and let us never forget. October 6, 2008
Peter A. Colwill (England)
I have just read Henry Allingham's book which led me to reread Jimmy Corbin's ,(please read my reviews on these books), and now I have just finished rereading Harry's book.
It is very interesting to hear how their lives panned out and when you consider how differently these three mens lives are it beggars belief to even contemplate the lives of every other fighter from ww1 and 2. One thing I know is that every last one of them would have a story worth reading though.
I would distrust anyone who considers this book to be worthy of less than 5 stars as this man like so many others did his duty so we were able to keep our freedom. These boys were fighting for more than their own lives as some reviewers seem to forget.
sour grapes are best left with footballers wives and the likes.
A Patchwork Quilt named Peace October 4, 2008
Christian Spriet (Bruges, Belgium)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
No more than a week or so ago the nearby village of Langemarck-Poelkapelle hailed our long-term and cherished visitor Harry Patch. Patch, who has recently turned an unheard of 110 (!) and boasts an equally impressive score of visits to our Salient, had been a simple plumber before he came over to fight, which turned him into a hero just by surviving and then waiting (and testifying).
At Langemarck, where thousands of German young students were laid to rest, Harry pointed out the very spot where in 1917 he and his fellow-soldiers crossed the Steenbeek (een beek is a brook; Steenbeek could be Stone brook) and insisted on a simple memorial stone to be erected there in an act of commemoration of all his fellow-soldiers, whether or not they made it, even whether or not they hade been on his own or on the other side.
Mr Patch is cherished especially as he is one of the very last three (3!) Tommies to have survived the war and, like Harry, are well in their 100s themselves now.
Around the same time as Harry's visit, which - as the media said - might well be his last, a Belgian soldier and inhabitant of Langemarck-Poelkapelle (35) met his death while attempting to `put away with a shell' while in the course of a peaceful UN mission in the Lebanon.
Perhaps the long and the short of it is that what one tries to do here in our region is to enhance and foster the awareness that no, this war is anything but over; what the concept of the prospective Peace Park Flanders comes up to is to continue to draw that thin line of life that stretches from here to way back there. Pretty much as Harry Patch does, if one comes to think of it.
It is as thin as the line between love and hate. And thin as the line between reminiscence and forgetfulness.
As our unholy holy region of Ypres was and is burdened with history, let us continue to preserve the memory of all those nameless shameless names. `Lest I my panged grave must share with you. / Else dead. Else cold.', as the passionate soldier-poet Ivor Gurney said it. Remembering is conservative.
It sets out to preserve the past and keep it unscathed, for the benefit of ourselves and our future.
What a character you are, Harry! Thank you, for just being yourself.
Fascinating and thought provoking October 2, 2008
Book worm (London)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this book to be one of the best I have ever read and did not want it to end. What an amazing period of history captured in one man's life story. The character of the man shines through. He has lived in a world that is all too forgotten nowadays but through this book he has kept it alive for us to read. He shows a willingness to forgive but not forget. A must read.
 good but not brilliant September 22, 2008
gareth
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
found this book to be a bit quick winded not great detail into his days in the trenches, or anything else for being 110 years old 229 pages does not cut it for me as being a book on what he remembers not forgetting that Richard Van Emden puts a lot of historal facts from the times of harrys life that he is talking about into the book, so not all is harry's "memouirs" but still its an ok read
Remember - it's the LIFE of Harry Patch! July 29, 2008
Capt John Rowlands (Anglesey, Wales, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the story of a man who is as remarkable for his longevity as for his position as one of the last WW1 veterans. Don't misread the title, though - it's a story of one man's life, not a detailed account of WW1. Many people have made this simple mistake.
The book is brilliantly lucid, and I took only three nights to read it where I normally read several books very slowly. I'd agree that the chapter on Harry's working life 'goes on' a bit, but it's not much of a distraction.
What annoyed me, if I am at liberty to be so, is Harry's reluctance - refusal even - to engage or take interest in politics of whatever era, despite having been subject to politics' most terrible failings. But who am I to judge? Who are any of us to judge?
It's clear Harry, like very many soldiers who survived, has suppressed a great many emotions and memories from WW1. It's a pity in many ways that this is so, for it surely must also have suppressed a great many details of that experience. But it's hardly surprising, and is of course something still happening with today's soldiers.
A great and eminently readable account of what is in most ways a very simple, unremarkable life. Apart, of course, from those four months at Ypres, and over 110 years of life - so far.
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