Contents
Voices of Savages Past
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: The National Liberal Club 1914–1918
Chapter 2: The Savage Club and The Great War
Chapter 3: Savage War Reporters
War reporting in the Great War generally
Sir Basil Clarke: war reporter, propagandist and father of modern PR
Henry Hamilton Fyfe: sixty years in Fleet Street
Perceval Gibbon: man of adventure
Sir Percival Phillips: war reports and a famous ‘scoop’
Chapter 4: Savage Generals
Introduction: the Great War leadership in general
Field Marshal Lord Roberts VC: ‘the master gunner’
Field Marshal Lord Kitchener: ‘Your Country Needs You’
Field Marshal Sir William Robertson: army legend
Field Marshal Byng: from ‘scug’ to field marshal
Admiral Jellicoe: ‘the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon’
Chapter 5: The Savage Fallen
Introduction
Second Lieutenant Harry Alexander: model Corinthian
Private Cecil Chesterton: crusading journalist
Captain AK Harvey-James: of drama and duty
Second Lieutenant Alfred Papworth: much-loved architect
Lieutenant-Colonel JM Richardson: the oldest soldier
Major Charles Scott-Gatty: indefatigable actor
Lance Corporal Lance Thackeray: pictorial humourist
Chapter 6: Savage Men of Letters
Introduction
James Agate: a critical effort
Herbert Asquith: answering his father’s call
Harold Auten VC: Q-ship hero
B Granville Baker: seeing both sides
Rupert Stanley Gwatkin-Williams: far-flung seas and feral sheep
Sir BH Liddell Hart: man of military letters and strategy
Basil and Lewis Hastings: chalk and cheese
Gilbert Jessop: ‘The Croucher’
Sir Compton Mackenzie: nationalist, writer, raconteur, spy
W Somerset Maugham: storyteller and spy
HC McNeile: the man behind Bulldog Drummond
Victor Odlum: media magnate, military man
Reginald Pound: half a century a Savage
Alec Waugh: prisoner and poet
Dennis Wheatley: almost a gentleman
Henry Williamson: a literary genius lost
Chapter 7: Savage Entertainers
Introduction
Joseph Batten: ‘a good Savage’
Billy Bennett: almost a hero
Basil Cameron: conducting with authority
Sir Lewis Casson: a pacifist who went to war
Kenneth Duffield: from the outback to the frontline
Bud Flanagan: from teenage private to Dad’s Army
Chesney Allen: from the cavalry to the Crazy Gang
Stanley Holloway: ‘I don’t care to ponder on it’
Raymond Massey: a statesmanlike actor
John Mackenzie Rogan: the leader of the band
Arnold Ridley: Lance Corporal Ridley to Private Godfrey
Jack Warner: the Western Front to Dock Green
Chapter 8: Savage Artists
Introduction
Cecil Aldin: master of the war horse
Oliver Bernard: hidden talent
Will Dyson: ‘the artillery of art’
Alfred Leete: ‘Your Country Needs You’
Sir Edwin Lutyens: architectural genius
CRW Nevinson: paint and prejudice
EH Shepard: the man who drew Winnie-the-Pooh
Sidney Strube: ‘Little Man’, big success
Bert Thomas: ‘Arf a Mo’ Kaiser!’
Chapter 9: Savage Men of Law
Introduction
Lord Denning: the people’s judge
Sir AP Herbert: uncommon talent
Lord Moulton: the ultimate Savage polymath
Chapter 10: Savage Men of Science
Introduction
Sir William Bragg: father of sonar
Sir Philip Brocklehurst: explorer, guardsman, gentleman
Douglas Derry: doctor and Egyptologist
Arthur Edmunds: surgeon rear-admiral
Sir Alexander Fleming:
the Savage who changed the course of medical history
Colonel Lawrence Whitaker Harrison:
‘Father of the Venereal Diseases Services’
Commander Norman Holbrook VC: a naval VC from a family of heroes
Herbert Lightstone: decorated soldier-surgeon
Ronald Norrish: from prisoner of war to Nobel Prize
Chapter 11: Savage Politicians
Introduction
Oliver Baldwin, 2nd Earl of Bewdley: the apple that fell far from the tree
Reginald Berkeley: a life of many parts
Major CH Douglas: engineering a new way
Ian Fraser, Baron Fraser of Lonsdale: in bounden duty and service
Chapter 12: Royal Savages
Introduction
Edward VIII: from the Western Front to abdication
George VI: the man who would be king
Earl Mountbatten: from junior snottie to Admiral of the Fleet
Chapter 13: Savage Future Generals
Introduction
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery:
Monty – ‘in defeat, unbeatable, in victory, unbearable’
Field Marshal Harold Alexander: noblesse oblige personified
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur Tedder: per ardua ad astra
Chapter 14: Aftermath: The Savage Club 1919–1939
Club life between the wars
Descent into darkness: the rise of fascism 1933–1945
The eve of the war
Appendices
Appendix I: Timeline of the Great War
Appendix II: The Churchill Portrait
Appendix III: Mentioned in Despatches
Index