This book is based primarily on Charles Hudson’s own very full 720-page journal which he wrote after his final retirement. His poems, none of which were published during his lifetime, were also of primary importance in assessing his personality and character. Secondary and most valuable sources were his letters to his sister in extreme youth, from the trenches during the First World War and from the ill-fated intervention in Russia. These were made available to me by my cousins, Roger and Patrick Crowley, who also helped in other ways.
The excerpts from Vera Brittain are included by permission of Mark Bostridge and Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Literary Executors of the Vera Brittain Estate, 1970.
I was also helped by the biography, Vera Brittain: A Life, by Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge (London, Chatto & Windus, 1996).
Sir John Stanier and my son Mark both read the manuscript assiduously and made many useful comments. Sir John Graham assisted me with his knowledge as a former ambassador to Iraq. Peter Hewlett-Smith helped with place names in France and Belgium. My cousin John Hudson and Major Oliver Hackett of the Sherwood Foresters Regimental Headquarters have also been very helpful. My secretary Vikki Tate typed the various drafts with her usual assiduity and good humour
Any errors are, of course, entirely mine.
Miles Hudson
2007