At The History Press: Sophie Bradshaw and editors; Victoria Wallace, Andrew Fetherston and Liz Woodfield at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; Rugby School; Cheryl Sadana; Sarah Warren-MacMillan in School Library, along with the other library ladies: Shirley, Emily and Simo and also Lucy Gwynn in College Library, all at Eton College. Thanks is also due to College Library for use of the Macnaghten Library and Peter Devitt at the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon.
The families of those included in the book: Stuart Disbrey, Jack Cowdy, William Hallidie-Smith, Miranda Pender, Vivian Sheffield, Jan Stephens, Edgar Lloyd, Robert Matthewson, Hazel Effie Morris and Kirk Butt, Muriel Chislett, Natasha Legge and the kind people of Robinson’s Newfoundland for helping us to find her, Reverend William Hepper and the late Mr. F. Nigel Hepper, Lindsay Harford and Sarah Rhodes.
Kim Downie at the Unviersity of Aberdeen; Chris Edwards at St Edward’s School, Oxford; Dee Murphy at Rugby School; Sally Todd at St John’s School Leatherhead; Upper Canada College, Toronto. Ryno Human of Remember Us South Africa (@rememberussa) and Lieutenant Klehnhans of the South African Defence Force Documentation Centre.
The entry for William Dexter would not have been possible without the ‘World War Zoo’ blog produced by Mark Norris at Exeter Zoo and information provided to them for their William Dexter biography by ZSL London Zoo.
Both the Australian National War memorial and the Long Long Trail have been valuable online resources, as has Len Ashworth at the Lithgow Mercury, NSW; David Tulip at The Channel Heritage Centre, Margate, Tasmania; Lord Astor of Hever, Tom Donovan; and Rutland Remembers.
For help in India and Pakistan: Kamal Hyder and the staff at the Islamabad Bureau of Al Jazeera English and Ali Abbas Zafar.
Joshua Levine, Paul Reed and Peter Hart variously for their yoda-like presence and support, advice, assistance with maps and loan of their material, Alice and Tim Holmes, The La Boisselle Study Group, Simon Jones for his patience and generosity in helping with our tunnellers and Roger Stillman Photography for helping to digitally enhance some of our aged photographs.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. We apologise for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
AC: My sister, Karen Halls for multitasking as PA, personal motivator and human shredder, not to mention helping to save the manuscript for October from rattling round Newcastle on an empty football train. Work Husband Naz, for spreadsheet services and various other members of House Lannister: Paulbot Fernandes, Nathan, Nathan’s Beard, Biggles and Mike for picking up the slack on occasion so I could get this done! Stamford Bridge’s answer to Scott Tracy, you know who you are!
AH: Diane and Adam, not only for their contributions to the research, but for months of patience and support whilst we got this done and for making the battlefield trips all the more enjoyable.
JD: Jules and Lana, all I ever wanted; my father, David Dyer for passing on his love of history; Alex and Andrew, for having me along and not sparing the unicorns and Paul Kempton; you must come on a battlefield trip one day!
Poppy tributes placed beneath thousands of names carved into the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on the Somme. (Alexandra Churchill)
The Somme battlefield, 1916.